October 16-18, 2009

Back to Arkansas. We made it to Arkadelphia by late afternoon and found Dino's Main Street Cafe` owned and operated by Dino and Jackie O'Chello. Jackie was an acquaintance of Bobby's from the 1980's. MidSouth used to sing at Magic Springs Amusement Park in Hot Springs, Arkansas and Jackie was in one of the shows at the park. Jackie's sister found Bobby on facebook and through that connection, all were re-acquainted and the date was scheduled for Bobby to come sing at Jackie and her husband, Dino's cafe. We had a fun evening as many of Jackie's family came and friends from area churches. Of course it's always fun when there's food involved...which was delicious, by the way. The kids had a blast as they met Dino and Jackie's daughter, Faith, an 8 year-old cutie patootie with a lot of spunk. They played together and had a good time before, during and after the singing and even mentioned being pen-pals with Faith.

We had a little over an hour to drive to Texarkana and that's where we laid our weary heads to rest. We rested the following day, Saturday, and enjoyed some good Mexican cuisine that evening. The following morning, however, it was back to work as we drove up to Ashdown to sing at New Faith Tabernacle pastored by Bobby's cousin, Teresa and her husband, Ed Root. I was looking forward to seeing both Ed and Teresa again but Ed was suffering from a kidney stone and was not able to be there. A great surprise was to see Bobby's Aunt Peggy! Peggy is Teresa's mother and we hadn't seen her in several years. She looked as lovely as ever.


We went to lunch with Teresa, her friend, Becky, her granddaughter Ashley and Ashley's boyfriend, and then got back on the Interstate and headed northeast to Little Rock. We made another return visit to Little Rock West Assembly. Pastor Larry Davis and his beautiful wife, Brenda, were so gracious to us a year ago when we were there. They shared with us how they have a 20 year old granddaughter, Jessica, who lives in Brentwood, Tennessee, who has cerebral palsy, and just how special she is to them. You can tell they are really in love with her and enjoy spending time with her whenever possible. Brenda and I spoke at length about her and Grace and the special needs they have and then we had cake! Pastor Davis' birthday was the following day so the church had a party for him following the service complete with dinner, coffee and of course, birthday cake.

I have to make mention here of Marlene. She's about 8 years old and approached Grace and I before church started. She informed that she's been praying for Grace since she met her a year ago. I was moved that a child would have a burden to pray for someone like she has and thanked her, asking her to please continue praying. She was so sweet.

When the church ladies asked me where we were going from there, I told them we were planning to drive home. So they loaded us up with goodies and coffee to get us down the road a little easier. We got the kids ready for bed before we left the church and made it home before 4 a.m. Three days at home before we got back in the van on Thursday.