Day 16

And we’re off to St. Louis…check back for updates to this post late tonight!

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Last night we had a grand time at a Small Group meeting with our MAF friends and a few friends from their church.  Levi especially loved playing with a vast array of wheeled/ride-able toys and we really enjoyed the fellowship.  Afterwards, Matthew and Kevin went back to the house to spar a bit, using their respective martial art skills, Judo and Jiujitsu…essentially beating each other up in the name of fun.  And today’s aches and bruises aside, they did indeed have fun!  Tasha and I had fun just gabbing it up, talking about family and life overseas.  Oh, and they spoiled us with true Southern Hospitality and Cooking!  It was amazing.  What a wonderful experience in the middle of our road trip – to be with like-minded people on the same track in life!

This morning, after a hearty breakfast of freshly baked, homemade sourdough apple cinnamon rolls (yummmm), we hit the road towards St. Louis.  We stopped in Nashville for lunch, driving down Broadway, which appeared to be the “main drag,” and seeing the Country Music Hall of Fame from the outside.  We had a little BBQ and sweet tea before hitting the road again for the long push back west to Missouri.  We did see the Arch on the way in – very impressive!  I got a few blurry pictures that I may or may not remember to post later.  We finally arrived at our friends’ house, a bit later than we wanted, but not completely spent.

This morning we were going with Plan F – a church here in St. Louis had agreed that we could set up our table of information and they would announce that we were present.  A great opportunity, and definitely better than the other churches that were unable to do even that.  While on the road we got an even better call: a different church here in St. Louis was able to fit us into their morning service so that we could present what we are doing with MAF to the congregation.  Yay!  (It should be noted that later, we did get a follow-up call from a church in Knoxville that wanted us to share with their Sunday school class, but it was too late – we still hope to make a connection at that church through a different means.)  So, we are excited to see some “old” friends from Alaska here in St. Louis and hopefully find some people who might be interested in finding out a bit more about what we’ll be doing in the DRC!

Tomorrow: Last minute, providential connections coming together…