Online Journal

3/17/07
We met so many neat people in Arizona. What a fun place to be. Cochise Stronghold had some great climbing and interesting terrain. We met up with the area director, Jason Mann. We were able to climb with him and another Solid Rocker, Nicole. Jason made some awesome chili one night and we invited a few people over to the campsite. Good times around the campfire! The last day we were there we climbed with Nicole and her children and another child who is a friend of the family. It was so fun to teach kids to climb. They are fearless! We are home again now. Our trip has come to an end. We are so thankful to have had the opportunity to share the Good News and meet so many awesome people. Thank you for supporting us with your prayers and encouragement. Will has a job waiting for him in Winter Park, Colorado so we will be moving there the end of April. God is so fun!

February

2/28/07
Austin, Texas was a great place! We spent a few days climbing at Reimer's Ranch. We gave away some gatorade. Then we headed over to El Paso to hang out at Hueco Tanks. The climbing there was pretty good. Will and I entered the Hueco Rock Rodeo climbing competition. I got first place! Things are going pretty good. We are in Las Cruces, New Mexico for a few days now getting things back in order after the dust storm we weathered at Hueco. This weekend we are planning an outreach at Cochise Stronghold in Arizona. Some other Solid Rock members will be helping us out. Should be fun!

2/14/07
We are back in the states. Mexico was a great place. The climbing was perfect and the food was great! Solid Rock presented slide shows the first week we were there. They went very well. Saturday night was the big finale. Solid Rock offered a free dinner to everyone (courtesy of Checo’s restaurant). While everyone was about done eating Jeremy Collins, Senior Illustrator for Rock and Ice magazine put on a great show. He had a couple short movies he made and then he performed an amazing live painting. He definitely has a gift and it was such a powerful witness to have a climber of his caliber backing the message of the God‘s love. There were over 50 people there. We had some good conversations afterwards with some of the climbers. It was good. The next week Will and I were able to spend some one on one time with several of the climbers. It's just so tedious. Climbers are typically so set in their own independent ways of thinking, you can't be too "in your face" or they will put up a wall and stereotype you and you will never get through. It's like they are a huge block of ice and what's gonna melt them better, an ice axe or a candle? We are candles I guess. We made a lot of new friends and if they can see Jesus through us and it makes them think then I guess our mission is successful. So continue to pray for us!! Oh, and we got a dog! He’s a little guy we rescued from the vet. He was being used for practice surgeries. He had his eye taken out and thankfully nothing else. He’s mainly Boxer and he’s the sweetest thing! We don’t know what’s gonna happen with us and our living situation when we get back, but we really feel like God had this dog for us so I’m sure He will work things out just fine. So now we are three. :)

2/1/07
Well, our trip down here was not as smooth as expected. We couldn’t find the correct exit and wound up having to stay a night in Monterrey. You wouldn’t think getting a hotel room would be that hard but when you don’t speak the language it’s tough. God provided however, and we spent the night in safety. It was a little scary at first though! I guess that’s what memories are made of. We are now in a small town called Hidalgo for the Solid Rock winter conference and things are great. The climbing area here is breathtaking. The rocks shoot up about 3,000 feet! There are climbers from all over but mainly from the US. The atmosphere is very friendly and laid back. We are doing slide show presentations all this week. Each night a Solid Rock member puts on a presentation focused on climbing but also incorporates how Jesus wants to have a relationship with them. So far the response has been just ok. Climbers are so hard to reach. They don’t like people shaking up their comfort zone. Tomorrow we are going into town to give out clothing and also give out little bags of candy and tracts we put together for the kids. It’s been really good so far to be here with other Solid Rockers. It’s so cool when you get to see different gifts put into action and working together. So our time in Mexico so far is spent ministering to the small town of Hidalgo and witnessing to the climbers. Oh, and eating the best Mexican food ever!

January

1/23/07 Well, our Christmas break has come and gone. We've been home for about a month and a half. It's been so great and it has felt like we've been here a lot longer which is good! We have spent a lot of time with family and friends and we have also been working. Lots of work actually! But we have raised quite a bit of funding for the next leg of our mission. Our church has once again, been amazing. They have raised a huge chunk of what is needed financially and they have prayed for us so much. We are getting everything together this week and are heading out on Thursday! Mexico is still in our sights. More to come. . .

