The American Dream

Tip of the day for all you waste oil users: veggie engines do not like cold grease. When waste oil is cooled, it becomes thicker. Filters don’t like thick waste oil. Engines like filtered oil. Therefore, engines don’t like cold waste oil. Solution – head south. And that is exactly what we are doing. Currently Veggie is steamin’ down I-77 to Cincinnati, Ohio, where the weather forecast for tomorrow is a pleasant 72 degrees, almost twenty degrees warmer than what it has been in northern Ohio. From there we are heading to Nashville, Tennessee, where Veggie is going to indulge himself in 85 degrees of engine happiness.

But even the past couple days of coldness could not get us down. Our time in Cleveland and Akron has been a ton of fun.

We met with some truly inspiring youth pastors in Cleveland on Wednesday and even more in Akron on Thursday. It is wonderful to see the passion people have for youth ministry, and no place was this clearer than at Cornerstone Free Methodist Church. Gordon, the church’s youth pastor, is completely dedicated to his youth program and works incredibly hard to see that his students have every opportunity to live for and experience Jesus Christ. Our hats are off to you Gordon.

Last night Nick and I stopped at an Econolodge in Akron to get some rest for the evening. We had slept on Veggie the night before, but after spending an hour filling up on waste oil, we were in desperate need of a long shower. Side note: if Nick and I were Leprechauns (a stretch of the imagination with Nick’s 6’4’’ frame), Chick Fillet’s grease bin would look like a glistening pot of gold. Simply perfect waste oil – but back to my story. After checking into the Econolodge, we walked across the street to Akron’s favorite date spot: the Olive Garden. Nick and I were seated in a quaint corner of the restaurant with five other couples. Awkward turtle. (That’s for you Ross) Much to our stomach’s delight and our waiter’s dismay, we saved a few bucks and went with the all you can eat house salad and breadsticks. I never knew I could get so full by eating foliage.

However, not much could compare to the meal we were generously treated to tonight. I’ve been dating Katherine Spittler, a grad student at the University of Michigan, for a little over a year now, but being that we live in different states, I haven’t had the chance to meet many of her extended family. So when Katherine told us that we were passing through her aunt’s hometown of Hudson, Ohio, we decided to stop for a visit. She treated us to a delicious meal at the Tomato Grill and even got to experience filling up Veggie on waste oil. Nick and I are truly blessed to have met some truly generous people on our cross-country trip.

I’ve promised myself I would only get sentimental on this blog three times, and I’m going to use one of my times now. Almost twelve years ago to the day, a scrawny thirteen-year-old kid with a mouth full of braces and a face overcome with acne, was sitting on a windowsill in Ducktown, Tennessee. On that humid summer night he starred up at the stars and for the first time in his life, he talked with God. He prayed that this new feeling he felt wouldn’t disappear; that he wouldn’t forget this night and how he felt right now. He prayed to God he barely understood, but a God that he desperately wanted to know. And while he didn’t hear a voice come thundering down from the heavens, he felt a quite peace and a warm love that has never left.

I wonder how different my life would have been had I not gone on that one-week mission trip. I wonder who I would be and what I would be living for. I look around me and see so many young people losing themselves to the pressures of our world. Drugs. Alcohol. Image. Money. Depression. There are so many. While these pressures are not new, with the growing influence of media in our daily lives, they are becoming harder and harder to avoid.

As I travel across America with one of my best friends, meeting with hundreds of amazing youth yearning for something more, I pray that we can give them what my first mission trip gave me. I pray that they can stare up at the stars and feel the amazing love that Jesus Christ has to offer. That is my American Dream.