Day 4 Road Trip - God's Beauty in AZ

Well, it's the morning of day 4 of our 8-day journey to Portland, OR and all is well. Carmel and I stayed in Phoenix last night after our friend, Preston Sparks, offered to host us for the night. (Check out his folks' house in the pic) Preston is a pretty cool dude. We knew him in Savannah from church there. He's moved back to his hometown of Phoenix last year after being accepted to med school, where he hopes to become a doctor in the mission field. Even though our time here was brief, God blessed me us with amazing conversation of His work being done through each of our lives. I have no doubt that God will use the willing heart of Preston for His glory in the years to come.

Before stopping here last night, we had the chance to go through the Arizona Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National Park along our route from Albuquerque, NM. We've been trying to take in the cheapest sights possible along our way due to our extremely tight budget. It only cost us $10 to take a drive through tour of the 28-mile stretch of petrified forest and beautiful painted dessert landscapes. (check out the pics I recently added to "Portland Road Trip" album) I was in awe of God's absolutely breathtaking majestic artistry that exists not only there, but through out our entire 9 hours of driving yesterday. We serve a God of amazing creativity and variety that is presently visible all around us today, if we simply open our eyes to Him.

Today, we get ready to drive about 7 hours to Torrence, CA, just west of Los Angeles, where my brother John lives with his amazing wife Ana and 2 children. I'm totally stoked about seeing them again, it's been far too long. I better get going…Preston's mom is cooking us breakfast and it smells heavenly. God is SO good!