day 8 and 9

day 8
hartford, ct was very nice indeed. it was a smaller crowd but a much more lively one. the catholic worker house there made us an incredible dinner - so yummy. (why do i always report on the meals?) they had a nice dog, riley, who i got to snuggle with a little. one of the families who live in the catholic worker have 2 teenage sons who have always been raised in community. there pretty amazing. i feel like i haven't seen tons of teens raised in this kind of lifestyle who are well adjusted (granted, i don't know many) but these 2 seem to be. it makes me excited to try out different models of family.

day 9
oh canada! i am so happy to be in canada! i love it already. we had kind of a nerve racking but funny experience at the border. so, of course, as soon as they saw the bus we were immediately sent to immigration to have the bus checked out. an armed officer comes in and asks what we were doing here in canada, so we told him. then he asked if any of us had been arrested. silence. we all just looked around the bus at each other. then finally one of us said "well, i don't have a criminal record" which sounded like "i have a really good lawyer". then the officer said that if he found out we were arrested before and had not told him we could go to jail. so then one by one we all went around and said, "yeah, i've been arrested..." but for good reasons! we explained our civil disobedience against the war and our officer loved it! he's also opposed to the war. we joked about how great canada is and he giggled about the title of the book.

then we went to niagra falls! here are some pictures.


"we are so excited to be here!"

day...? i think 7?

(written 6/29)

we were in nyc yesterday and last night. while i love visiting new york, navigating through the traffic and street patterns with a school bus is hardly ideal. the event went well although was a little quiet for our tastes. it may be that new yorkers are not as quick to give themselves over to something but afterwards lots of people came up to us to let us know how thankful and encouraged they were. we even saw a few old friends. we were able to stay in nice apartments on soft surfaces with air conditioning! jimmy, our host pulled together an amazing lunch before the event as well. (thanks again!) we slept in till 9am this morning and are now on our way to hartford, ct.

i hope to get some pictures here, i haven't been very good at taking them on this trip.

i think we're all getting a little sick of each other or are tired and stressed - maybe both. we'll need to get over this hump, though, we have a long way to go.

after hartford we travel to toronto - yay! i've never been to canada.

(written Thursday, June 26th)

Greetings from the road.... we've had a busy and sad and happy last couple of days. We had to leave Lucy in Indianapolis. We buried her in a community garden that is well tended and loved. The people who we stayed with and who take care of the garden placed a tree stump where she was buried, painted it and laid down flowers in her memory. They told us they recited the Franciscan blessing of animals over her. I'm so thankful that she was remembered in that way.



We're working through the void that she has left. We miss her and are glad that she's no longer afraid of anything. I don't know my thoughts on heaven and I know everyone says that animals aren't invited but I secretly hope she's floating on clouds, running through wildflower fields and licking many bowls of vanilla ice cream (she liked that).

yesterday we made our way to cincinnati which was a great stop. we really enjoyed the people there and the boys all did a good job. i want to visit the city again when we have some time, it had a good vibe.

We had to leave our friend Emmanuel there, which was sad. he was a great help so far on the tour and I really liked getting to know him. speaking of great people I love our documentary crew. most of them are the ones who helped with looking for lucy, they have helped with anything they could and are just fun to be around. we've got a good group with us.



so far i haven't gotten tired of meeting people and answering the same questions over and over again. it's kind of nice, actually, how most people want to talk about the content of the book, not the communities.

we've already had a little trouble with folks being uncomfortable with some of the content in the presentation but we're trying to push and challenge people a bit. i'd really like to see the church not be so quick to shelter it's people from controversy. how can we be one when we're too polite to be honest?
we'll see how it goes.

goodbye to our little lucy

i wanted to let everyone know that last night our wonderful and very loved dog, lucy, died. she ran away from the bus while i was inside a building when someone accidentally let her out. she was an incredibly fast runner, no one could catch her and she was hit by a car. chris and i are devastated. we spent every day with her and feel a deep hole in our lives. we miss her so much already. i wish i could cuddle her and make her feel safe.

when someone dies it's appropriate for things to stop for a while but that doesn't feel appropriate when a pet dies, like we're being overemotional or something... but i want everything to stop.

if you knew her you know that she was such a frightened little thing. in the last year of her living with us she calmed so much and, i believe, she felt safe and loved. i'm thankful for that but i'm even more angry with the people who abused her before she came to us. they made her scared. which is why she ran. i hate so much knowing that she was afraid in the last minutes of her life. i don't know what to do with that.

the tour must go on. but we steal moments of tears and sadness when we can.
more pictures to come.

on the road

i just wanted to drop a quick note and let everyone know that we made it safely through the papa fest (had a great time!) and have now, officially, begun the tour. tonight is our first event in grand rapids.

we are very tired but are getting used to a big bus and a crazy schedule. i wish i had some pictures uploaded but today is too busy. hopefully i'll be able to tomorrow on our way to indianapolis.

please keep us in prayer as this message can be upsetting to some - which can make it easy to sugarcoat.

love.