few days back

so....it has been a few days since our last post. we arrived in missouri safe and sound. the hotel was pretty aggravating because the first room they gave us reeked of cigarettes, the second room that we received was also rented out to 3 or 4 crickets. which promptly kept us up at midnight and also at five in the morning.

we left the hotel the next morning and made the drive to our friends, Jon and Maggie Hunter's house in Oxford, Ohio. We stayed at their house for the next three nights. it was an awesome time of fellowship with them. we were able to cook and eat together, and just have some great times sharing stories and playing the game "ticket to ride".

while we were in oxford, minda's family drove a few hours down to see us. it was really great getting to see them all again, and just have a day where we could hang out and catch up. i'm sure minda might blog about that day so i will skip over it.

our show that friday went very, very well. their were about 900 students in attendance and their reaction to the video got minda and i very excited about what we are doing right now, and just gave us assurance that we are where we are for a reason.

we are currently in Pittsburgh, pa. i will update about our weekend tomorrow and let you all know about our gallivanting in the home of the steelers, pirates, and penguins.

Si(y)dney, not just the capital of Australia; and Potter, not just an underachiever...

we just finished with the first show of our tour, and it went extremely well and smooth; but before we talk about that let's rewind time about 24 hours.

we arrived in Sidney, Nebraska (which is also the birthplace of the first Cabelas) where our hotel is located. we were staying about half and hour away from our school which is located in Potter, Nebraska.

when we were close to Sidney, i remembered that my friend from Moody Bible Institute, jenn sydow, (i was pretty sure at least) grew up in Sidney. after a quick call, i was assured i was correct. and thanks to jenn and her parent's hospitality, we ate dinner with her parents. jenn wasn't there because Moody's classes started today.

we had an amazing time with Bill and Karen Sydow! They made hamburgers for us and had an amazing variety of healthy fruit and veggie choices, choices that were extremely welcoming after eating fast food for 3 weeks! we spent a few hours with Karen and Bill, and had some amazing fellowship with them. we were extremely encouraged by them and they prayed for us and our show for the following day. we were even sent away with "adventures in odyssey" cds and cds of Bill's preaching series on Genesis, to keep us entertained on the road! they were an amazing blessing from the Lord, they truly love Him and are walking in His path.

the next morning (today, monday, august 23) we woke up early, packed up our van and headed off to Potter, Nebraska to have our first show. we read in the local paper before we left that the school has a new principal, who was also our contact Phil Hoyt. The school was extremely welcoming and we set up our show fairly quickly. after our show was aver we had five freshmen guys help us tear down. it was a fun time to chat and find out a little about their lives.

after we packed up everything, we left for St. Joseph, Missouri. which is around 9 hours away from where we are. minda and i have about 3 hours of traveling left, so if you are reading this, please pray for safe travels!

driving

thankfully due to the power of technology, i am able to blog while minda drives through utah! we started this morning in las vegas, nevada, since we have been through the northeastern tip of arizona, and we are partway through utah as i type.

firstly let me say that utah is waaaaay prettier than eastern california, nevada, and northeastern arizona combined!

secondly let me say that utah is waaaay weirder than eastern california, nevada, and northeastern arizona combined! we stopped and ate at a del taco a few miles back and we are pretty sure we just encountered our first live case of mormon polygamy, so weird and so gross.

anyways, utah is gorgeous and it is so comforting seeing green grass, albeit prairie grass, grass none the less. and there is even a cloud or two to keep us company, we never realized how much we liked clouds until there weren't any anymore!

so far we have driven 214 miles and have 547 more to go until we can call it a day in denver. i am partly excited because it is home of chipotle! yay!


hope everyone is having a good day, please keep our travels in your prayers!

where we go!

so i know this is the moment we have been waiting for, so i am sure to some extent it is the question you all have, where will we be going?! well we just found out that for the first semester we will be traveling......drum roll please..............the East Coast.

go figure we just came from there so we might as well travel back that way!

our first show actually being on the road is on monday, in Potter, Nebraska! we will be leaving in the next few hours to Las Vegas where we will be spending the night. on saturday we will make part of the journey to Nebraska, and on sunday we will arrive in the town that our show will be in.

below is a map showing where we will be traveling tonight!


View away we go in a larger map

our first show!

although we are not finished with training, we have the unique opportunity to have a test run in a real school!! below are pictures of our assembly that will give you an idea of what we are training to do out here in california! basically we set up everything that you see in the gym. 

here are our screens! they are each 10x15 feet, so pretty big! they come in ten different pieces which we all have to assemble.

here is our pretty cords that we carefully taped to the floor so they were nice and neat!

here are our projectors which make the whole show possible! 

we had two showings of our assembly, in which 900 students were able to participate! so cool to be able to impact so many students at once! the new video this year is called Dare To Move. it is a show that encourages students to overcome the obstacles that have been put in their paths and step out of their comfort zones to dare to move to make right decisions for themselves and for others! we are blessed to be able to be a part of this ministry that impacts so many students!

our show went off without a hitch and the students seemed to respond extremely well to the video!!

be sure to check out our next post with news of where we will be traveling!

hollywood, not all it's cracked up to be...

ok so on sunday, our day off, we decided to go to hollywood and see a movie.


but, before we left we (minda, steve, ashley, and brianna) went to the apple store close by where we are staying. the reason we stopped by was because brianna (another tech) bought an iphone, it was broken, so we went to get it fixed. short story apple is awesome and with no questions asked gave her a new phone to replace the broken one. cool deal.

