September 2006

What an incredible few days it has been for the Steward family here in sunny California. The response from our friends and family and the staff people from Saddleback church has been such a blessing. God has been glorified in this entire process as people are banding together to be the church and meet us in a time of great need.

We are still watching movies and TV on my Powerbook (thanks iTunes!) while sitting on beach chairs. And we don’t have pots or pans yet so it is still pizza rolls and deli sandwiches for food. And we are constantly remembering things we have lost that just make us sick. Like all the work my wife had on her computer for her work with Scrap Girls and all of my reference materials and commentaries I had packed. But we couldn’t be more excited at what God is up to in our lives. A new friend here said to us, “Well if you were looking to come here and get connected, mission accomplished!” We are being so blessed to hear the stories of people’s lives that work on staff here at Saddleback, and to see how God is so much bigger than the small boxes we like to put him in.

We are still not quite sure what we will be doing here as the more people we meet it seems the more possibilities emerge. But our main goal is to still be involved here to learn and experience THE Purpose Driven church, especially in regards to the day to day practicality of touching the hearts and lives of people here in Orange County.

And if nothing else we have vividly learned that God always provides for his children, that he is always faithful no matter how bad it seems, and that prayer and faith are so much powerful than most of us ever realize.

Thanks again to everyone that has helped and provided for us, you have been able to comfort even our parents who were as heartbroken and sickened for us as one could get.

God Bless!

Well, it is hard to know how to start a blog like this, but we have hit a “bump” in the road in our trip out to California. As we stayed in Las Vegas overnight on the 13th our uHaul with everything we own was stolen from the hotel parking lot where we were staying.

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After the shock, the police reports, a few tears and lots of phone calls - we are okay. We have finally gotten to our new home in California safe and sound and it is great, though empty. And as word as gotten out about our situation the response from people has been unbelievable. I am not going to get into specifics, but the people from Saddleback have been amazing for barely knowing us, a church that we were a part of two years ago in Canton, Oh has taken up a love offering for us and is sending us a check, and other dear friends are chipping in and helping us out. What an amazing thing the CHURCH is when it is moved to loving action!

We know that what happened was because of evil/selfish people, that God didn’t do this to us. Just that realization has brought so much peace, that it really does pass all understanding. And it has been life changing to see how God has shown up and is pouring down his blessings upon us. More than ever we are confident that we are where God wants us, despite how satan would try to discourage us.

The best thing I have experienced so far was when my father and Pastor Ken from Faith Faith church in Canton, prayed with me over the phone. When Pastor Ken prays you can almost feel Satan shaking in fear at the power of God, haha! When they were done praying for us my comment was, “Man, those guys and satan had no idea what power they were getting in the way of when they took that truck..!”

So, we are putting the pieces back together, and God is blessing us. I am not worried about the material loss, though the loss of all our personal information and such is very disheartening.

But more than anything our faith in God and his faithfulness is as strong as ever. He has been vivid in the midst of this move, the cross country trip, and now in this great loss.

Please be in prayer for us, mainly that we can keep our personal information from being mis-used and that we can get on our feet here, but also for our hearts and our children. They don’t have anything normal to make this feel like home, and they are noticeably out of sorts.

More than anything, please just pray - but know that God is definitely listening!

I will post updates of how things go here consistently.

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ouch
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That was the longest and hardest day of travel I have ever experienced.
Highlights:
1. Rockies: They are beautiful, it was one majestic scene after another, especially Frisco. But it was hard to look at them since I feared for my life a majority of the time. I am a scaredy cat when it comes to driving on mountains with a fully loaded and underpowered uHaul. ugh…
2. The Day Ended: Yes, finally 13 hours after we started driving, we stopped.
3. Over Half way: today we crossed way over the halfway point for our trip.
4. Total Mileage: we went something like 631 miles today…
5. Denver: We came, we saw, we left.
6. Early Start: I was able to get up at 5:30 am and got us on the road by 7 am, good thing two.

Today was just hard, but I am believing that tomorrow will be smooth sailing all the way to Las Vegas. Please pray for us and our travel weary clan!

Phew, now today was a full day of driving! We went from St. Louis to Hays, Kansas, approximately 505 miles. The day went really well even though we left a lot later than I wanted to. The highlights of the day included:

1. Kansas City, MS: WOW, what an incredibly cool looking city. Everything seemed big downtown it was really overwhelming. I guess downtown is on some sort of plateau because all the sudden the ground drops off and you are on this huge bridge. I would love to come back some day and just take all of it in.
2. Uncle Mitch: My Uncle Mitch lives in Atlanta and works for a company that has him traveling alot. As he heard about us going on this trip he offered to help us with hotels by letting us use some of the hotel travel points he has accumulated. At first Mandy and I thought this would just be a discount, but it turns out that it pays for everything. After I told him the areas we would be stopping each day he called to find the right hotel, set up the reservations and use his reward points to pay for it. We got to our first hotel tonight and it was all set for us. What and incredible blessing!
3. Two Way Radios: I had a great idea before we left and purchased two way radios for Mandy and I to have while she drives the van and I drive the uHaul. Well, not only is it great for the travel conversations we need to have as far as when our kids start going nuts, but it is also really good cause we can just talk. I think that is one of the main reasons the driving has seemed so easy, because we have just been able to talk most of the time about the things we are seeing or about this great adventure we are on.
4. Kansas: The one thing we heard consistently from people who had actually traveled across the US like we are is that Kansas gets old quick. It is such a long state east to west that people say it feels like it takes forever to get through it. Well, Mandy and I loved it, it is SO beautiful! I don’t think I have ever seen so much green, and so much sky all at once. It seemed to be a lot like what people say Scotland is supposed to look like. The views were breath taking several times. Mandy and I both agreed that we are glad we didn’t try to work out flying to California, because we would have missed out on getting this once in a lifetime chance to experience all this beauty.

