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. 

New Jersey

 Kayla Speaking :
We once again packed up our trusty car, this time with two new companions, Alex and Chris, and headed out. Our destination? New Jersey. I had stayed in New Jersey on my outreach last spring so we stayed with my dear friend Jennie  Contreras and her amazing family. Some of our other friends came over as well and Jennie's mom made us authentic Colombian food. We ate and talked into the night about all the things the Lord is doing through out the Earth. It was so encouraging. The following day we took the 20 min drive in to New York City and spent the day roaming the streets and seeing the sights.Saturday morning we were treated to an amazing breakfast and more great conversation by the Contreras family and then we were off. It was a quick but awesome stop!

 Next Stop: Washington DC

meet c.jo and freeman.

there are now four of us in our ford explorer driving across america. we are one happy family. c.jo (chris johnson) and freeman (alex graves) met up with us in harrisburg, pa and they will be with us till the very end. it has been A LOT of fun with them already. please go to our who we are tab and read a little more about them and their hearts.

we also got some family photos done by the beautiful hannah siegrist. here are a few:

salem.

for Halloween weekend we headed up to Salem, Massachusetts with some of the Fire and Fragrance Harrisburg crew. Salem is known for its “witch trials” and since then it has been a center in the US for witchcraft and Wiccan. Over the Halloween weekend, about 120,000 people visit the city. So here we were traveling to Salem to share the love of Jesus to everyone we could. The seven and half hours to get there went pretty fast due to amazing friends who we got to fellowship with on the way. As we drove into Salem, we could feel the heaviness of the city rest on us. It was the day before Halloween and the streets were already packed with costumed people.  We went straight to the church that is located in the mall of Salem and joined in with 3 other ministry teams that were already there in prayer. We contended for Salem for the next four hours asking God to once again claim this city for His own.  We then were split into our host homes (there were about 60 of us in all). The next morning we headed back to the church once again to intercede for Salem. We spent about six more hours in the prayer room just asking the Lord to soften hearts and to open ears. Krista and I left at one point to get some coffee and saw for the first time what the streets looked like. There were just thousands of people all dressed up walking around stopping to get their palms read or hear their fortune. Almost every other store was a museum dedicated to witches, ghosts, or witchcraft.  I wondered what it would look like if we of could seen in the spiritual realm. What would we look like in the midst of all of the chaos?! For we change the atmosphere in a room because the Spirit of God is living inside of us!!  We headed back to the prayer room to gear up for street ministry with anticipation in our hearts. We were split into four groups. Two groups had a sign that read “Free Spiritual Readings” and the other two had signs that said “Free Spiritual Healings.”

Krista’s Testimony:

I went with a group that had a sign for spiritual healing. We stood on the sidewalk with our sign in the midst of the chaos and just talked to everyone walking by asking if they needed healing.  And if they had any pain or sickness or anything we just prayed right there with them and declared healing in Jesus’ name and we saw healing after healing. I prayed with a girl who had flat feet and was in pain from walking around all night, she also had pain in her mouth because she had just gotten her wisdom teeth out. She was completely healed, all pain was gone. Kayla overheard her say to her friends as they were walking away, “guys, I felt my feet moving.” Yeahhh Jesus.  I also prayed for another girl with flat feet and well she got arches too!! I even asked her to take off her boots so we could see, she took them off and was able to see and feel the new arches in her feet. She looked at me in full amazement and I just hugged her and told her that Jesus healed her and He did it because He simply loves her. Now that’s my God!!  He is just longing for His children to encounter and know His deep, deep, deep love. There were so many testimonies that night; we estimated that we spoke to about 500 people and 150 people got healed.