November

11/24/06 Thanksgiving was great! The Houghton family made us feel so welcome. We've had a lot of fun and made some happy memories. They even took us to a hockey game! Now what? Well, we want to be home for Christmas and it's getting cold everywhere! So we are heading back to South Dakota. We will head out again in January. There is a Solid Rock Conference in El Potrero Chico, Mexico at the end of January. Plans are coming together for February and March with festivals in Texas and Nevada respectively. So it's back to South Dakota to regroup and relax and celebrate CHRISTMAS!!! We'll keep ya posted. Merry Christmas!

11/19/06 After almost three weeks in Joshua Tree we finally have to move on. It was a great place where we met some of the best people yet. We are now in Phoenix, Arizona getting ready to spend Thanksgiving with some family. Happy Thanksgiving!

11/2/06 Well, we LOVE Joshua Tree! What a great place. We have made so many friends. We decided to give out coffee Sunday morning. That went really well. The attitude in J Tree is so much better then Yosemite. (I think it's cuz they get more sunshine. People are happier. LOL.) There were probably around 20-25 people there throughout the morning. One guy asked about the scripture verse on the banner so Will got to open his Bible and show him what it said and they talked about that a bit. There were a lot of good conversations. We got really close to a couple from Canada, Jeff and Dusty. They are really fun and we click really well with them. We climbed together a few days. They actually fed US pancakes for breakfast one day cuz we're "always giving" they wanted to give to us. Thanks guys! We buzzed over to LA yesterday to visit friends from our church in Rapid. They are going to school here (Azusa Pacific University). It's been so good to see familiar faces! They took us climbing in Malibu yesterday and we will all head back to J Tree tomorrow evening. Before we leave tomorrow we are going to help out our friend here. It's "missions week" at their school so there are booths set up with information about all kinds of different missions opportunitites there are. Peter, our friend, will have one and said it would be cool if we were there too talking about Solid Rock! So that will be cool. We are excited for that. We met some surfer missionaries today. THAT'S crazy. hehehe.

October

10/24/06 Well, after spending a week in Bishop, we are now in Joshua Tree National Park. Bishop was fine. We felt like God was MAKING us rest there. We couldn't find any good climbs or any people! We spent a week kinda by ourselves, which was fine. We met up with a fellow "Solid Rocker" who was kind enough to show us around and put us up in his house AND take us out to dinner a lot. (Thanks Norm!) One of the last days we were there we went to a church called Lighthouse. It was a great place full of people our age. The next day (yesterday) we climbed with some of them and they showed us all the climbs we had been missing and were very encouraging to us spiritually. We also met with Dave Fairly, director of YWAM Bishop. He had tons of vision and great insight for helping us reach the climbing community. God is cool! After that we had to hit the road. We drove through the Mojave Desert and arrived in Joshua Tree around 11 p.m. so we couldn't see anything. What a great place to wake up to! The trees and desert and rocks are so different from anything we've seen. We like it so far. Already today, we have run into 3 people we met in Yosemite and made some new friends too. Pray that our friendships will flourish and our Joy will be contagious and attractive to unbelievers.

10/12/06 The weather is getting colder here. We are still climbing almost every day though. We have met so many people. Most everyone has gone or is planning on going to Bishop. Looks like that will be our next stop too. The permit didn't go through for our dinner here so we had to skip that. It might be an option in Bishop. It's been all right though. We have had the chance to really focus on building relationships. We met a couple from Ohio who we plan on seeing in Bishop. That's all for now!

10/2/06 We have been in Yosemite for almost a week! This place is amazing! The "Yosemite Facelift" was a huge success. Over 1,000 volunteers picked up over 20,000 pounds of litter throughout the park. That included Will helping drag an old rusted water tank out of the forest! We did some hard work and some easy work. It was all fun though. There was a movie each night so we got to see some new climbing videos coming out and meet some world class climbers (Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden). The festivities ended last night with a free dinner and a raffle. Solid Rock donated a Mammut rope for the raffle which was a BIG hit. Everyone wanted to win that one! The only way one could get in on the raffle was to pick up litter. So we had our names in there a few times. We won two guide books wich will come in handy throughout the next few weeks here and Will also won a T-shirt. Oh, and we won four passes to Mammoth Mountain Ski resort. . . which we will never use so we got to give a present to our new friend Paul. He lives here in the valley and he has shown us a lot of fun "local" spots. He was pretty happy about the passes. We also met a "born again-again" Christian who was very excited to talk to us about spiritual matters. He said, "nothing happens by accident to me anymore. I'm glad God put you in my path today to encourage me!" So that was awesome! We set up our tent in Camp 4 this morning and are hoping to give out free coffee soon. We are also getting in contact with the right people and organizing the free spaghetti dinner for this Saturday. Pray that everything comes together!

