Jennifer and I just arrived back in NY after many hours aloft. It feels good to be back on the east coast, although we have many new and wonderful memories forged out of an incredibly unique tour down the west coast. Things finished off with much hooting and hollering at Barnes & Noble in San Diego around 4:01pm PT. From there we had a group meal at Islands (Yaki Tacos are num nums!) and reminisced about the week. There was much laughter had by all.
The following few hours were a slew of hugs and even some tears as we all said goodbye, a divine melancholy falling over everyone. Although each one of us was eager to get back to family and routine, it dawned on me that we had done the very thing we all write about: join together on an epic adventure to bring Truth and advance God’s Kingdom. And what a tale it is…
We’ll be working on the remaining few days of Video Journals this week and post them shortly. Between the succession of bad internet connections and little time to edit video, we have been behind on production.
A big thank you to Pam Schwagerl at Tsaba House for her amazing dedication to this tour and putting the schedule together, as well as to Gregg Wooding for his amazing talents in promoting us. Also to my tour mates: Donita K. Paul, Eric Reinhold, Jonthan Rogers, L.B. Graham, and the originals, Wayne Thomas Batson, Bryan Davis and Sharon Hinck. I consider them all family…adventure-mates of the grandest sort. And a big shout out to Amanda and Penny who went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to “the miscellaneous” tasks of the tour. I’d also like to thank all of the publishers that we represent who so generously invested into the financial backing and promotion of this tour, as well as our amazing sponsors, RealArmorofGod.com, Hotel Burgess, and Character 4 Kids.
I’ll be posting more pictures as we process them; Jennifer shot well over 1,000 with some spectacular scenes of God’s creation I can’t wait for you to see.
Last, but certainly not least, I must thank all of you who came out and supported us on the road. The fans! Where would we be without you? Books are meant to be read, so if you weren’t reading them, not only would we not have had anyone at our events, but we wouldn’t even be writing. So thank you, thank you, thank you. The countless words of encouragement I received from teens who were inspired, moms who were grateful, dads who were provoked to talk to their sons, children who were awed…these are what we live for. You are why we write. That Christ might live in you, the Hope of Glory.