 Kayla’s Testimony:

 One of the best testimonies for me that night began before we even left on our trip.  Krista and I had sat down on my living room floor and asked the Lord for specific things we should be looking for on our trip like people, places or things. One of the things I received was a giant round rainbow lollipop. So here we were in Salem doing ministry and a girl walked up with a giant rainbow lollipop in her hand! I asked her if she needed any healing but she didn’t. I felt like the Lord told me that she once knew Him and followed Him but lately has been going in a different direction. I asked her if this was true and she said “yes”. I explained to her about the rainbow lollipop in her hand and how the Lord had told me a month ago to find her. She was really touched and I was able to speak life into her and talk with her about how much God loves her and how He just wants her to come back to Him. It was amazing! There were so many other testimonies and healings that I saw and got to be a part of. The Lord was so present in the midst of all the craziness!!

Here is a little video that the ministry team from Maine made about the night!! go ahead and check it out.

thank you.

this is a little shout out to jeremy curry. thank you sooo much for giving us some money for a tank of gas. HUGE blessing. so thank you. thank you. thank you. we love you so very much!!!

beautiful pennsylvania part #2.

krista janae speaking:
well our second week in PA has gone. and i am just in love with pennsylvania. it is sooo beautiful here. and soo green. a vibrant green. every single green field we drive past i just stare at in awe. even if it is field that hasn't been well kept and filled with weeds, it is still beautiful. and there are just many, many rolling hills. two of my favorite things: green fields and rolling hills. i may just have to convince my family to move out here. :)
and occasionally, we have seen Amish people slowly making their way down the busy streets with their horses and buggies!!
this past week we have been staying out in the countryside of Lancaster with the Siegrist family. hannah siegrist is one of our friends from YWAM Kona and she is one of eleven children. yep, you read that right...eleven. it has been such a joy to get to know this family. there are 5 boys and 6 girls. oldest is 31 and youngest is 8. it also has been a joy to just hang out with hannah and connect with her again.
last wednesday, hannah, kayla and i drove over to philadelphia. we met up with one of my friends from my DTS, Maura who i haven't seen in almost three years!!! so i was super excited to see her and reconnect with her. plus she now has a hubby and a very cute baby, micaiah lee. we were in the heart of the city and it for surely won my heart. it felt like a smaller version of new york city. one of our favorite places there (although we didn’t go to too many places) was called Reading Terminal. it is a indoor market that has every type of food you can imagine. we found some really good tasting Pad Thai and for a very good price. we also found a place that is famous for their pumpple cake, which is an apple and pumpkin pie baked inside a vanilla and chocolate cake and covered with vanilla buttercream. one slice of this cake contains 1,800 calories!! but sadly we didn’t get to try it as it was sold out for the day when we were there. we didn’t have too much time to explore the city as we hoped but that just means we have to go back again sometime.

this past weekend we went to salem, massachusetts with the harrisburg DTS. in the next blog we will talk about our amazing time there...  

Beautiful Pennsylvania Part #1

kayla ruth speaking:
Finally! We were on our way to Pennsylvania! Harrisburg was so close we could have tasted it... if it were tastable :)  We drove along, the windshield wipers keeping a relaxing beat and the fall trees framing our window seat views. My phone rang its familiar song,breaking the silence. " Kris its your mom." I said as I handed her the phone. " Krista, wheres your phone? " Her mom began. " Oh, its in my purse in the back." "No its not, it's at a gas station in Ohio!" Our hearts sank....you mean the gas station we had left 45 min ago? All I could think was "so close ,yet so far..." We turned the 'ol Explorer around and headed back to get the wayward phone. Two hours later we were finally on new ground, bound for Harrisburg and all our lovely, amazing friends. We were planning on having dinner at our friends, the Amstutz', unfortunately we were told that our YWAM friends who were on outreach weren't going to be able to be there like we had originally thought but we were still thrilled to see the Amstutz. We were greeted at the front door by Jordan and lead inside to their cute and comfy living room. As we talked, all of a sudden I heard a scream and I was surrounded by our outreach team friends. Krista and I have never felt such overwhelming joy in our whole lives. I didn't know what to do scream, cry, stand there, faint,or dance!
  It was truly an amazing night, catching up with family like friends and being surrounded once again with the ones we loved. That night we drove to Lancaster after seeing some more of our Harrisburg friends, to the Martin's house. Carrie and Corey Martin greeted us at the door and immediately made us feel like we were one of the family. We spent an amazing week going back and forth from Lancaster to Harrisburg seeing everyone we love so dearly. This journey has been so life giving and is truly teaching us everyday. We were blessed to get to learn and talk with Corey and Carrie about their hearts for community and how they have walked it out practically.
    The Lord has been continuing to teach us about His faithfulness. I have been so struck by what faithfulness is. The Lord asked us to have faith for this trip and in return he has given us the "fullness" of our faith, His faithfulness. He is just waiting for our faith so He can return it with faithfulness. What an awesome God!

