Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B – #1
Typhoid Fever
Polio
Tetnis (I guess that’s how you spell it)

It hurt like crazy but we’re done with that. Now we’re just planning and getting ready to move to a new apt in Dallas!! Can you believe it, some normalcy after eight months. Well, just checking in. We’ll be on the road for Easter (in Georgia) and after that we’ll be home.

Michael

A special, special thanks goes out to our sweet friend Laura Hernandez for organizing all the chaos into order!!! You’re very special to us and we couldn’t have done it without you.

I’m still in shock I think.  We have been anticipating this drive for so many months now.  And its over.  That feeling is amazing.  Over.  Done.  Finito.

And we survived.

It actually turned out to be a pretty easy drive.  We were anticipating crazy weather driving across the entirety of the north in mid November – snow, cold, rain – and we hit an Indian Summer – clear skies and in the 60’s the whole way!

Honestly all the driving just felt like a regular day at the office.  Sitting in your chair, staring at your computer screen, while music plays through your speakers, with a few breaks to hit the bathroom.

The scenery was pretty terrible – flat and nothingness – (hence the office comparison) – UNTIL we hit Oregon (I would NEVER compare Oregon to an office building!)

Many people ask us, “What do you guys do on those long drives? How do you not kill each other?  What do you talk about?!!  I could never!!”

So I thought I would share what we did to pass this particular long drive, beyond just listening to music. LOTS OF MUSIC.

COURTNEY’S “pass the time” LIST

-        Some occasional Soduko

-       Reading Southern Living & Real Simple

-       Twitter

-       A few phone calls

-       Organizing photos into Blurb photo books

-       Reading Eclipse, The Hole in the Gospel, (which is totally messing me up) & Under the Banner of Heaven (also, totally messing me up)

-       Taking naps

-       Daydreaming about our family Christmas card

-       Talking to Michael about current affairs and my sisters upcoming wedding

-       Planning Michaels upcoming totally-fantastic- amazing- life-changing 30^th birthday WEEK!!!

MICHAEL’S “pass the time” LIST

-       READ two books in totality, Under the Banner of Heaven and Total Money  Makeover (does anyone else find those two titles in the same sentence as humorous as I do)

-       Eat gluten free nut bars and rice cakes

-       Play a baseball game App on my phone

And then there is always the spontaneous shout from one of us – “YOU KNOW WHAT I TOTALLY NEED RIGHT NOW !!! An eggnog latte from Starbucks.

And the other one will say – “I NEED THAT TOO!!”

So we’ll pull over and get 2 of those and then decide that in order to mend the gaping hole in our lives that is – we are on the road during the holidays and not home – we’ll saunter over to some CD section somewhere and buy 3 CHRISTMAS ALBUMS – Elvis’ New Christmas Duets, Bing Crosby & Frank Sinatra, and Sugarland “Gold & Green”.  And not even care that we haven’t celebrated Thanksgiving yet because this is how we cope with our pain and we’re okay with that.

I don’t feel 30.  I mean I don’t think I do.  I’m not really sure what 30 is supposed to feel like.  I guess it’s in the little things.  I’m more drowsy in the morning than I used to be, it takes a minute longer to recover from strenuous exercise, that sort of thing.  And I guess that’s where it starts.  I think back to college, back in the days where I’d eat a pizza for dinner, watch TV until 11:30pm, go have fourth meal (a cheeseburger and ranch fries at the Purple Onion), go to sleep, wake up and do it again, and again, and again.  I can’t really do that anymore.  In fact, I actually have to like, eat healthy and stuff to keep my weight down.  It’s the pits…

Other than those things, I feel like I’ve always felt.  But I guess it will hit me like it does everyone at some point.  Can’t stay young forever, which is okay.  Speaking of which, I’m headed to see my best friend from childhood today on the way to Richmond.  Ty and I have been friends since 7^th grade.  He and his wife Gail just had their first child (case and point on the ‘can’t stay young forever’ diatribe), Graham Otis Hagler.  I am so calling him Otis FOREVER!!   You hear that Ty?!  FOREVER!!  Courtney and I are on the way to Philly for Revolve this week and then after that it’s on to Portland, OR.  That’s right, a 45hour drive across the country and possibly through bad weather.  I’m syked.

Let’s see, what else?  We’ve gotten to spend some time with our pumpkin (the dog). She’s hanging out with my parents while we’re on the road.  She’s sweet and she slays me with her begging face!

So I’m reading Francine Rivers “Mark of the Lion” series.  I’m 2/3 way through the second book and it’s pretty fantastic!  I don’t read a lot of Christian fiction and I’m pretty selective about the Christian fiction I do read.  I must say, I love you, Francine.  You write motivation so well.  I’m thoroughly enjoying the characters and can’t wait to see how it ends.

I had not previously fed Ostrich’s and let me tell you:  IT’S TERRIFYING!!  The don’t have teeth but they kind of peck.  We also got to feed deer, burrow’s, goats, and beautiful birds.

We also went Ostrich fishin’…why not?

Here’s some pic’s of the other farm fun!!

Now, off to the Southern California Sand dunes:

Side note, this is the area where parts of “Star Wars” was filmed. Pretty cool…off to LA!!

We’ve got a Hoops of Hope event later this afternoon in Richardson (a suburb) and then another event tomorrow in Ft. Worth before Revolve starts on Friday.  Things are going a little better than they went at the Baltimore event.  Our last event was in Charlotte and we had a nice little turn out, including former pro-bowler and Carolina Panther Collin Branch and his family.  Thanks to the Lifeway Bookstore for allowing us to be there.

