12.01.2008

Back with tales of adventure...

Car crashes... foreigners astray in nightmarish locations... buildings bursting into flames... Sound like tales of adventure? That is how our weekend went at Carleton Baptist Church.

Like every other time we are about to leave for a trip, we stop and pray as a family. This time, however, we are not sure that we prayed correctly.

Our destination was 183 Topaz Lane in Ottawa, Canada. As we neared the pastor's house, I called him and told him we would be there shortly. He disagreed! He told us there were two 183 Topaz Lanes in Ottawa and we were heading to the other. He told us he would call back in a minute with directions. As I anxiously awaited his call, I watched in horror as those little signal bars on my phone slowly disappeared... we had reached the boonies. We found a place I thought only existed in nightmares...a place with no cell signal.

When I finally got a signal an hour later the pastor kindly explained that we were hours away from his church. Interestingly Michael was the keynote speaker for their Christmas Banquet, which to our dismay was beginning shortly.

On we pressed...We ended up being late, but arriving in time for Michael to speak. He spoke of the characteristics of a great gift and how Christ’s gift on the cross embodies them all. He taught that we judge a great gift by the price paid, the person who gave it, the pleasure it brings, and its permanence.

On Sunday we kicked off with a bang... a bang right into the pastor’s daughter’s car! The collision resulted with many dented and broken things on the ground that were once attached to the cars. Nothing gets you more ready to preach in the morning than a fender-bender, so Michael was a little distracted - but the response was great!

Through the entire ordeal the pastor could not have been more gracious. He not once made us feel badly about getting lost, ruining the side of his daughter’s car, or catching his church on fire. Despite the adventure, the weekend really was delightful and we were able to reconnect with lots of friends.

(Just kidding about the fire, by the way.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow
~orange girl

Janice said...

I just figured I would leave a note... the previous post's comment gala will be a hard # to beat... figured I would help this one along!

Very glad to hear the fire was just for sensationalism! That would have been terrible! The crashing into a poor young girls car... not so bad! :)

Love you guys!

So decide on a boys name yet?!

Anonymous said...

I had heard the boys name was going to be Vyacheslav...

Michael & Erika Barone said...

Nelly - I would rather orphan my child than name him any such thing!

Victoria said...

I need to pray more for you guys!

Glad you're safe:)

Anonymous said...

I heard it was going to be either Peter or Slava...
~orange girl