new.

alright friends. we have finally linked our paypal to our blog. which means if you have felt led or feel led to share some love by filling up our car with a tank of gas...you now CAN. just click on the fuel page up above and than click on the yellow donate button. and we thank you with all our hearts in advance.

also make sure you check out our pictures page. this is where you can see our beautiful faces and all the places we have gone to. and yess i know, we NEED to post a new blog about our time here in beautiful pennsylvania. it has been aaaamazing. within the next couple days we will post it. so please keep checking back for one massive new post.

we love you all and thank you for following us on this journey.

easy breezy.

Day Five/Six: If there is one thing we are learning from this trip, it is what different types of COMMUNITY look like. We have been so blessed and have laughed till we nearly peed our pants from the memories of all the people we have met.

                We arrived in Allen Park on Sweetest Day. You may think this a fake holiday but turns out it is real, well at least in Michigan. When we pulled up, the Bossio’s were waiting ready to take us out to a big Italian dinner, just their style.  After dinner Mr. Bossio invited us into the family prayer”huddle” making us feel even more welcomed.  Our friend Joel showed us some tricks on the drums and then we headed over to Papa and Grandma’s house where we would be staying. The next morning we woke up ready to head to the church where the whole Bossio family pastors. Right now they are meeting in a YMCA as they are beginning a new church focused on the 5 fold ministry.  The church was amazing and so welcoming. After a fabulous lunch and some football, Joel took us to his friend’s Mexican gift shop in Detroit. We each got to pick out a special treat (thanks JoelJ ) Detroit was beautiful but in a different way than we had expected. With its vacant buildings and graffitied walls it was almost like an urban canvas waiting to be photographed. It had the strange feel of a ghost town.  Finally we headed to Joel’s other church where we had the amazing privilege to speak to some of the youth in their program called “Thrive”. We spoke about identity and the Lord moved. It was so overwhelming to see how God was using us in these ways that we would never have anticipated. We have been truly blessed by every experience God has put in front of us.

 Monday morning we were awakened to the smell of bacon and blueberry pancakes made by Grandma. With full stomachs we were, in the words of Mr. Bossio, ready to “ MINT ON!!!”

 next destination: HARRISBURG/LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA.

coffee. cups.

Day Four/Five:  We woke up in Muncie, Indiana to once again bright blue skies and the crisp fall air.  Although we could have slept longer, we were excited to head downtown Muncie to Vecino’s (a café our friend Guy Pfanz started).  Guy  also  created a 2 year internship where they dive into the Word and at the same time learn everything about the coffee world including becoming a barista and we were going to attend one of the classes. With a coffee in hand, we began to discuss the book Leviticus. The discussion was great and the coffee was too!! Near the end we were able to share our hearts about our road trip and they prayed over us. Through their prayer we felt so encouraged and affirmed and knew we were right in step with God in this journey. After the class we got an amazing opportunity to talk to a band, Tribe of Judah, who are currently traveling across America as well but….in a BUS!!!!  (talk about a dream come true). It was so good to hear their hearts and about their triumphs and struggles on the road.  After a short lunch, we met up with Guy Pfanz and his wife Judy for dinner and amazing fellowship. We loved hearing Guy’s heart for the coffee ministry and it ignited passion in our own.

