Indiana

May 7-9, 2010

After my breakfast with 3 aunts and 2 uncles, I drove back to Dad's to load the van and trailer, say goodbye to Dad and head to Anderson, Indiana.

It was a warm, windy afternoon with storm warnings and it turned cold after the sun set. When we pulled into the parking lot of Anderson Church of God of Prophecy, I noticed the pastor's name on the marquis was Barker and mentioned it to Bobby because that's the name of our friend, Pastor Rich Barker of Christ Tabernacle Church of God of Prophecy in Sheridan, Indiana, not very far from Anderson. We've sung at Pastor Rich's church twice before and were to sing there again the approaching Sunday morning.

“Yeah,” Bobby said, “this is Pastor Rich's dad.”

Later in the sanctuary I made a comment about Brother Charles being Pastor Rich's dad and he corrected me saying they were brothers. (oops) I was sure to tell him that I hadn't assumed anything – no – I was just going by what Bobby had told me. (cheesy grin)

We had a great service with 6 or 7 pastors from the surrounding area attending. One of those pastors was Bobby's cousin, Rick Bowen from Muncie. I always look forward to seeing Rick. He's an encouragement to everyone he meets, not to mention I appreciate his great sense of humor. Rick even brought some folks from his church with him.

We enjoyed some snacks in the fellowship hall after the service and then we were on our way down to Indy to check into the Microtel that Bobby had reserved for us that night and the next.

The weeds growing up around the building was our first clue that this Microtel stay was not going to be as pleasant as all of our previous visits at the other links in this chain. We got everything into the room before I realized there was no refrigerator. I called the front desk and asked them if they had a room with a frig.

“Um, no” was the reply on the other end.

“Ok...you don't have refrigerators at all?” I asked.

“No.” was all he said.

Before we turned the lights out to go to sleep I had called the front desk 3 more times asking for an iron, a hair dryer, and a luggage rack, all of which the answers were ...no.

After the third “no,” I wasn't saying anything. I was just slamming the phone down. Would I recommend this hotel to a friend? Only friends that I don't like. Don't stay at the Microtel on I-465 on the west side of Indy unless you want to rough it.

The following day, even though it was Saturday we had school because there was nothing else to do and after lunch across the road at Ruby Tuesday's, got ready to go sing at the First Baptist Church in Greentown north of Indy. This was a return visit and when I walked into the sanctuary, I couldn't resist greeting the pastor by calling him Brother Leroy. He laughed and I quickly explained that because he couldn't remember Landis' name the last time we were there, he simply called him Leroy. Well, that just stuck in my head and now I want to call Pastor Ken by the name, Leroy. He admitted that he probably deserved that because Landis isn't the only person he calls Leroy. Leroy is anyone whose name he can't recall.

Pastor Ken's wife, Aloha warmly greeted us and we had a very laid back and fun service with a lot of sweet folks hugging our necks afterward. And then it was back to our great hotel.

We checked out Sunday morning and headed north again to Sheridan to minister at Christ Tabernacle Church of God of Prophecy. We looked forward to seeing Pastor Rich and Kathy and the kids again. We admire this family who used to travel and sing in family ministry. After the 5^th child Kathy finally told Rich she just couldn't continue so they settled down to pastor a congregation instead. Today they have 8 children with 2 sets of twins and are now doting over their first grandchild.

Oh yeah, it was Mother's Day. That's how it goes at our house – or hotel room – it's something that comes to everyone's mind later in the morning...but I'm not bitter or anything. (hee hee)

After the morning service we headed back to Nashville and I was told I could choose where we were going to eat lunch since it was Mother's Day. You'll never guess where I chose to eat...actually, I can't believe it either. As we were approaching Seymour, which is 50 miles north of Louisville, I saw a billboard ad for Russell Stover's. I've never been to a Russell Stover's and have always wanted to try it so what better day to try it than Mother's Day when I was given the opportunity to choose where we ate? Shockingly, there was no argument from any of the kids about eating there.

This was the weekend after the Great Nashville Flood and so I asked Bobby if he'd pass the Ridgetop exit that would take us home and drive down to Nashville to see if we could see any evidence of the damaging water. If I hadn't known there was a flood the weekend before I probably wouldn't have noticed anything. However, since I knew, I was looking for signs and the most obvious sign was all of the clean-up trucks in the downtown area. We drove out to Opry Mills and that was far more telling as the exit to the mall was closed and the mud was still in the vast parking lot. And where there should have been hundreds of cars parked as their owners would have been shopping inside, there were, instead more clean-up trucks.

I'd like to link you to a post my sister wrote on her blog about the flood that I felt should have been sent to the newspaper. It wasn't but I'll take the opportunity to share it with my readers. I don't think you have to be from Nashville to appreciate the way this writing causes your heart to swell with pride for our great city, more generally, our country.