September

9/24/06 Will and I have been in Bend for almost two weeks now. Things are going really well. The Landrus family is wonderful. We have had a great time getting to know Calvin, Jan and the kids. What neat people! Their love for Jesus shows in how they treat each other (and two kids from South Dakota!) We have done a LOT of climbing out at Smith Rock. We gave out free bagels and coffee at the Skull Hollow campground last weekend. We were able to meet and visit with a lot of climbers. Will was able to present the Gospel in a laid back, conversational way with many of them. Very cool! The Smith Rock Detour climbing festival went extremely well. We set up our booth on Friday afternoon and throughout the weekend we felt a very warm welcome from climbers coming through and from the other vendors. People signed up for the gear giveaways and picked up free accesory carabineer key chains, tracts, cliff bars AND we sold some of the chalk bags from Mongolia. Saturday morning we offered climbers a pancake and sausage breakfast and fed 90 people! Many of them asked, "What does Solid Rock do?" and we got to tell them, "Solid Rock brings the message of Jesus to climbers!" Doors were opened and we were able to witness to a lot of people. It was a strange feeling at first to know that everyone knew we were "the Christians" but we found that once we put that banner over our heads and were vulnerable, others joined us! People were eager to let us know that they were Christians also. One girl is going to Yosemite with her husband the same time we are and she told us she would help us with outreaches while we are there. Sunday morning we had a little Bible study and were happy to hear testimonies from some of the other vendors. Will and I kept finding ourselves talking with Christians who have been struggling or even running. We met a guy named Ryan on Thursday. He has been a Christian his whole life and did some work with YWAM. He said he has been struggling lately with drinking and being around some people who were not a good influence on him. The day he got to Smith he lost his wallet so he was stuck there and he "kept running into Christians". We were able to climb with him and talk with him all weekend. A friendship was formed and we hope to see him again soon and hear how God is working in his life. These are just some of the awesome things God is doing, and it's only been two weeks! We are excited to see what God has in store for us in Yosemite!

9/15/06 We have been "on the road" for almost two weeks. And we still like eachother! haha. We have been hanging out here in Bend doing some training with Calvin, the national director. The details are coming together for different events and it's exciting! We have also been doing some climbing at Smith Rock. The rocks are great and we've been able to meet some cool people too. We are giving out free coffee and bagels at the campground Sunday morning. Pray that God uses us!

9/10/06 Well, we are due to arrive in Bend tomorrow. We have been camping and climbing for almost a week! We got to tour Yellowstone and play in the Grand Teton National Park. We did some "warm up" climbing--six pitches on Guides Wall and that included a 6 mile round trip hike! It was hard work but lots of fun. We stopped by City of Rocks in South Central Idaho last night. We did some climbing there this morning. That is such a beautiful place. Check out the picture page!

9/2/06 What happened to August?!! We leave Monday (September 4) We decided fighting the tourist/Labor Day crowds throughout the weekend was a bad idea. We have the truck all ready. We are packing everything in it tomorrow and Monday morning. We're very excited! So many people have donated money and shown their support (thanks for the horseshoes Tony!) God is so faithful. We are all set! This week we will be making our way through Wyoming-taking our time on the way to Bend, Oregon. SRCFC national office is located there. We are due there on Monday, September 11. Our first stop is just past the Big Horns. We will stay in Worland the first night with some friends. Next we hope to do some climbing in a Jackson Hole. Tetons!!! Then Will needs to see Yellowstone. Yeah, he's a Wyoming native and has never seen it. We have an itinerary through the end of October. We will be in Seattle, Yosemite, and Joshua Tree helping with outreaches and climbing schools. And by November I'm sure there will be more events scheduled for us. We will be gone until we come home! Our families and friends are all sad to see us go but very happy for what God is doing in our lives.

July

7/20/06Well, we are diligently preparing for our upcoming trip! Keep checking back for more details.

7/17/06 I told my bosses today that I will be quitting at the end of August. It was very difficult because I LOVE my job. They were very nice, understanding and even supportive. (I'm sure they were crying on the inside. hehehe.) I'm hoping that when we come back there will be another opening. We'll see what God has in store.