This on my other blog, too.

    This entry may be boring to you, or it may not be, depending on what you consider interesting.  I've decided to post pieces of an entry from my (paper) journal.  It's basically a play-by-play account of our trip to visit churches.  Like I said, you might find it interesting.  The first part is a little jumbled because I hadn't settled into a specific method of journaling.  At first, I wrote before we arrived at the church, and then wrote down the result of the trip.  After a while, I resorted to just reporting what happened afterwards.  Anything in italics and written in parenthesis, are comments not written in the journal.

    So that you'll understand a little more of what we do, I'll explain the preparation steps for this kind of trip.  Before we go, Mike spends an afternoon looking up churches and planning a route to take.  He tries to plan the trip so that we'll travel in a loop, and selects eight to ten churches to hit.  Once he has roughly estimated the loop, he looks up directions on Google and dictates them to me.  I write them down on a piece of paper containing the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of the churches we're going to visit.  Mike then checks the map online (with our route traced onto it) to be able to lay out a rough "map" in his head.  When everything has been prepared, we set out stuff aside until the day we travel.

Wed. Jul. 30th, 2008

9:44 am
    We're off to a church in Salineville, Oh.  No one was there, so we left a brochure.

10:02 am
    Mechanicstown is next.  No cars in the parking lot.  Mike went over to drop a brochure off, while I wait in the car.

10:19 am
    Two churches in New Philadelphia are next.  This is our longest distance to go today.
    We found Faith Christian Church, first (it was second on our list).  We dropped a brochure off in the office.  The secretary was there.  It was 11:10 or so when we found it.

11:12 am
    First Christian Church is a little harder to find.  11:15 and we found it.  We left the brochure with the secretary.

11:27 am
    We're looking for a Staples where we can print off more brochures.  First, we stopped at Burger King to ask for directions.  (and food)

1:22 pm
    We got copies of the new brochure and are headed toward the church in Dennison.

(Here's where it gets interesting.)

1:48 pm
    After getting a little lost (thanks to my brilliant navigational skills), we found the church in Dennison.  We told the secretary we'd probably be back.
    This is a curvy road.  Ugh.  I'm getting carsick.

1:58 pm
    We found the church in Tippecanoe.  It's a rather remote place, with a parking lot for about ten cars.  It's a little white church with a tetherball in the back.  No one here.  Mike left a brochure.

2:25 pm
    We're on county road 62 right now.  It's a gravel road out in the middle of nowhere.  Why is Google leading us out this way?  Ah, it just became a paved road.  (Here, my handwriting becomes almost illegible because the paved road is bumpier than the gravel was.)

2:43 pm
    We thought we had reached Flushing, but after wandering around the town for a little bit, we saw a sign announcing: "Town of Hollow Way."
    "Hey, that's the name of the road we're supposed to be on!" I said.
    "That's not the name of the town we're supposed to be in," said Mike.

2:54 pm
    Found the church in Flushing.  No one there, so we left a brochure.  On to Cadiz.

3:20 pm
    Found the church in Cadiz after having to take a (very wide) detour.  No one there, so we left a brochure.  We had to go out by an alley the size of a sidewalk!

3:46 pm
    Our directions turned out to be almost useless in getting us to Hopewell.  I guess we got lucky, though, and found the scenic route up to Hopewell.  The church there had what I think was the parsonage next door to the church . . . and then the parking lot (next to the parsonage).  No one was there.  Left a brochure and headed toward Wintersville.

4:03 pm
    Getting out to US-22 was harder than we thought.  Google directions had us turning on all these minuscule streets.  Finally, on of them dead-ended.  We looked up a grassy hill, and there was US-22 . . . behind a fence.  "Turn there," I said, and pointed at the blocked way.
    We ended up retracing our steps and finding US-22 by following the main roads of Hopewell.
    No one was at the church in Wintersville.  Brochure dropped off at door.  One more church to go, and then we're done today!

4:08 pm
    No one at the other church.  Their front parking lot is very steep.  Mike had to use his parking brakes.

    We're done for the day!  We'll be calling them (the churches) back a few days from now.

    We took a trip to Chile in October.  It was such a fun, blessed time.  We took the time to meet other missionaries, iron out our plans for our ministries, and meeting with the nationals there.  Of course, we did the tourist scene, too. 

We went to Columbus to look for apartments.  We left on Wednesday night, spent Thursday and Friday looking for apartments, and returned on Saturday morning.  Our whole process started on Tuesdaymorning when Mike shook me awake before he needed to go to work, and handed me a list of apartments.  He asked me to call them and schedule apointments two hours apart, starting at 8:00 A.M. and going through until 4:00 P.M.  He had numbered them for me so that I could call them in that order and (hopefully) be able to schedule them in the same order.  They were ordered according to where they were in the city, starting on the East side and working his way courter-clockwise.  Furthermore, he explained that if all went as ordered, we would end the first day very close to the hotel.  I called and, sure enough, everything went smoothly. 

At Columbus, we only had to search one day, and we found the place where we'll be living!  We'll keep you updated after we move.  Wish us the best.