This week marks four months that I have been living out of a backpack on the road. I wish I could say that each day’s experience always builds upon yesterday and that I’ve now figured out all the secrets of Christian living and discipleship. Come to find out, just because something significant is learned three weeks ago does not mean that that challenge or lesson is never seen again, nor that all failure is now impossible.

Looking back on the past two months feels like reviewing my entire high school career. While this blog has been silent, my life has not. So much has happened. Whenever I would consider my next post, three more huge things would happen and my overwhelmed self decided to put it off altogether. So in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ll give a brief rundown of this whole shindig from start to now.

July 4th weekend Tim and Lynn speak at my church in Indiana.
Over the following month I wrestle with God as He stirs in me the calling to travel with them and to write down their story.
I confer my Master’s degree in August.
I quit my job in September.
October 1st Tim and Lynn pick me up in Greencastle, Indiana.

October through late January we were in the state of North Carolina, bouncing around to multiple regions, speaking at churches, doing street ministry, and completing small projects (Tim is a carpenter). The past week we have since left North Carolina and are making our way across the state of Tennessee, doing much more travel than we had been. While no longer on horseback, we have been stopping every couple of hours and reconnecting with a person or family that Tim and Lynn met or stayed with during their horseback journey.

The month of October was my adjustment period. Settling into this season of life and constantly taking in new information. November was filled with so much blessing in the midst of new challenges. I was blessed to meet amazing new friends and attend a college bible study for several weeks, and I also unexpectedly got to see more of my best friends than I ever would have thought while on the road. All the while, the ministry of Tim and Lynn continually unfolded before me and the things I had been hearing about began appearing before my eyes in our daily life. Seeing God’s miraculous provision, realizing that coincidences do not exist, beginning to see the divine appointments hidden in daily life–God was showing me how ridiculously in control He is of every moment, every meeting, every circumstance. The infinite precision within His timing has become one of the most palpable aspects of this journey, and I have realized that I knew much less about this Kingdom than I had thought. A humble realization.

In December I was able to be home briefly before Christmas, and the day after Christmas I was heading up to New York City on a missions trip with the college group I had met in North Carolina. It was another fruitful time of constant learning and breaking and remaking. The Lord showed me on that trip that the revelation of Him is everywhere in this season, not only alongside Tim and Lynn. Even in the New York Subway station I was seeing His perfect and marvelous timing.

January has taken a different turn. While home for Christmas, I could sense the Spirit stirring in me that the New Year would bring a shift, but I didn’t know exactly what that meant. The second week of the month we headed over to Emerald Isle, where Tim and Lynn completed their journey on horseback in May 2014. We spent nearly a week there and spoke at several churches in the area. While there, Tim began sort of mapping out the next few months ahead of us as we journey west—something particularly foreign, as they have never had much of a plan or a schedule in their ministry before. The truck and trailer has brought a shift for them in their ministry. Going from the daily dependence on God’s leadership and provision journeying on horseback to driving down the road at 70mph and having more scheduled stops over a wider span of time, loosely, however. All things are always subject to change, as the Lord leads.

That week on the coast I began to sense the shift I had been foreseeing. The calling over me to compile their stories and begin the writing process became more pressing and clearer. At the same time, a spiritual heaviness settled over me that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. By the end of January I was in the ER for an issue with my throat, Lynn had severe tooth pain that led to an extraction, and Tim suffered torn muscles from getting bucked off a horse. We can never understand the full magnitude of how or why things happen, but the word that the Lord has given to me, even in the last few days, has been perseverance. When all other forms of action have been exhausted, to simply remain standing. He is enough and He has gone before us, providing enough for each moment and each circumstance.

There are a multitude of other happenings within this month, filled with the glorious and the miraculous, leaving me awestruck and in wonder. Hopefully I will soon be able to write about them in more detail. We are making our way up to Springfield, Illinois this coming weekend to speak at a church, and over the next couple of months we will be in Oklahoma, possibly Texas, California, and then South Dakota in April. And all of that is subject to change at any moment as God leads.

Continue to pray for us, and as time allows I will flesh out more details. Love to you all and thanks for sticking this out with me. 🙂