Hope is an anchor...

Watch out Kristin, we leave tomorrow for the second leg of our tour :) Yep..longer tour, longer blog. muhahaha. So, on Friday we got sized for our rings. !!!! Thats almost enough, I might just end the blog right here. I love you all and will miss you dearly. I'm sure I'll have lots of cool stories to tell you after. We are off to California!

Believe it or not, my mom is actually my inspiration for creating a blog. A few days ago I was showing her how to find my older sister's blog and she asked me if I had one too. With Kim now in Nashville, Kris working and going to school, and myself busy in the Master's Commission, it seems advantageous to begin to blog. I must say, I prefer my mysapce, it was much simpler, but because so many are anti-myspacers, I'll do my best. ;)

So for now, I am in the middle of my tour. This year looks different than previous tours for the Kirkland MC's because our usual Microsoft conference is in Seattle. So, we are on tour, but we aren't. We spent a little over two weeks travelling.

Our first visit was to Washington, DC where we met up with Lou Engle's group, Dutch Sheets and the Colorado MC's, our CCA 9th graders and some others. We were part of a Life Seige at the Supreme Court House (!!!), a powerful prayer meeting, and the National Day of Prayer rally in front of the Capital building. It was pretty exciting, however I wish I had better spent my free day- as good as the shopping was! :) We thought we could do a little shopping at Georgetown and still make it back to wander some of the Smithsonian, but the subway system proved too much for us. (I was warmly welcomed into the world of H&M shoppers!)

Next, we went to Charlotesville, Virginia. I met some incredible people there. I especially met an incredible young girl who I adore- Mary Claire. Her, and her sister are both pretty amazing young girls and it was great to see the Lord reveal his delight in them. I stayed with the sweetest lady, Barbara. She took in 15 girls! The woman was incredible, it was like we suddenly had a grandma- complete with late night brownies and packed lunches and all! We love her! We also got to prayer walk several places. I went to the university, one of the leading schools in the nation, ranked with Stanford- and it is a public university! It is also known for the schooling of Edgar Allen Poe, in fact Dustin, Shana, and I went and saw his room which has been kept just as it was when he attended (or so they say). There is a metal raven in the window and I wonder if it truly was there and was part of his inspiration for writing "The Raven" or if it was later placed there to comemorate his well known piece.

From there it was off to Ithica, New York. So, New York...tall buildings, taxi's, an ocean of black umbrellas. OR, New York...dairy farms, horses, 'the barn'. Who knew? Certainly not I! It was a pleasant suprise to me though. The city, strike that, town, itself eeks of a heaviness, you can feel it in the air. They are known for the demonic oppression and cults that reside there. I think I counted probably 5 cemetaries there- more than churches maybe. But that is to say nothing of the church we were visiting, and our host families. I stayed with the Beckers. It was one of those homes where you come in and would feel completely content to just live and immediately become part of the family, or at least the house. You don't want to leave, you hear 'family' spoken in the running faucet, and in the spin of the dryer, and in the crackling of the bon fire they all gathered around. Each day we would come home for a few short hours in the afternoon and Mrs. Becker would be up and offering us cold drinks, or icee's, just being the mom that she is. It was warming, and I was suprised by how at home we could feel when we were in a bed, home, state we had never seen, or even skirted before! Though I didn't get much time to really get to know their family very deeply, I already began to love them, just for who they are, and I hope I get to see them again! (Sarah, Jonathan, and Mrs. Becker even took me to feed the horses Sarah helps care for!)


Last we stopped at Lansing, Michigan which in many ways was my favorite. You all know I can't pick one favorite; so far I have probably just four. hehe. One of my highlights of Michigan was..wellI have two. First, Kim and Kris suprised me at Jacob and Abby's wedding, which was incredible! The next day was Sunday where we led a ministry service. I got to pray for my sis and I cried through the entire last dance, it was a good thing. That is definitely one of my favorite memories of tour thus far, looking at my sisters as I danced "Here is our King," knowing it's our story. My other highlight was ministering at Sexton High School and Bingham Elementary, which maybe I'll have time to detail more later. It was one of my favorite times, and I believe God used it to speak to me more about next year, and my future. I loved it! I loved just speaking into the High School girls there, and I loved loving on the little girls at Bingham- its what I was made for. Don't worry- I'm still gonna write- I was made for that too, and I guess we've yet to see how it all comes together. :)


Now, we are working our conference here at home, and next weekend I get to go to Les Miserables with my family, and Elise is finally coming along too! I am so excited! Life is certainly on the move these days for me, I can hardly recognize my life from day to day. Hopefully this new blog will help me to let you all know what is going on, on several different levels. love ya! katrina hope.