The current plan is to go to Albuquerque, New Mexico, tonight, but we might even continue driving on. Depending on the weather and slow downs, we’ll likely arrive early in the morning. Thank you for your prayers. We are very grateful. We have been driving through strong winds, but Dad and Uriah are doing a good job .

Only for Jesus,
Sarah for the Maxwells

Jesse practicing .

We continue to be grateful for the Lord’s blessing on this trip. It’s funny, because although we’ve been gone two and a half weeks, it feels like much longer . Eight conferences done and two left: Yuba City tonight and the East Bay area this weekend.  Our plan is to drive home in 3 days (beginning Sunday), via the southern route, instead of cold temperatures and snow going home I-80.

The last two conferences, San Luis Obispo area, and Fresno, went well. It’s amazing the little blessings: people who offer to help carry things out of the church after the conference, words of encouragement from those attending, a delicious dinner of beef stew and rolls in Fresno, etc. We had two weeks without colds, and then Saturday and Sunday, two of the family came down with colds. Yet, even in that, the Lord has shown Himself faithful. The two have felt miserable, but in no way has the trip been hindered, and the two are feeling better.

Except for our smoking descent the other night, Uriah has done very well this past week. We continue to be grateful for him, and the space he has provided. One concern we had at the beginning of the trip was the unknowns of being able to park him at each hotel (the guys camp out in the bus at night while we girls and Dad and Mom are in the hotel). Every night the Lord has provided a place to park Uriah at the hotel. What a blessing!

Joyfully His,
Sarah for the rest of the family

Keeping Hearts session in Fresno.

Mary, working on her school, during a session.

Christopher lets the young people pick up some tracts after the Evangelism session, and I thought this was a good picture !

Christopher talking with a young man after the sessions.

The second weekend conference is now over. Each conference has been such a blessing in its own way by the people we meet, the stories we hear, and the Lord Jesus working in lives. We arrived in the LA area with no traffic issues Thursday night. It was very picturesque to see the lights of the city as we drove out of the mountains.

Friday’s set up went well, and we had time to do a run through our songs. Our coordinators brought dinner for us. They also took us to a Vietnamese restaurant on Saturday evening after the conference for a cultural experience. None of us had eaten Vietnamese food before, so it was a treat.

(The LA church where the conference was held.)

There was a good group for the sessions Friday evening, and families continue to enjoy the music. Saturday was a busy day for everyone. Joseph, John, and Jesse help Dad, Mom, Christopher, and I get set up for our sessions, and then throughout the day, Joseph and John help Dad and Mom with any other speaking needs they may have.

Anna, Jesse, and Mary are a great book table team and run it very efficiently. At lunch, a sweet mom had provided a delicious meal for us, which was a special blessing. The message we shared throughout the weekend was extremely well received. We are grateful to each family who took the time to come to the conference this weekend. We pray you will experience fruit that will be eternal.

(Downtown LA as we went on the outskirts of it.)

We know many are praying and we are very grateful. As we were coming out of the mountains today on a very long steep grade, the boys said they smelled something burning. Dad took the next exit he could, and we pulled off. John hopped out, with Joseph close behind, and they said our front wheel was smoking! Most of us hurried out of the bus to see what was happening. After some examination, it was decided that the brakes had become very hot, and the buildup of oil on the rim from a leaking seal was smoking. Once Dad confirmed the other front wheel was also pretty hot, it meant that there was nothing seriously wrong with that wheel. Dad had slowed way down, used a lower gear, and pumped the brakes as we descended, but decided from then on, we would be going down even slower. We were grateful that we didn’t have a serious problem, and we started off again to help cool the wheels. Uriah continues to provide excitement to a trip that we’ve not experienced before!

Examining the smoking wheel!

Helpful tools??!!

Blowing dust as we drove toward San Luis Obispo area.

Practicing music in the bus tonight.

We look forward to Monday night’s conference in the San Luis Obispo area.

Only for Jesus,
Sarah for the rest of the family

We woke up early Wednesday morning so that we could get started on our way to the Grand Canyon. The night before, John had noticed a notch in one of Uriah’s tires, and Dad felt since it was quite deep, we should have it looked at somewhere to see if we needed a new one. As we were approaching Flagstaff, Dad was able to call a tire place, that had been referred to him by a mechanic. We found the tire shop, the man looked at the tire, and he recommended that we replace both tag tires due to the “injury” and that fact that both were eight years old. The guy told Dad he was lucky (we know otherwise ) because they were the only warehouse in northern Arizona that had those tires, and since it was a cold day, he had men that could do it right then. We had our family Bible time while the tires were being changed. We knew if the process took too long, we wouldn’t be able to go to the Grand Canyon. But, around noon, we were on our way, and arrived at the Grand Canyon around 1:30.

It was an exciting feeling to walk to the edge of the South Rim and gaze at God’s amazing creation. The brochure said the Grand Canyon took millions of years to form, and yet even Jesse (13) could wonder why all or most rivers aren’t in canyons that deep. Christopher mentioned as a side note, scientists were not able to study the actual forming of the Grand Canyon, but they have been able to study the Little Grand Canyon at Mt. St. Helens which is 1/40th the size of the Grand Canyon and was formed in one day.

