Coming to an End

  First we must apologize for the delayed ending to our trip. Thankgiving came and Krista headed off to Kona once again, so here we are finally finishing our grand adventure for you.
    After the Grand Canyon we headed to beautiful L.A. To stay with our friend Jack Tong. It was so fun to stay with his amazing Korean family and eat authentic Korean  food! L.A. gave us some beautiful weather and we were able to go into the city with Jack and our other friend Troi. We also had the opportunity to see some of our other dear friends, Lindy Conant and some of the Brent clan, at the LA YWAM base. After two glory filled days we headed to San Fran where the Lord parted the rainy skies just long enough for us to explore the Pier and the Castro District with one of Krista's past DTS students, Hannah Kim. The Castro District was really interesting for me to see. I realized the need for people who are willing to step out of their comfort zones and lay down their predispositions and poor love into broken hearts. 
     Next we got to spend the night in Granite Bay and see my aunt and uncle, who had some yummy food and warm beds to prepare us.  We chatted about unicycling and the Olympics and made plans for the next days journey.  We decided to stop in Redding so Chris could see his brother for a little bit and then headed to Eugene OR to visit Chris's Uncle and Alex's friend Alex. Finally, we rolled into Portland at about ten at night and settled into Alex's sister's apartment. We ate the last of our snack box for dinner and fell asleep watching the Grinch. It only seemed fitting, as we were entering snow covered passes and freezing temperatures. After a snowy and slow drive we made it to Alex's house in Samamish WA and cozied in for the snow storm. We ate yummy food, watched more Christmas movies, had hot chocolate and played in the snow. It was simply magical. The next day Krista and I headed into Seattle to visit some of our friends. It was such a treat to see them and eat at our favorite sushi place!  Wednesday came, the day we had felt from the Lord to head home, and ironically it was the only day you could get across the pass due to snow! Jesus is so faithful even to the end!
 All in all it was an amazing trip. Both Krista and I feel like we have been changed in significant ways over the coarse of this journey.  Jesus has blessed us so much and continues to do so! He is just sooo good!

to the west coast we go.

the grand canyon.

krista janae speaking:

from oklahoma. to new mexico. to arizona. to california. 

that was our adventure for the next two days. we left oklahoma bright and early and made our way over to gallup, new mexico. our friend from ywam kona, tim feddes lives there. it was our stop for the night. after a night of pizza, catching up with tim, watching elf and getting some much needed rest, we once again woke up bright and early the next morning. our destination this time was los angeles, california with a brief stop at the grand canyon in arizona. the grand canyon is beautiful!!! it is so big and looked so fake but it definitely isn't! after a couple hours of exploring the grand canyon we were back on the road to california. 

we were all excited to be back on the west coast. and it was crazy to think that just a week ago we were on the east coast. we officially drove coast to coast. bahh. we were also very excited to be in los angeles for we were going to see some of our dear friends from ywam kona. we first met up with lindy conant at the ywam la base. we spent a couple hours with her just talking, catching up and encouraging one another. than we made our way over to our friend jack tong's house, where we were going to stay the next couple nights. 

the next couple days we explored and wandered around the la area with jack tong and troi barnum. we wandered around hollywood, and went to griffith park observatory (overlooks the la area but it was pretty smoggy that day so we couldn't see too far), santa monica pier where we dipped our feet into the pacific ocean and one evening we went to azusa to hang out with some other friends from kona. we also got to experience the lovely la traffic. what a hoot and a holler. oh and jack tong's mother made us a big, delicious korean meal for dinner one night. it was soo good.

our time in la was aaamazing and i wish it could of been longer. 

but we had to start making our way to our next destination: san francisco.

 

thank you.

we wanna give a shout out to some pretty aamazing people.
they are Nicholas Holding. Jack Tong. and Sarah Slachter.
thank you oh so very much for giving us some money and putting some fuel into our tank (who gets thirsty quite a bit).
such a blessing. we love you guys with all our hearts.

edmond. OKLAHOMA.

 with mama conant.

 Kayla Speaking,
 Oh my lanta!! What a treat Oklahoma was! We stayed in the amazing Conant family home (who is the family of our dear friend Lindy who we know from Kona) and received the most amazing southern hospitality. We arrived on Saturday night and just chatted with the family and found out that for the time being it was a " no poop zone". Their sewer was being fixed so if someone had to go we would take a family trip to the store or to Grandma's house! It was such a bonding experience. :) On Sunday morning we all loaded up and headed to church (Mr. Conant is one of the pastors) and entered into amazing worship with the Lord and a powerful message. After church  we headed home for some yummy taco soup!  ( my favorite) The whole time Mrs. Conant made us yummy food and even gluten free brownies and cookies for me! Our dear friend Kellye, also from Edmond OK, took us to see downtown Oklahoma City and the bombing memorial. Every Monday night Will Conant (Lindy's bro) and his friends lead a worship night for their fellow high school students in the Conant living room. It was so amazing to see a group of kids just longing for and worshiping God all on their own. You could just feel His presence as the kids began to sing and pray. The thing that I loved the most about the Conant home was how they just walked out a supernatural, Holy Spirit, love sick lifestyle everyday. It was truly encouraging to see a family so in love with Jesus!

kansas city.

alexander freeman speaking:

Kansas City, Missouri: the center of the prayer movement. its a strange place to have an international anything, why not some where on one of the coasts? I don't know I'm not the Lord, but thats where the International House of Prayer is, and that is where we had come. We decided to come out of a desire to see our friends and to join in with the praying. IHOP has been going non stop 24/7 for ten years now, interceding for America and the world. We wanted to surprise our friends so we didn't tell them we were coming. As we drove from Tennessee to KC the excitement in our hearts began to rise, then at 8 we arrived at there house. We were meeting with a team from Kona that is going around to christian universities encouraging the body. So we quietly walked up the path to the door, and knocked, and waited. The main door opened leaving only a screen door between us and a joyful surprise reunion. My favorite reaction was from Sam Schneider, she came to the door and we watched it register on her face who we were, and then a scream. We spent two nights and a day and a half spending time with friends catching up on their outreach telling them about our journey and praying in the prayer room. until our time to leave came, oklahoma was waiting.


next destination: edmond, oklahoma.

nashville.

krista janae speaking:
i was very excited for this destination. for my friend who is very dear to my heart, liesel elena lives here. she ran the cafe with me in kona and i hadn't seen her in months. kayla and i stayed with liesel and her beautiful mom in their apartment. and the boys stayed with a wonderful family, the Noes. liesel was the best tour guide. no lie. she took us everywhere!! our two days were packed with exploration of the city. some of our favorite places were pangea (a hipster store with amazing jewelery), fido's and bongo java (third wave coffeehouses), flashback (a 60s and 70s vintage store where freeman got a sick leather jacket), and love circle (a giant hill that overlooks the city). we even went downtown and got to see the true country lovin' southerners as the CMA's were taking place that evening. but sadly we didn't see taylor swift or keith urban..

nashville, tennessee you are beautiful and i like you. i will be back one day.


next destination: kansas city, missouri.

washington d.c.

Chris Johnson speaking:

So on the 13th we departed New Jersey and headed to our nations capitol: DC.  We passed through Delaware, it's a costly place just to drive through. :(  Anyways we arrived at JHOP DC Saturday evening.  The place where Alex and I had stayed just weeks prior on our outreach.  It was quite a joyous occasion as we walked through the door as the F&F Phase 2 East  Coast outreach team quite enthusiastically greeted us.  It's always a good time reuniting with friends.  We spent some time checking out the Smithsonian and the National Botanical Gardens.