73. Can You Beat That? (And Some Generous Baptists)
I’m in the Kansas City airport waiting on a flight home to Nashville. Before I take off, here’s my weekend in a nutshell…or bullet points, actually.
Flew from Nashville to Raleigh Durham, North Carolina to see my friend Tracy and speak to a bunch of fifth graders about poverty and service, speak to a big ole group of men at a “Superbowl Breakfast”, play a few songs in three church services, get my teeth cleaned (For free! Thanks, Tracy.) and get some kids sponsored. All of this happened at St. Mark’s in Burlington, NC. Great folks I’ve visited four times now.
Over the three days I with St.Mark’s their people sponsored 73 kids! 73 kids!! Wow. Can your church beat that? We’re booking April-June and it’ll cost you nothing but a hotel room and a meal to give it a shot. Email if you’re interested.
Sunday afternoon Tracy drove me back to Raleigh Durham and I flew to Chicago’s Midway airport where I was to catch a flight to Kansas CIty and then drive three hours to this morning’s college chapel gig.
Midway shut down for a few hours due to heavy snow. I boarded a plane and sat for an hour before deplaning. So I watched a little Superbowl. (There is no community, by the way, like a community of stranded people, united by a common enemy and plight, and drinking lots of beer. There’s an analogy in there somewhere.) Then I boarded another plane and sat on the runway while our plane was “de-iced.” Then the de-icing truck broke. We waited for another de-icing truck, which eventually arrived and de-iced us. We taxied down the runway to await takeoff but there were so many planes waiting to land that we waited too long…and had to be de-iced again.
I made it to Kansas CIty, got my rental car, and headed to the nearest hotel instead of attempting the drive to Missouri. I got to my room at 2:14 AM and left again at 6:45Am. Ouch.
About 800 college students at Southwest Baptist University heard my talk about the ”Good News” and a plea to sponsor children. 81 child sponsorship packets were handed out and 43 of them got filled out before I left. More will be coming. I’m guessing at least 60 kids will get sponsored. By college students! Think your college and do that? I speak at chapel services – just e-mail
I’m needing to fix the widgets, make a newsletter and catch a plane. More tomorrow…or maybe I’ll just sleep.
Series: None, Stories From The Road
Tags: mercy showing
Just sleep. . .just sleep!! Awesome weekend. Thanks for all you do!
I stumbled across your blog through Ragamuffin and saw that you wrote about my alma mater. Wish I could have heard you speak in chapel when I was there (and Go SBU!)
I hope you got your well deserved sleep. What a blessing it was to me to see so many SBU students sponsoring kids! It was worth the long drive! And I wondered as I drove home if the “Show-me State” skepticism is something that kicks in later in life? I’m much more skeptical at 44 than I was at 24. I overthink things way too much now.
Great to see you!
Cynthia
So have you heard about this organization called “Compassion” that seems to be into the same line of work that you are.
Seriously, you guys should hook up and save some kids!
Blessings
Is the bullet point with nothing after it an omission of something you don’t want us to know about? I’m sorry. I’m bored at work and having nothing else to do.
I think it’s what some people call a “mistake.”
thanks for clearing that up. i will be able to sleep now.
That de-icing business sounds like a nightmare. Remind me to never fly anywhere that gets heavy snow. I get impatient when there’s an unusually long taxi before takeoff and/or after landing, which happened on my flight back from Honolulu yesterday. This may or may not have to do with the simple fact that I really hate flying, and the takeoff is always the most nerve-wracking and vertigo-inducing part of it for me, so I just want to get it the heck over with already. (Of course, in the end, I do realize that all of the annoying delays that cause air travel to be an all-day affair are really because lots of checking and double-checking needs to be done to ensure that I arrive at my destination safely, and it’s a lot harder for a competent pilot to crash a plane than my paranoid, rapidly beating heart telling me it is.)