We spent some time taking in the scene and admiring it, before we walked along the trail. There were icy spots on the trail, but it was not windy, so we had a pleasant time together as we walked. It seemed the more you looked at the Grand Canyon, the more you could see. We marveled at all the different trails that could be hiked way down in the Canyon.  We are very grateful that the Lord gave us those few hours; what a blessing.

We are now in Anaheim, California. Again, we felt the Lord’s hand driving here yesterday afternoon and evening. In spite of all the traffic, we didn’t “experience” even one slow down, which was wonderful. We are praying for this weekend’s conference and look forward to seeing some of you!

Serving Jesus,
Sarah for the rest of the family

The beautiful Grand Canyon!

Most of the family looking out over the GC.

Anna

Dad and Mom

Joseph taking a picture of Christopher.

We asked someone to take this family picture.

Thank you to the father who took these pictures last Friday evening!

Joyfully His,
Sarah for the rest of the family

We are grateful to each of our conference coordinators for all the work they put into the conference. After set up Friday afternoon, we had family devotions in the bus, and then the coordinator brought us dinner: a delicious taste of the southwest.

The music session went well, and our audience was the most interactive of all the groups we’ve sung for so far! In between sessions, a highlight for our family is being able to speak with families. Our prayer is that the Lord Jesus is glorified in everything shared during each session and in the other conversations.

After listening to our church service via cell phone to the nursing home yesterday morning, Dad, Joseph, John, and Jesse were out at the bus, when a car pulled up with a mom and son, who had attended the conference, They had been surprised to see our bus behind a hotel as they were returning from their morning church service, which is amazing since they didn’t know where we were staying and would have only had a second to see the bus between buildings.  They decided to go to Trader Joe’s and purchase John some birthday gifts since yesterday was his birthday. They brought a large bag of goodies and a huge several foot-long box of cookies! We were very touched by their thoughtfulness to John. Thank you !

Tonight we’ll be going to Fountain Hills (outside of Phoenix) for an evening conference.

Only for Jesus,
Sarah

John, with the goodies that a family blessed him with!

Christopher speaking to the young people Saturday.

Anna and I at the book tables (Mary and some of the others are on the other end of the tables.).

Joseph took this picture yesterday of a palm tree.

After several hours of working, a mechanic took the bearings Dad had purchased locally, to a machinist who machined a part, to make the bearings work. Then, he assembled it. We are very grateful for his help! We are bypassing touring Carlsbad Caverns, and we’re headed for El Paso. A bus place there has the part, and we will see if we can get it from them yet tonight. We’re so grateful that Uriah is back on the road.

Serving Jesus,
Sarah

The mechanic who kindly helped us and Dad.

Uriah’s belts are working again!! Praise the Lord.

We’re now in Carlsbad, New Mexico—a first for most of us, with the exception of Dad and Mom.

Last night’s conference in Waco was a blessing. We were delighted in seeing two families we have known through e-mail: one we’ve met before, and the other we hadn’t met in person. What a blessing to be able to see them.

Uriah continues to hang in there. We stopped at a truck repair place today, because Dad was concerned about some oil leaking from a wheel hub and wanted to check it out. A man was very helpful and even came out to look at it and give Dad a little informative lesson (tonight we saw we lost that hubcab—oops!). Mom is a pro at making lunch, and the bus makes it very easy to spread out a bit. We wrote postcards to our nursing home friends today; Mom even has a system for that.

We’re excited to be able to see Carlsbad Caverns tomorrow morning. We normally don’t have time to sight-see on these trips, but we are getting up early and will drive late to be able to see the Caverns. We’ll be sure to post pictures later.

Only for Jesus,
Sarah

The church in Houston (with Uriah ).

Dad and John finishing up at the truck repair stop.

Dad and Mom speaking last night in Waco.

Mary-with a New Mexico sunset in the background!

Jesse-working on school

Mary-writing a postcard.

Motoring down the road in Uriah.

Lunch time!

New Mexico Sunset

PS – Special thanks to Anna for picking out the pictures and working with them !

We arrived safely tonight in Ennis, Texas. The last few days have been very busy in preparing for this trip, so it was nice to just climb into Uriah and rest. It was a delight to start out with having church with our dear friends at the nursing home, and we left from there. Uriah handled very well today, and Christopher even took a turn driving so that Dad could take a nap. We will drive the rest of the way to the Houston area tomorrow, where we’ll be doing an evening conference.

Thank you for your prayers. Dad has said that this is a trip of many unknowns due to our new transportation. We’ll have lots of new opportunities to trust the Lord each day.

Looking forward to meeting many of you over the next few weeks!

Joyfully His,
Sarah

Praying before we set out this morning!

Life is in high gear here as we prepare to leave on a three week trip from church on Sunday. Everyone has something to do, and for this trip, we have called in the reserves – Grandad and Grandma. Grandma ironed thirty items for us earlier this week, and she came over to help Sarah yesterday. Both Grandad and Grandma helped today.

We are making curtains for the bus and doing some work inside to make it so that the boys can sleep on it for this trip. The bus just came back from the shop last night so there is much we couldn’t do until it was here. We are excited to take our first long trip on Uriah, and we are praising the Lord continually for His provision.

Trusting In Jesus,
Teri