Who knew raising money would be so hard?  Don’t misunderstand me, I love what we’re doing and feel so blessed to have this opportunity, but it’s not a cakewalk.  A lot of people say to us along the way, “I wish we could do that!  God must really be blessing you!”  Of course I say thank you and take the compliment.  But if I’m honest sometimes I want to say, “Yeah, He’s blessed us by showing us how selfish we are.  And no, you don’t wish you could do this because it’s hard.  We’re exhausted all the time and considering the amount of energy we are expending, we really haven’t raised that much money.  I mean we’ve raised money, but I think Courtney and I had this perspective heading out that we would meet big donors along the way and that the money would just pour in and that people would just show up out of the woodworks to shoot hoops and raise support.

At our last event, we raised $46.00.  Of course I was happy that we raised any money.  Any is better than none, right?  But the truth is that $46.00 is two children, two children that will have a blanket, two children that will have school supplies and soap, two children that can stay in school and learn.  And those two children will not know how they were fought for, how each dollar made for them was raised one dollar at a time.              After the event I began thinking on the gravity of saving two.  The “lost” parables came to mind as I thought about how Jesus feels about one life.  In the parables, the man with a hundred sheep left them to go after one, the women who has lost a coin turns her home upside down until she finds it, and the waiting father throws a party when his rebellious son comes home in shame.  These parables are about the eternal salvation of one soul, but aren’t they also about value, the value of one human being?  Isn’t the underlying point of those passages that Jesus sees our value and fights for one because, in His eyes, each one of us is a “treasure hidden in a field”?  One sheep, one coin, one sinner, one child.  We fight for them because he fights for us, each one of us, and he never stops.  Isn’t that the journey that we are on?  Isn’t that the point of what we’re doing?  Isn’t that the gospel?

We are learning the value of one.  We are experiencing the hardship of the fight.  There is blessing in the battle for one child and I truly hope that as we continue this journey we will not miss that blessing because where one is saved, the wedding feast is there, where one eats, they are lifted onto the shoulders of the high places, where one raises money and shoots a hoop, there is hope.  One ball, one hoop, one child.  Thanks be to God.

Michael

We’ve got a Hoops of Hope event planned for tomorrow.  Last week’s event at His Way Christian Bookstore in Baltimore was an interesting experience in humility for us.  So, we spent several days laying groundwork so that people would know about the event, would get excited about Courtney and Austin being there, and would come out in force.  Well, we showed up and Austin showed up and he and I played H-O-R-S-E for two hours because we were the only people there.

At first Courtney and I were disheartened and a little embarrassed, simply because the bookstore had gone out of its way to set this event up, staying open late, setting up an area for Austin to sign his book, “Take Your Best Shot”, and providing us with a place to park and shoot.  I guess my feeling on the matter initially was, “Well Gee God, we’ve done all this work for nothing.  What’s the point?”  That question, obviously loaded with discouragement, haunted us for a couple of days.

However, as is typically the case with these sorts of things, God began to work on us through conversations with others and through quiet reflection on our attitudes toward what we’re doing in this RV.  I think that so far our attitude, though maybe subconscious, has been, “We expect fireworks from the Lord since we are doing all this work for Him.”  We forget sometimes that the work He may be accomplishing is in us, not always through us.  And though sometimes those actions go hand in hand, many times they don’t.  When our ‘ministry’ or whatever we happen to be doing for the Lord seems to not be yielding fruit, it causes us to stop and question God and ourselves.  “Where are you?”  “Why aren’t you showing up?”  “What are we doing wrong?”  It’s as if we believe God needs us, otherwise His purpose wouldn’t be accomplished.

Isn’t that one of the great tragedies of the human soul, believing that God needs our efforts instead of the other way around?  Isn’t it us who need Him in every facet of our existence?  Do we get so wrapped up in doing something big for God that we miss what he might be doing in us?  For my part in the rest of this journey, I’m going to try and stop waiting for God to show up and start making sure that I show up to receive what He’s doing in us through this experience.  Are our money raising goals important?  Yes.  Is our desire to do what we set out to do valid?  Absolutely.  But if we begin to get distracted by the action of ministry, the act of serving God itself, taking pride in what we’re doing, that will limit our growth and undermine the spiritual direction God may be leading us in personally, not just the direction of our Hoops of Hope journey.

May God direct us each in every day, and may we remember to show up, arriving in each moment with humility and anticipation of what ever He wants to do.  See you in Charlotte.

Michael

REVOLVE!! We kicked things off in Columbus, OH.
We kick things off there every year and I love it. The crowd is amazing and its just familiar and a bit like coming home, which is nice when you feel like you are going to THROW UP every single second from the butterflies that are swarming your stomach because you are so nervous you are going to forget everything you have to say in front of 8,000 girls and they are just going to sit there and make an awkward turtle with their hands because THEY don’t know what else to do, they can’t help you, they don’t know your lines and quite frankly they don’t care – “just get off the stage so we can see the cute boy band that is waiting to come out from behind the stage and rock our socks off.” they seem to say.

That didn’t happen but the image haunts me each week.

I love the theme this year – 4Real. I haven’t always loved it. I used to make fun of the “4″ instead of “For”.

But that seems so trivial now that we are finally unpacking the truth behind it.
God loves you. The REAL you. For real.
We’ve always tried to be “real” at Revolve. Its the heart behind what we do. Be yourself, no matter where you’ve come from or what you’ve been through, hang out here and KNOW that God loves you. This is a safe place.
But something about this year is different. I’m still processing it, but its increased my passion and love for these girls more than ever before. And truthfully I thought I was at my max.

I’ll try to get more “real” about it in the coming weeks.

In the mean time check out our Flickr to see where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing all month!

Oh! And the RV got wrapped!! Will post pics this week! So cool – you can’t miss us on the interstate now!