“Kansas City, Kansas City here I come....there's some crazy little women there and I'm-a gonna get me one.” That's the song that came to my mind this weekend. Fortunately we didn't sing it at any of the churches we went to. I don't think it would have gone over too well.

We were going to leave early Friday morning for Butler, Missouri but on Thursday when we were on our way to my sister, Mary's house, the brake job that we thought we could put off until we got back home from this trip, was literally screaming for attention sooner than later. Mary kept ALL of our children ALL night Thursday while Bobby and I celebrated our 15th anniversary. The plan for the next morning was that Bobby and I would arrive at 7:45 to feed and dress our children while she got Owen ready for school and tended to her other boys as well. But when our mechanic agreed to do our brakes first thing Friday morning, we asked Mary if she could keep the kids until we could get there with our van. Of course I tried to think of another way I could relieve her, like driving the car to her house to pick up the kids. I could pick up the kids but I couldn't get the wheelchair. Everything worked out great. Kris was able to take Owen to school, we were able to get new brakes and get to her house by 11:35 – plenty of time for her to leave to pick up Owen from school.

On to Missouri. We got a later start, thus, a later arrival. We checked into our hotel by 11:30. We got a later checkout the next morning and with a little rendezvous at Wal-Mart, and lunch we were able to kill time until we were supposed to show up at the First Assembly of God.

A very young Pastor Cleghorn and his bride and 3 children greeted us along with 2 of the older ladies from the church who had prepared a delicious home-cooked meal for us. We had a nice crowd for a Saturday night and we were able to encourage some people there. From there we drove to Kansas City where we spent the night in my favorite chain, Hampton Inn. The following morning we sang at yet another new denomination for us, The First Christian Church of Pleasant Hill, Missouri which was on the southeast side of KC. It was much more liturgical than what we're used to but the people were receptive and we were able to minister. They really enjoyed Bobby's music and I think his approach and style was something they'd never had before in that congregation. Another “first” was that we sang for 2 services. We sang in the 8:00 a.m. service, had a great breakfast down in their basement, sang again for their 10:30 service, and then had a big lunch in the basement again! The pastor said he wanted to have us back in the fall for a weekend!

After that service we drove to the opposite side of the city to Bonner Springs, Kansas, where we sang at Basehor (pr. “baser”) Baptist Church on Sunday evening. It was at this special little place that God wanted to do a work. For the first time since I began sharing a testimony, I saw grown men wiping their eyes. We usually see a woman here and there shedding tears nearly everywhere we go but I don't recall seeing any man react that way. Just as I was finishing and was making the segue into our song, I glanced down at the song leader in front of me and saw a big old tear falling down his cheek. That just about did me in. At that point I had to move on to thinking about the unlady-like way Hope was sitting on the front row. Anything to keep from breaking. It's hard to keep my composure when men cry. Before we left the church parking lot, Pastor Martin told us that the words spoken tonight were words their congregation needed for there were families in their church that were really under attack right now. God is good.