March 20-22, 2009

Farmer City, Illinois; Mishawaka, New Point and Muncie, Indiana

Into Illinois farm country! Farmer City is a small farming town (no kidding?) and we had a good small crowd in a small church Friday night, the 20th. The pastor, Mike Jenkins, looked and ACTED like John Ritter. I've never seen a pastor act like this guy did. I'm wondering if there's a serious bone in his body. I'm sure there is but it was rather refreshing to see and hear this guy get up and introduce us. It was a fun evening at First Baptist Church in Farmer City, needless to say.

Saturday morning brought new mercies of God and a relaxing drive back toward "home" but only as far as Mishawaka, Indiana. As we drove past Chicago, the children were able to catch a short glimpse of the Sears Tower 25 miles away. We sang at a Church of God of Prophecy and yes, it was quite different from the Baptist church the night before. I'm not saying one was better than the other. It wasn't...just completely different. Both groups of people loved the Lord, but Pastor Darren Huff was very serious and so wanted his congregation to have an encounter with God. I admired his deep sincerity. There was a lot of singing from the congregants Saturday night so it made our 3 and a half hour drive to Greensburg quite late. We arrived at our hotel by 1:30 a.m. and were all in bed by 2:00.

I rose at 6:30 and fumbled my way to the shower. We got ready, had our big hotel breakfast and were off to New Point before 9:00. The church, which was only 15 minutes from our hotel was pastored by a friend of Bobby's, Troy Caudill. New Point Baptist Church is another small group of believers but what a responsive party they were! In the middle of the altar service I noticed Faith being a distraction. Now...let me just say that perhaps in most churches like the one we were in yesterday, they thought nothing of this 3 year old twirling and dancing at the front of the church (no, it wasn't praise and worship time...it was decision time) but where I come from, the 3 year old ain't gettin away with that! I finished the song, put the mic down, calmly picked up the 3 year old, tucked her under my arm like a sack of potatoes and headed to the back of the church. I went to the farthest Sunday School room I could find and shut the door. The whole while, Faith is asking, "Whatchu gonna do, Mom?" I thought by the way things sounded that church was being dismissed anyway but as Faith and I came out of the classroom, after having our own "come to Jesus" time, Bobby had come to find me and said Pastor Troy had wanted us to come back in to be prayed for. Well, hallelujah! I, once again, calmly walked back into the sanctuary and took my place front and center while Pastor Troy had the entire congregation form a circle around us and pray for us. For me, it was timely...and precious.




















It was a bit backward but we drove back north for the Sunday evening service at Victory Temple in Muncie pastored by none other than Bobby's first cousin, Rick Bowen. We always have a great time with him and Ruth. Rick is very talkative and, I think, hilarious. We had a great service and afterward spent time with family over pizza and salad.

Another hotel in-experience. I like doing laundry on Sunday evening in our hotel if the facility is provided. However, it causes me to go to bed later than ever. Because of this and the fact that we didn't get much sleep Saturday night, we rose very late this morning. Last night I looked at the Guest Services Directory to see what time they closed the continental breakfast so I could sleep in but not miss my favorite meal of the day. Wow. I thought that 10:30 was a late cut-off but that's what it said, "6:00 until 10:30 daily" in black and white. Bobby went down at 9:45 to get some coffee and eat something ahead of the rest of us since he was ready before anyone else. He called a couple of minutes later saying they were putting the breakfast food away. He got a tray and loaded it up to bring it up for us. I took my hotel directory down to the front desk and showed them what they had printed. They looked at me as if to say, "And?" They simply said, "yeah, that needs to be updated." Now, you know, this is not something worth fighting about but their attitudes got all over me like white on rice. I went to the breakfast room, got another tray and loaded her up, the whole time fuming. When we left at check-out I pitched the page from the directory that I had ripped out, (since it needed to updated anyway) the same page that listed the breakfast times, onto the front desk and said, "update it." I believe I could read the young lady's mind but I can't write what it said. I walked out to the van with my family and then told Bobby I was going back in. Yes, I did feel kinda bad. I approached the front desk again as sweetly as I could. I began to tell her of the misfortunes we've experienced recently with people trying to come into our rooms and the only thing the hotel staff said both times was, "Sorry 'bout that." By this time 2 more hotel employees were gathered near. The first one offered to have her manager call me. I told her that would be fine but it wasn't the manager that I needed. I told her that the day that I grew up in the customer was always right. Instead of the response I got earlier about the wrong information concerning breakfast times, a better response would be, "You're absolutely right. We're sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. Please let us know how we can help you get the breakfast you need for your family as this was our fault." I think I will contact the manager and just tell him that I harrased two or three of his employees today. I heard a bit from FOX News this evening about it being a sad state of affairs when you have to train employees to be courteous. Courtesy. It's a lost art in this generation.