A Good Day in New Mexico

Today has been a long, but great, day.

As I stated before, everyone seems to be in better spirits today, myself included. For me, its been no one thing that has helped the switch, but rather a combination of the small things. Sleep has certainly helped. Its also been good to have Dave’s guitar pulled out a couple of times in the past couple of days – more by Greg than anyone else, but it doesn’t really matter who is playing. I can’t explain it, but something about the sound and feeling of someone near me playing acoustic guitar warms my soul. It is in moments like that in which I feel closest to God. Even when the songs are about Show Low or Tires and Wires. Music is worshipful in itself… just something about the joy that comes with making a joyful noise, I guess.

We shared a lot of laughs in the van today. For example, there was construction on the highway, so traffic was being allowed only one way at a time. As we waited, the bike team pulled up front and we waited behind. A woman in the front car was talking to them and got out to take pictures. So I grabbed some brochures, ran up to meet her (they were 3-4 cars up), and passed one off to her (everyone laughing) as I went to take pictures. I had a nice (though brief) chat with the construction worker holding the stop sign. I told him about our mission, he told me Gregg had passed through 15 minutes earlier, and after I gave him a brochure and snapped a picture, and ran back to get into the van.

It was a busy day but after going through Arizona, temperatures in the mid-90s that come with hot sun and a cool breeze seem amazing. We know we've been on the road too long when it is "only" 95 outside!

As the day neared the end, it was also good to catch up with Matthew briefly via telephone. It is amazing how one person leaving our close-knit team can make such a huge difference. We missed him a lot today (our first full day without him), and are continuing to pray for him and for his dad. I hope you can join us in that as well. Please know that when I did talk to him, though, he was in great spirits and still left plenty of room for making fun of Methodists (long story, ongoing joke). We stayed in a GREAT United Methodist host church last night... so I just needed to make sure he knew on all the wonderfulness he missed out on. :)