Overall this day was good, it was definitely longer, and tomorrow is the big momma day so we would appreciate your prayers. We go from Hays, KS to Grand Jct, Co tomorrow, and have the most mileage to cover with the Rockies standing in our way.

Check out the Pics below from the Day!

Alright, I am finally getting a chance to report on our daily travels as the Steward family makes its journey out to California!

The first day we went from Cincinnati to St. Louis. This was our second shortest day and was not bad at all. The Day #1 highlights were:
1. Me dancing like a crazy man trying to avoid getting stung by a bee in a McDonald’s parking lot and then getting hysterically laughed at by a car full of teens who happened to see the whole thing.
2. The girls discovering the joy of pumping their arms furiously at a semi truck and hearing them honk. They were a little over enthusiastic as this when it was first discovered and where trying to get every car on the road to honk as well!
3. Mandy working on her behind the head “hand eye’ coordination as the girls where hungry for animal crackers and she had to try and toss them at them from the drivers seat.
4. Getting a chance to see my younger brother Matt and his wife Stacy. The just got married this June and are living in St. Louis. We finally had a chance to see where they live and they fixed us an incredible dinner of “Chicken Goo”. It is a Steward favorite that my mom used to fix and Stacy did an incredible job! It was so good to hand with my brother and to get a chance to see where he is at now. He is an incredibly talented Sound Engineer and has a great heart for ministry. I am so excited to see how God will continue to use him and Stacy in powerful ways!
5. High Five Send off: A definite highlight was having students from the church come over to wish us well and say good bye for the last time. They were doing a breakfast for Sunday School (FYI: I lived right next to the church), but they came over and helped us get our final loading done. Then, as things were kind of awkward, I had them line up and give Mandy and I high fives as they ran back to Sunday School to say good bye. “…”

Overall this day was good and probably much more relaxing then the next three days which are where we do the brunt of our traveling.

Look for Day #2 where we travel to Hays, Kansas.

Phew! We are in the midst of packing and moving all of our stuff! We spent all day yesterday packing and organizing the boxes and such in our house so that when people come to help us today it will be easy to get it all into the truck. We had just a couple of people come to help us with the packing yesterday. One packed up our whole kitchen which was awesome and then to packing pro’s came and helped us finish up the rest of the house.

I don’t know what it is but packing just wears me out quick. But these two came in and really helped us get it done. Mandy and I would have been up way late into the night packing if they hadn’t been there, so thanks Sherry and Bob!!

Mandy and I are both getting very excited about finally moving. This past month and a half has definitely been a “hurry up and wait” scenario, which has been making us very antsy. To actually be at the point where we are loading up and leaving tomorrow is a big relief.

Please be in pray for us and our family as we make this nationwide trek over the next 4-5 days. We are calling it our “vacation to California” to our girls, to keep things positive. Plus, to them it will be since we will be staying in hotels with pools and such, and are taking our time to make sure they have play time everyday.

What an adventure for our family!

Wow, what a lousy blogger I have been over the past week! Things have been very busy around here and so I haven’t been able to blog like I would want. Any ways, I am officially done at my previous church this week. It is really nice to be at this point where we can really start focusing on the move before us.

Details keep falling into line from when we need to leave to Mandy doing a spectacular job with Scrap Girls to keep us in the black. Our church also threw a going away party which was very nice of them. It was a great time to say goodbyes to people and to hear how our ministry there really did have a significant influence in the lives of the teens and adults we had contact with. So many times it is hard to know whether or not you are making any difference at all, and this past few weeks has been such a huge blessing for Mandy and I as we see a lot of fruit from our time here.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers as we enter into issues with Health Insurance and the like which I guess gets really complicated when you leave one state and enter another. We want to do the best we can to make sure there aren’t any gaps in the coverage, but as I have been waiting on a significant opportunity and am not actually in the area for interviews, I haven’t been able to acquire a means of income or benefits yet. We are okay with how things are and are as at peace about everything as ever, especially as we get a chance to clear our hearts and minds from the environment we have been in.

It has also been fun to get excited with our girls about the move. Every time we get in the car Zoe says, “I wanna go to Californya”, and I have to say, “we will but right now we are going to get diapers and wipes.” We all can’t wait until we pull into the sweet place we have found to live, and when we are rested go cruising on Pacific Highway.