Texas Tour, Part 2 "Sunday's Comin'!"

March 29-April 3, 2010

After a load of laundry, some exercise and some personal time with God, I fixed some instant oatmeal in the room for the kids. There is no complimentary breakfast at the Holiday Inn, however, I took the liberty to pick up an omelet for myself at the restaurant when I was off doing my laundry. We had 3 days ahead of us to enjoy and take our sweet old time driving across Texas. If you've ever driven all the way across Texas you know you can fill up 3 days pretty easily with leisure driving.

It wasn't until Monday afternoon that it dawned on us that we could take the kids to see the Alamo in San Antonio. We went to the website and saw that it closed at 5:30 and our ETA was 5:00. Not ideal but sufficient. While Bobby put the pedal to the metal, the kids and I took a crash course in history concerning the Alamo. As quickly as we could upon arrival, we walked through the grounds but took a little more time inside the mission. I got a lot more out of this visit than I did 20 years ago when I stopped with a girlfriend on our way to a wedding in Marble Falls.

Of course when the Alamo closed at 5:30, the obvious thing to do was to cross the street and show the kids the River Walk. We walked up and down the river for a while and then decided we really wanted to do the boat tour. Bobby was reluctant at first saying that he didn't want to use the kids' money that they've been saving to make a recording. However, I reminded him that the money the kids have been saving for the last year was originally intended to be used for sight-seeing, entrance fees, and educational entertainment. So he gave in and we went on a riverboat tour.

We were listening to our guide and enjoying the relaxing ride when we rounded a corner to the right and I noticed a family of 4 also rounding the same corner on the adjacent sidewalk. The next several thoughts all happened in a matter of about 5 seconds: “That lady reminds me of Rachelle Simonds” (A fellow 1986 graduate from Burr Oak High School.) “Of course that's not Rachelle, she lives in Michigan. How coincidental, she's got 2 girls about the same age as those 2 girls. Wait a minute! Surely it can't be her! Let me take a look at the her husband and see if he looks like Jim...I am FREAKING OUT...it's Jim and Rachelle!!!” I hollered from the boat, “RACHELLE!” She was surprised to hear her name called in a place so far from home and began to look around when she saw a crazy woman waving her arms from a boat in the river a few yards away. When she realized who I was, her mouth dropped open and she began to laugh so we had a minute where we just looked at each other from a distance and laughed. I

wanted to yell out more questions but was afraid I'd be chastened by our boat captain. What a shock to be in San Antonio, Texas and see a friend that I hadn't seen in nearly 25 years all the way from Michigan...not to mention the fact that the 1986 graduating class consisted of only 23 students! I managed to think of snapping a picture but was so concerned about causing a problem with our boat captain, I hurried too much and the pic is blurry.

After a very enjoyable tour of San Antonio we drove on to Boerne and spent the night. Dinner was provided by The Anchor Fellowship in Houston because they gave us leftover barbecue from Sunday's lunch. Needless to say we ate barbecue for the next 2 days. We stopped at a rest area on Tuesday afternoon to eat barbecue and let the kids run around a while and made it to Fort Stockton to sleep that night. At 2:00 AM I awoke to hear Bobby in the bathroom ...sick. I heard him again at 6:00 and decided that I would insist on driving into El Paso the following day so that Bobby could rest and hopefully be able to sing that night.

I insisted alright, but it didn't make a difference. Bobby does not give up the steering wheel easily. It's a wonder he lets me drive in the early morning hours on those all-night drives while he sleeps. He drove, pumped gas, and carried on the usual conversation all while running a low-grade fever in the middle of the day. Other than moving a little slowly, you couldn't tell he was sick.

We finally made it to El Paso Wednesday afternoon and got settled in our hotel. And when I say settled, I mean we settled in...to stay 5 days. There was a problem with parking at the hotel the hosting pastors had reserved for us, so we paid for our own room at another hotel hoping the pastors could get refunded and help us out with the new room, which was actually a better price and a bigger room. There were no double queens available so they let us upgrade to a suite for the same price.

