Day 3: Monday, 6/3/2024

Day 3 began uneventfully...all the rooms looked just like this one:

I don't joke about the tape. I don't pretend like it's broken on the last day or even joke about that. It's too important for the youth to understand how important it is that they stay in their rooms.

Holiday Inn Express doesn't have waffle makers (although the website heavily implied this one did). Instead they have these pancake conveyors. 2 stars; do not recommend. The breakfast was not the Hampton breakfast I know and love.

But it was totally ok, barely and inconvenience. You know why? Because of this:

It's not *just* that Ellen was here (although honestly Ellen makes most things better). It's that what she is pulling out of that box is a donut from Mark's donuts. Forget Krispy Kremes or Dunkin. The debate is obsolete. If this trip is all about bringing earth a little closer to heaven, these donuts fit right in. Lisa's dad was at the donut shop at 6 to get them for us, and he walked in with 4 dozen circular slices of heaven.

Let me be clear. These are God's donuts. Don't believe me? Ask Rachel and Taylor. 

Or you can ask the youth...

Let me say something about that last picture. It looks like another donut picture, but it isn't. Actually the donuts hadn't made the scene when I took it. The guy closest to the camera is Mark. He's our bus driver. I've been taking trips with him for...many years. Due to some scheduling issues, this is my first time traveling with him at Oak Grove, but I'm so happy to work with him again. He's the most chill, even-keeled, and helpful bus driver I've ever ridden with. He does a lot more than drive a bus. He believes in the work we are doing. He loves us, and he does his dead level best to help us be the best we can be. I've ridden with him through a tornado warning. I've ridden with him off road. I'd ride with him anywhere.

Twinning is winning!

We left our hotel and went for a driving tour of Little Rock. Our first stop was the Big Dam Bridge (obviously). I can hear in my head the meeting where it was named. "Hey what are we going to call this big damn bridge?" "How about Big Dam Bridge?" "Oh, that's hilarious. What if we really did that?" "We are really doing that." The bridge is part of an extensive trail system, and it crosses the Arkansas River across the Murray Lock and Dam.

Here's a picture of us in the middle of the bridge. If you keep going up stream, you'll wind up in Colorado. If you head down stream, you'll wind up at the Mississippi...and then the Gulf, of course.

To be really honest with you, most of the tour was places that were important only to me. We went by the church I was baptized in (St. Mark's Episcopal, aka the 3rd important Mark of the trip after the donuts and the bus driver). It was also the place my Scout Troop was chartered. We went to my high school and Lisa's high school (a short distance apart...Lisa was on the bus with us, and it was our 24th Anniversary! Cue: awwwwwwww). We went by the first house I lived in and the second, right across from Pulaski Heights UMC, where Eva's grandparents attend.

We drove by the state capitol building, but I didn't get a photo because I was trying to navigate (some of the roads around it were closed).

We went by my elementary school/the place where I sang in a choir for the first time (that choir room is now childcare for the church services, apparently). If you've ever been to one of our Christmas concerts at Oak Grove, I can tell you that building is a big part of why they are the way they are (I can explain more some other time).

There is a critically important landmark, though: Central High School. Such an important part of the history of our nation. Note to self: if I ever come back and do this again, I need to plan to get out at the national park and spend more time here.

Little Rock is named for a curiously large rock outcropping that was used to make one end of a railroad (but now pedestrian) bridge. A bunch of us went to go see it, and here's a commemorative plaque. It was a short walk from our lunch place to the marker, but it started raining...hard...and all of us who went there got drenched.

But not everybody went there. Some people, seeing that rain was imminent, instead [smartly] stayed under cover and engaged in the new official pastime of youth ministry: line dancing.

After lunch we headed to our concert of the day, which was at the Good Shepherd Cove. It was another good concert with good fellowship to follow. 

There were a number of special folks in attendance as well. Eva's grandparents came again (I invited them to just get on the bus and finish the trip with us). My in-laws came again. Lee Rachel's aunt came.

Chuck came. He's the director of music at Lisa's church in North Little Rock (which I stupidly left off the tour). He was Lisa's church choir director growing up. I blame the downpour for the state of my hair in these pictures, by the way.

And then this happened. Brooke (my twin above) came up to me and said a teacher from my high school was in the audience and wanted to meet me. I saw him coming from across the room. Papa Stiedle!

We didn't call him that to his face. To his face, he was Mr. Stiedle. He will tell you early in his career he was an electrical engineer who designed electronics for missiles that hurt people from afar, but he decided it would be better to each math and torment people right up close. He was a wonderful teacher, but he retired after I graduated (coincidence!), and I had never been able to tell him that. Until this moment.

We said goodbye, and he disappeared. For a minute. Then he came back with the receipts. He has 3 yearbooks from my high school: his first year, his last year, and a year he came out of retirement to teach. So he delighted in showing my youth what I looked like when I was their age.

And then THIS MAN PULLED OUT A PIECE OF PAPER WITH MY GRADES ON IT. He said, "As you can see, John was a pretty good student. Maybe not top of the class, but solid." Cole was not impressed with my lack of academic acumen.

We boarded the bus to make one last stop and then headed toward Dallas. Remember when I said I had ridden with Mark through a tornado warning? Well, this wasn't that, but...

That's the rain basically covering our entire route to Dallas. It did slack off when we stopped for dinner.

And then when we got to the other side of it, it made for a fantastic sunset.

I promise the picture doesn't do it justice. It was majestic. A great backdrop to Remember the Titans, which was on the TV's on the bus.

We made another...another stop. The youth wore me down. If you want to hear a bus full of youth LOSE. THEIR. MINDS, tell them we are stopping at Bucee's. Or don't. And let them figure it out as the bus decelerates off the exit.

A quick stop, and we were on our way to the hotel, where they welcome you with your name on the TV screen. Nice touch. Back to Hampton Inn.

The youth shared so many good stories at our devotional time, revealing the impact this trip has on them in addition to those we sing for.

I taped everyone in and then got to work on the blog and such. But this image haunts me. It was a submission to our second photo contest: selfies. Mark submitted an entry. You see what I mean? He's the best. He's one of us.

It's time for me to get on the bus! I'm late. Someone's going to take a picture and give me grief about it.

Peace and love,

John