Spinning!

Our heads are spinning! The last two weeks have been a major whirlwind, with travel and business taking up most of our time.

Kelly went to Indiana to visit her close friend who just had a newborn, and double-dipped on the trip with a newborn photography session for that friend, as well as two Saddle Lights presentations at womens' Bible studies. So we're here to bring you all the latest news!

First, Jesse and Kelly are traveling to Chattanooga, TN, the headquarters of Precept Ministries, to work through their Leadership Training Programs November 11-15th. Thank you, again and again, Precept, for the opportunity to train with you. Your partnership for the training is crucial to our effectiveness as leaders! And thank you, prayer warriors and donors, you have made this trip possible for Jesse and I. We couldn't have done it without you!

Ritchie Johnson, the college ministries coordinator, has invited us to the Campus Crusades meeting on the night that we fly in. He will be speaking to the student body, and giving us a chance to introduce ourselves to many of the students and leaders there. We are excited! Then, for 8 hours each day, we will be in their Leadership training courses Friday through Saturday, where we will study God's word and walk through their leadership training curriculum for inductive Bible studies. In and around these classes and CRU, we will also have the opportunity to introduce ourselves face-to-face with the leadership at Precept for the first time (we've only been phone buddies for 6 months)!

Needless to say, this trip is a critical turning point for our partnership and our ability to be effective leaders of their inductive Bible studies. We are very excited!

Second, Kelly traveled to Indiana, and met with her Grandfather, who is a very experienced man in ministry, as well as in fundraising, and gleaned a lot of wisdom and good counsel from him. She followed that up with the very first Saddle Lights presentation to a group, (you all were very gracious to her!) and played a very botched (but a good effort, right gals?) video presentation of Saddle Lights. Let's just say it was okay, but needed improvement... *smile. See further below for the entertaining story behind the making of that video.

Lastly, a local church here in Flagstaff met with us and learned about the ministry we provide, and are offering their church building and bulletin-advertising for an Open House in Mid November. We are very excited to share Saddle Lights with people locally, as we continue to draw students in, as well as focus on fundraising to get this off the ground! More details on that as it draws near!


SO...for the story behind the video we made. It all started when we realized we needed a strong audio/visual for the presentation to the Bible studies in Indiana. We worked until nearly midnight on Friday night pulling together a script and travel plans for touring our great state of Arizona the following morning. We needed video footage from a diverse set of landscapes and backdrops to show the types of places the students would experience while biking on the coast to coast tours. So we woke up early Saturday morning, after borrowing a wonderful video camera and tripod from our church (thank you Northpoint!), and headed all over the southwest to get this footage.

Traffic was horrible! I mean, if we could've picked the busiest tourist weekend in all of Arizona, we did. This made it a challenge to get great cycling shots, but we made it happen. We finished our tour of Arizona up at 9,500 feet, on Snowbowl Road here in Flagstaff, in the Aspen. It's a beautifully green and brush filled forest, making the perfect contrast to the desert we just filmed. Kelly got great shots of Jesse soaring downhill at 40+mph through the trees, and left the preciously borrowed tripod from the church in the brush alongside the road. We came back within an hour to get it (after driving all the way back home without it), just to find that someone had taken it. We were mortified! We ended up replacing the churches with one of Kelly's professional photography tripods.

We recouped, cleaned up, and pulled together our script for the face-to-camera speaking parts of the film where we describe what the trips will be like. When you're on a budget, you work with what you have! So the funniest part of all of this 12 hour movie-making marathon was the laughter in the bathroom during our monologues, as we messed up our lines. Why the bathroom? We setup shop on the toilet, in front of our blanket-draped shower curtain with a side light and a hair light to film our very first, 'professional' Saddle Lights video. Yep, you read that right! A budget is a budget, right?

This actually turned out well! Except for the music/voice audio levels. They seemed to go up and down faster than a roller coaster during the entire movie... hence, the "botched" description you read earlier. But, we will fix that, with an all new toilet edition of Saddle Lights cycling video. Look for the premier on here in the next couple of weeks.... *smile.

And don't forget to continue praying for us and this ministry! We need your prayer support, and we need your financial support. So please, spread the word!

Thanks, and many Blessings on you all!

Jes & Kel