anyways, so we got back to base camp and then left for hollywood. only bri, minda, and i ended up going in our van, but it was such an amazing time talking with bri and learning about her life and sharing ours with her. she is truly a gifted girl with an amazing heart for God; and she has a Minnesotan accent which is just awesome.

after encountering about a half hour of famous californian traffic, we arrived in downtown hollywood. parking garages were plenty, but very expensive. after a few parking tips from our local friends that are also techs, we got ourselves parked!

hollywood was pretty busy, and honestly it is about one block long and packed with people. we stopped by the most famous spot in hollywood, grauman's chinese theater. we hung out in front of the theater and took some pictures of the cement blocks there signed by famous celebrities!

minda got her picture taken with harrison ford

and i got my picture with morgan freeman

we also took a picture of the hollywood sign, as a side note you may click on any picture to open a higher resolution picture!  

 

moral of the story, we didn't get the chance to watch a movie :(.........o well!

btw, be on the look for a blog post very soon regarding our first show! it went very good btw!

training, training, training

so this week has been a very, very busy week for us to say the very, very least. we begin around 6:30 in the morning and end around 5:00 in the afternoon. our days are spent rotating between four different sessions, each focused on a different part of the camfel job. the four parts are: setting up the different frames to accommodate different stages and ceilings, A/V set up and trouble shooting, and two rotating sessions that focus on different things associated with eqiupment maintince. needless to say, every night we have both collapsed into bed, only to be harassed by our alarms early the next morning.

two days ago (friday), minda had a really, really bad migraine that  kept her in bed all day trying to sleep it off. so i spent the day alone without her as a partner to keep me company :(. but it was ok because she woke up the next day feeling right as rain and ready to go!

yesterday (saturday) was a "half day", but it felt a little longer than that. much to our relief it was more of a laid back non physical day. we are getting excited and also a little nervous because andrew, the team manager, let us know yesterday that we will be doing our first show tomorrow (monday). we won't start our official tour until later this week, but tomorrow is our first show. in fact, it will be the first official showing of this year's new show. the even cooler thing is, is that the entire camfel team will be coming to see the show at the high school!

Team Camfel!

we will hopefully update tomorrow and let everyone know how our show went! pray that:

• God will work through us to further His kingdom.
• He would direct us in our setup
• that everything would run smoothly 
• God would speak through us to students we come into contact with

basic training

our first day of training has come and gone, and we now completely understand the definition of the term “information overload”. we had the opportunity to see all of the equipment, but did not have any hands on training which was tough for arminda and me, both. so it was extremely hard trying to remember how to set up all of our equipment without getting to get our hands on it.

we were split up into different group and we are of course in the married peoples group. the other married couples are close to our age and it has been really cool getting to know them and learn with them. one married couple that we have become really good friends with is ashley and steve barnwell. they are a really cool couple who just got married in january and have a love and passion for God, His gospel and students.

here is a picture of us after a long day of training!! miss you all!

it has been a long, long day, but it was pretty cool because minda and i both (thankfully haha) passed our driving test and had the opportunity to go to the west coast famous in -n- out! mmmm tasty burgers. i wasn't the biggest fan of their fries, but we were told that we had to get them "animal style"; which apparently is their fries with melted cheese, bacon bits, thousand island dressing, and grilled onions on top. sounds pretty crazy good, so we are definitely going to have to make a trip back to check that out.

away we go!!

way we go I wrote this while on our first plane on our way to dallas/fort worth airport. We were a little stressed this morning, because I set my alarm for 2:30 am and it never went off. Luckily mama j woke us up a little before 3:00 when we had to leave, no shower for a while :(, o well.
Our flight has been smooth so far and the flight attendants seem like they are having a good morning. It was hard to say goodbye to the Whitlock clan, it was pretty tough for minda jayne, but it was a great way to be sent off, with loving hugs and encouraging words. Minda is a little worried, because she had to check her guitar. Apparently you are unable to bring a guitar with a hard case on the plane with you, would have been nice if that was posted on the website. O well, we are rolling with the punches and going with the flow right now, preparing ourselves for a California mindset. We are both excited and seriously extremely nervous. Usually I am unhindered by stress until the last minute, and the last minute is upon us.

Minda took some pictures from the plane after we reached our cruising altitude. I love flying, it is super-surreal, it is just one of those things that seems normal, but if you think about it, you start feeling uncomfortable and fidgety. Ok random, but I find it extremely displeasing when I am trying to type out a blog post and the woman in front of me decides it is time to lay her chair back so I have to bend my arms in weird directions to type, grrrrr.

Anyways silas (minda’s youngest brother) hooked us up with some pretty sweet silly bandz that are in the shape of airplanes!! So COOL! We will rock these bandz til they fall off!

My arms are getting extremely uncomfortable so, at least until our next flight I am signing off!

our flight to Cali!

here is an overview minda and my flight to California! feel free to click on icons and lines to discover comments we have made on them! you can also zoom in and out, have fun with our map. we will also be posting and constantly updating a different map that will record our journey through the States!



View Camfel Training - nikandminda in a larger map

send us Love!

while we may not have a permanent address for the next 10 months there are still ways to get things to us! while we are traveling we will receive mail once a week on friday. the mail will be sent to the school that we will be working at. if you would like to send us a letter, package, or some love you can address it:

attn: Andrew

Nicholas and Arminda Walborn
15709 Arrow Highway, Suite: 2
Irwindale, CA 91706