This past week, I went on a roadtrip from Oklahoma to California with my teammate Amarja. She was working at a camp out in Missouri, so she invited me to fly out and drive back home to California with her. We had an awesome couple days together. And this was just the beginning of our adventures together!
 
Monday night I flew into Tulsa, Oklahoma, where Amarja and her friend Rebecca picked me up. Stayed at Rebecca's house that night. Awesome.
 
Tuesday morning we hit the road. By crazy coincidence, Amarja's friend Margaret from home was in Oklahoma city and offered to take us out to the Cracker Barrel (one of my fav restaurants!). It was awesome to meet her and sit down for a real meal. 
 
We had no idea where we were gonna stay that night. We called 7 churches in the Albuquerque area to see if they had any families who'd be willing to house some missionaries for the night. One church came through for us! We stayed with an awesome family, the Trujillo's, who were so hospitable and fun. They even took us site seeing the next day! We can now say we have friends in New Mexico :)
Wednesday, after some cool site seeing in Albuquerque, we hit the road, planning on driving all the way to back to Cali that day. Nope...change of plans. After driving through beautiful Flagstaff, Amarja insisted we look at the map to see where the Grand Canyon is. I thought it was super far away, but it turned out to be just an hour away. "Let's do it!!" So we arrived just before sunset to see the beautiful GC. Breathtaking. I loved it. I felt like we weren't even in America. I was blown away by its expansiveness. We parked at a campground, had leftover Cracker Barrel biscuits and jelly for dinner, hung out for a bit, then slept in the car :) Not so comfortable, but only $10 to camp there. Can't beat that.
 
 
Thursday, we hit up McDonalds for breakfast, where we met a family of believers who were really friendly and encouraging. Then we spent a few hours doing some hiking down into the canyon, which was beautiful. No words to describe this, and the pictures don't do it justice.
 
After our hike, we decided it was time to hit the road. Our car ride from Arizona into Redlands was AMAZING. We stayed at Amarja's house for the night. It was awesome to see her hometown and hear some stories of her growing up.
 
Friday we met up with my sister Annie in Long Beach at a Cambodian restaurant to finish off our week of adventure. We wanted to talk to some Cambodians, but it didn't really happen. Not much of a "cultural experience", but the food was good :)
"Cambodian finger puppets"...aka Annie's lunch. She ate the eyes!
Our first Cambodian meal of many!
 
In the words of my friend Julia Gulia, "life's an adventure". Amarja and I left Oklahoma with not a plan in mind. We bought bread and PB&J at Walmart and hit the road not knowing what would happen next. Literally every part of our trip was an adventure. I loved every minute of it. And I loved to see that Amarja and I share a heart for challenge and adventure. Watch out Cambodia!
 
I've been blown away by nature before, but never like this. I can't explain it, but I think this verse depicts what I felt this week...I'll leave it at that.
 
"And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him! Who then can understand the thunder of his power?" Job 26:14  (thanks Sammy)