                The next morning Guy and Judy took us to a local farmer’s market where again we shared grrreat food and fellowship with them and their friends. After a tour of downtown Muncie and lunch, it was time to hit the road again. How fast our time went but we cannot wait to return!!!!

Next destination: ALLEN PARK, MICHIGAN.

27. the number of hours we spent in the car these past two days.

(kayla ruth speaking)
DAY TWO: started at 8:00am after a yummy breakfast, we headed out.  Our journey took us on the red and very bumpy highway of Wyoming. The landscape was a lot different then Montana, with its rocks and yellow fields it was almost as if we were driving through a desert.  We did have one eventful encounter when the semi in front of us hit a deer going 85 miles per hour. We watched as the deer rolled under the truck and came out the back, HEADLESS! Blood splattered on our winshield but thankfully that's all that hit us! Praise Jesus!!
Next we entered the greener but still flat planes of South Dakota and finally at 9:30pm arrived at our destination, Edgerton, MN. Greeted by Krista's grandma, we ate apple crisp and ice cream, then headed to bed preparing ourselves for an early wake up.

(krista janae speaking)
DAY THREE: we traveled through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. Our destination:  Muncie, Indiana. Our morning started out at 6am and we were on the road by 7:15am. We were ready for our biggest day of driving....12 1/2 hours. booonggg. The drive was much much more pretty than day two, that is for sure. Our favorite was when we were entering Wisconsin and crossed the Mississippi River. It was sooo beautiful. The area was just surrounded by trees that were changing colors and it was bright blue skies and the sun was just beaming down on the water making it glisten. Leaves were blowing around on the highway and we were just praying for two to fly into our car through the sunroof but sadly it didn't happen. Next came Illinois...man oh man did we have an adventure there. Both of us have never been to Chicago so we were really excited to see the city but instead we only saw the outskirts...we got a little lost. Chicago drivers are crazzzy, constant weaving in weaving out, cutting people off, no blinkers, and no one goes the speed limit, they all go 15 over! no joke. And there are tons of tollways and to top it all off we were in the middle of rush hour. so it was bumper to bumper traffic. And that is when we decided to get off I-90 and hit a side road to go around the city instead of the heart and well, we got lost. But Kayla and I are both very determined girls to not ask for directions and figure it out on our own and so we did!!! With Kayla's mad map reading skills and my almost bold enough driving skills we got back on the right track after a couple hours of driving around aimlessly in the outskirts and headed towards Indiana. (Maybe one day we will actually get to see the city). We didn't get into Muncie, IN until about 10:30pm. We were in the car for a total of about 15 hours, but surprisingly still felt great. I think there is a grace over us for sitting in cars for hours and hours. :)
We are staying in Muncie for the day and leaving tomorrow afternoon (Saturday). We have been beyond blessed already by the people we are staying and connecting with here but you will just have to wait till the next post to hear all about our time....so keep an eye out for it.

and it begins...

Well, it's the end of day one!  After eight hours of traveling and over 400 miles of driving, we arrived at our first destination: Billings, Montana. So far no accidents, repairs, or AAA calls! The drive over was so beautiful, the sun was out and the trees were sprinkled with orange, red and yellow. We are staying at  Krista's brother-in-law's family's house and it is amazing. We have been blessed already with Mr. Ross' hospitality. Now, full of pizza and ice cream we are ready to crawl into bed.  Tomorrow we will be on the road at 8 am with 10 and a half hours of driving to fill our day. While it is tempting to stay at this amazing house surrounded by beautiful mountains, we are excited to continue on our journey east.
(or west? sometimes Kayla gets a little confused) :)

Next destination: EDGERTON, MINNESOTA