Our Wednesday night service was at Sun City Christian Center where Pastor Hector Saucedo leads his flock of expressive worshipers. Unfortunately, we didn't get to meet Brother Hector because he was on a mission trip in Mexico. We did, however, meet his beautiful wife, Bertha who had the sweetest spirit. Another delight for us was to be greeted by our friend, Pastor Ron Kelley from Horizon City Assembly of God. Pastor Ron helped us get the booking at Sun City and he knew Pastor Hector would be away so he stepped in to greet us and fill Pastor Hector's shoes.

Bobby sang as lovely as ever and no one knew he'd been sick the previous night. But just before I stood to give my testimony, Hope told me her tummy hurt. I knew what that meant and told her to go sit in the back of the room and stay near the ladies room. I forgot about her as I spoke and sang a song with Bobby but as soon as we were dismissed, someone came and told me Hope had become sick and didn't make it to the restroom. I don't want to make the reader sick by describing what I cleaned up and how much of it but suffice it to say I spent nearly 30 minutes cleaning from the floor in the foyer to the wall, to the bathroom door, to the sink, wall and mirror in the ladies room, most of the floor in the ladies room and the outside of the commode that Hope completely missed. She had to hold the trash can close to her on the drive back to the hotel and she made it to her bed on the sofa. She was much better the following morning with only a little weakness.

It's not pleasant dealing with sickness but if you want to count blessings, I'm thankful that still, no one has missed a concert because of sickness. God is faithful. As we stepped onto the elevator to go to our room on the third floor, a man who had 6 children of his own told us we very likely caught something in the dusty wind that blows in from the south. I asked if that was how it works and he replied, “Oh, you'd be surprised what blows in.”

That dusty wind became ferocious on Thursday. I've never been in a sandstorm but Thursday's dust storm in El Paso was as close as I care to get. We decided it would be best to just stay in the room for the day since Hope needed the rest anyway and we didn't know what it might do to Landis who has occasional asthma attacks. It's funny how I can be away from home yet spend an entire day doing...stuff. There was laundry, school with the children and tidying up and it wasn't until late afternoon that I finally got on my computer to look at my email and facebook. I saw a post from my brother-in-law in China saying that my sister's water had broken, their neighbor

was calling a cab and they were on their way to

Hong Kong to have a baby. His post already

had several comments and just as I complained, “I feel like I'm the last in the world to know about this,” my cell phone rang. It was Timothy saying that they were in a private room and Kristy was resting comfortably.

For some unexplained reason, Skype wasn't working properly so we didn't get to witness Ethan's birth but we rejoiced with Timothy and Kristy as they welcomed their fourth son, Ethan Malachi Hall on a very good, Good Friday, 2010 in China.

Since the wind died down and the air cleared enough that you could see the mountains across town we decided to venture out to Wal Mart that evening as we needed a few grocery items. But the following day, we hit the stores hard as we shopped for those final last minute items for Easter. Of course all of El Paso shopped with us as it was Good Friday and when we finally stopped to eat our dinner at Peter Piper's Pizza, it felt good to sit. In all of our searching we never did find the sneakers I had pictured for Grace. She wears braces under her shoes so I can't just put summer sandals on her. I came up with the idea that shiny silver sneakers would work great for her black, white or navy pants that she'll be wearing this summer but do you think I could find shiny silver sneakers? I don't think Grace minded wearing her black boots with her black slacks that she wore all last winter. At least she didn't complain.

I awoke in the very early morning hours to the sound of Grace trying to be sick. I jumped out of bed to grab the trash can. I can't begin to explain the challenges that go along with Grace being sick to her stomach. Grace writhes and lurches and has a lot of strength in her skinny legs so I'm trying to hold her still so as not to miss the can. She doesn't hold her head so I have to hold her head up high enough that she doesn't puke into her belly button. Her arms flail around violently and she actually knocks the trash can over. I just don't have enough hands to hold, support, restrain and catch. We went through this exerting exercise several times and she only succeeded in getting a little relief. When I went back to the bed the last time I realized I had that recently familiar knot in the top of my stomach. What in the world!! I had just gone through this 2 weeks earlier. I feel like I'm confessing sins when I say I laid down to this sickness a second time in 2 weeks. Grace and I were a pathetic pair as we lay in the hotel room the following day.

Thankfully, this bug has a very short life. I might have been sick on Saturday but I knew Sunday was comin'.