Virginia Show the Truth Tour, Day 2 (October 17, 2006)
Tuesday morning, jjust Ben, Hannah, Aaron, Sam, Jesse and I were able to go, because we didn’t have the van yet. The others planned to head over with the van on Wednesday and we would just swap vehicles. So, we set off late again. This time, we didn’t get lost, but we missed the stop anyway. Since we were late and they were about to pack up, we just didn’t go to it. Tuesday was an incredible rainy day; rainy and cold. Because of all the rain, we all just headed over to Grace Free Will Baptist Church (some went to a museum) and didn’t do the middle stop of the day. We had planned on going to Virginia Commonwealth University, but since it was so wet and cold, we figured most students wouldn’t stand around and talk. Upon arriving at the church, Billy Joe and the Pastor of GFQBC were debating the depravity of man. It was quite an interesting debate. Ben got into it, and I listened for a while, but eventually went over to talked to Rachel Snow some. A little later, the Pastor suggested that we pray for the remainder of the tour, so we did. We sang a couple of choruses (“Oh, How I Love Jesus” and “How Great Thou Art”) and then prayed. It was very nice. After the time of prayer, I went to the back of the sanctuary to work on my schoolwork. Ben, Hannah, and I decided shortly thereafter to go find some food for lunch, so we stopped at a Papa John’s and ordered a pizza. We went back to the church and at 3:15, we left to do an intersection stop. On this stop, I was assigned to a sign. We were right by the street, standing in the grass, and thankfully, the rain had stopped. The manager of the Friendly’s (ha—not so friendly, eh?) came out and said, “I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t want you doing it on my property.” It wasn’t his property, though; it was public property. Nonetheless, I let Ben replace me, because he is better at dealing with people than I am, and I went over to where he was standing, in front of another shopping center. Before long, a girl walked over and asked me a couple of questions and walked away. She was with 2 guys. One of them worked at the Panera Bread in the shopping center. He came up to me to tell me they might call the police. Sure enough, a couple minutes later, the manager came out and said he had spoken to his landlord and if we didn’t get off the property, he was going to call the police. Again, I was on public property, not private property. Ben came to my rescue and just let the manager know that we didn’t really care if he called the police, because they would just settle it when they got there. Within 10 minutes, a police car pulled up. The officer was nice; you could tell he was just trying to do his job. Unlike many, he wasn’t hostile or rude to us or anything, though he insisted that we get off. So, after going back and forth with him for a while, Ben and I agreed to leave where we were, and the officer agreed to talk to Mr. Green. They spoke, and then the officer made a couple of calls. About 10 or 20 minutes later, he came up to Ben and I to let us know we were right, and we could stand by the road, as there’s a right-of-way that is public property. I was thankful to the Lord for that policeman and his gentleness with us. After the stop, we went out to Golden Corral for dinner with everyone. After dinner, we headed to the home we were staying in for the night. It was a brand new, empty house, owned by a Christian in the area. He actually let us use 2 of the houses. It was very nice. We all piled into the room on the first floor and did a group devotion, which was wonderful. We read 2 Timothy 2 (I think), and just talked about preaching the gospel and getting into pointless conversations, etc. After that, we stayed up about half an hour longer, and then went to our rooms. I shared a room with Lauren and Hannah, and a girl from Wisconsin named Stephanie. She’s pretty cool. We talked until about 10:30, and went to sleep.
To see my post about Day 1, click here.
