Entry # 7, Day 24, June 21, 2003

It’s Saturday, June 21. We’re back home in Brunswick, MD, for a few days before we head off to the Creation Festival in Pennsylvania, the largest annual Christian rock festival in the world, with over 50,000 in attendance. We will have a WWJDrive booth there where we will have folks take the WWJDrive Pledge, give out bumper stickers, and talk to anyone who wants to talk. It should be interesting.

My last entry concluded with the meeting with the Mayor of Raleigh on Monday June 14. At that meeting he had invited us to speak to the City Council the next day at 1pm. (Kara and I were going to arrive in Charlottesville early and tour Montechello. Oh well, we won’t have time for that now!) We call Jim Vigen, our Raleigh contact, and let him know. We also have our communications firm alert the local media that we will have one more event before we leave town. None of the local TV stations have covered us thus far (excluding local cable news), so we’re hoping they’ll be available and interested.

As we drive up to City Hall, we see a TV crew waiting for us. They interview me before the council meeting, and then we head up to the second floor to the council meeting room. It is packed with Christian youth who have come from far and wide to assist the less fortunate in the community and are going to be recognized by the council for their efforts. The Mayor calls on me to speak first, and Kara hands packets to the clerk for all the council members. I speak for two minutes and give half of my time to Jim Vigen to speak.

And just like that we’re out the door. We change in the rest rooms and by 1:30pm we’re on the road to Charlottesville. Next stop: Vacation Bible School! From the City Council to VBS. What a trip!

I end up doing a good deal of the driving, because Kara has several calls she needs to make. Besides, I’m tired of communicating! So driving is a good activity for me at this moment.

About an hour out from Charlottesville I let Kara drive. It begins to rain. I relax and get my thoughts together for teaching the children at Belmont Baptist Church’s VBS. We arrive a little early and I make some phone calls. At one point the possibility exists that after VBS we will drive to Richmond to be interviewed, but that doesn’t materialize.

It’s still raining, but I want to show the kids the car during my presentation. I’m supposed to take 15 minutes. It will be boring without the car, so we pull it up to a side door where we can have the kids come out briefly for the “car tour.”

After a song, I’m on. I give my talk VBS-style, weaving their VBS theme into my remarks, and then we go out to see the car. It’s raining softly, but the kids don’t mind. We come back in and I say a few words in conclusion. Afterwards the Pastor, Gary Dalton, remarks: “I’m very impressed. Fifteen minutes on the nose.” A woman comes up and says she wants to ask a few questions for her own personal edification. At first I think she is a member of the church. I ask Kara to get her name, thinking she could be a future contact. I find out near the end of our conversation she’s the editorial page editor for the local paper. She says she’s personally interested, but the Publisher isn’t. So there probably won’t be an editorial. (I’m a little annoyed at how she handled this. She should have told us who she was right from the beginning.)

We thank Gary Dalton, the Pastor at Belmont, and get on the road around 7:45pm. We get some take-out and have dinner while driving. We’ve managed to avoid too many meals in the car during the Tour. However, we’re motivated to press on because we’re driving home! It’s raining and our directions are somewhat confusing. But by 11pm we pull up in front of our house and begin to unload and say hello to our animals. We’re home. We’re very thankful to the Lord, who has brought us safely thus far.