Everyone had we had asked up to that point said that when we got into Baltimore, Maryland, the spot to check out was the inner harbor. It only took us about 2 hours to drive from DE to MD (something I will definitely miss about the east coast) so we got there with plenty of daylight left. We found the inner harbor, FINALLY found parking, and walked down to the shore. As we walked up, the first thing we noticed was a huge set-up. There were a bunch of railings and stands and lights, then we saw why....they were doing a taping of American Ninja Warrior! Sweet! So we re-parked the van in a place where we could be for more than the next two hours, and headed back down to the show. We stood in line for quite some time and when we finally got towards the front, all of the seats were taken. They showed us where we could sit where we could still see and as seats opened up in the stands, we were welcome to move over there. We sat for an hour or two and watched the competitors, most of which didn't make it, and kinda sorta talked to this guy sitting next to us for a bit and then it was late and cold and our parking meter was going to be up, so we left.
Rewinding just a bit, when we first arrived, we met this really awesome couple named Adam & Lauren (I think). We needed our picture taken and so did they, so we swapped cameras and started talking. We shared a lot with them about our trip and they seemed intrigued. We didn't get to question them about their beliefs too much, but we did work the gospel message into our story of the trip and different aspects of it, so they heard and they seemed receptive. They were really very nice and interested to talk to us. It was just refreshing to have that since so many times (especially in Delaware) we are "shunned", so to speak.
The next morning we went to church and boy did we sit behind the wrong people! They were just super distracting the whole time. One of the teenage girls had brought her boyfriend who didn't look like he wanted to be there and she kept trying to get him to enjoy it. They made it all around difficult to focus & learn. The message didn't seem that strong either, there was a lot of skipping around and putting in ideas that weren't necessarily there.
After church we headed back down to the inner harbor only to be confronted with one of our biggest problems-parking. The only free parking we could find was valid for the next hour, after which time, you couldn't park on the street without a permit. We drove quite a distance and it was the same thing everywhere, so we ended up driving back, finding a spot, then walking around for the next hour. We came across a guy who stopped us. He said that him & his wife hadn't eaten in a couple of days and that the missions wouldn't take them. "Could you find it in your heart in God's name to maybe get us money so we can get food?" We told him that we had a bunch of food in our van if he wanted to walk back with us to get it, but he declined. Sadly enough, that happens often-hungry people decline food. I'm not saying that his motives were sinister, but it sure did seem a little weird. I like to hope the best for people, but sometimes they leave you little room.
Not too long later, we had to move the van. With a lack of parking anywhere and nothing else to do, we drove to another large city, Annapolis. Parking was difficult there, too, especially I think because of the weekend, but we kept looking. As we were driving, we noticed that there was a baseball game going on and it looked free so we stopped in and by golly it was free! I told Marc, "I'm liking the amount of baseball in my life lately." We got to watch the last few innings of Navy vs. Lafayette. In the bottom of the 9th with the score 1-1 and one man on, the batter doubled to left field, winning the game. It was pretty exciting! Leaving there, we almost immediately found a free parking spot. It was a bit off the main strip, but we are no strangers to walking so walk we did. We walked up and down those streets. Annapolis is a beautiful little town-we really only got to see the historical part of it. I'm not actually sure if there is any other part, but that part was nice. Marc stopped to talk to a teenager on a bench who wasn't too sure what he believed, he hadn't put enough thought into it-a common response. It's funny because Marc makes a great point-if we were going on vacation in a foreign place, more than likely we would do some research on that place, the language, the people, the customs, etc. Well, eternity is WAY longer than we can even fathom, but people make no thought of what it will be like there and why not? I'm reminded of this little ditty that I heard once. Satan is conversating with some of his demons, trying to come up with the best way to lead people astray. One says, "Maybe we can tell them there is no heaven or hell," but Satan responds, "no, no, that won't work. God has shown them better than that." Another says, "What if we tell them that there is no God?" Again he replies in the negative, "No, only a fool would believe that. It's obvious that there is." Some time passes and another chimes in, "Maybe we can tell them that there's no rush?" "That's it!" says the devil. "If they think they have as much time as they need, they'll live for themselves with no thought of what's to come!"
I'm sure there was probably never such an interaction, but it's a great illustration of this guy's demeanor. I shudder to think that by the time my kids are 16 that they would have never been confronted with the truth.
After that, we happened upon a street fair that was going on! What luck! That provided entertainment, but not very much opportunity. Continuing on, we came across this guy (you guessed it) sitting alone on a bench. He looked like a wanderer, a street kid (although older than "kid" age) so we sat and talked with him for quite some time. He said that deep down, he believes in God but, in not so many words, he always tries to escape Him. He seeks the truth in other places and is always brought back to the place where he finds Jesus. Internally, he realizes that God is the truth, but for whatever reason, doesn't let himself be given over. To hear that he knew God (sort of) was definitely an encouragement. It's conversations like that that especially make us feel as though God set it up for us to be there, to talk to this particular person and plant a seed in their life. Yet, even as much as he knows God, or at least of Him, he still was off in many of his ideas, one being that everyone finds their own way and there are many roads. Flat out, it's not true. There is one way to heaven and that is Jesus. True, all roads will lead you to eternity, but only one will lead you to heaven. Not liking that doesn't change it.
From there, we were blessed to cash in on movie vouchers we had! Yeah! What a nice way to relax and spend the rest of the evening.
The next couple of days we spent in the city of Bowie, Maryland. There was a huge shopping center that we got to walk around for a while and gave us a lot of opportunity. One guy we talked to used to be a Catholic but left the church as soon as he was old enough. We meet a lot of people like that and what I think it is is that the people can get so caught up in tradition, parents don't properly communicate to the kids, or maybe even understand themselves, why they're there and what it's really about. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing the Catholic church, I know there are Catholics who genuinely love the Lord (I've met some awesome ones!), all I'm saying is that there tends to be a disconnect between the head and the heart sometimes but that can be true with people of all religions I suppose. But back to this guy-he hung out for a minute but didn't really care to talk too much about religion.
Another interesting conversation that we had was with a guy outside of a Sears. Marc tried to share with him but after not too long he cut him off (politely) and just said that he didn't have a lot of time because he was on break from work and that he used to date a minister's daughter so he's heard the gospel up and down. It's good that he knows it, but its sad that he's so hardened to it.
I usually write down the people we talk to so later I can tell you fine people about them, but I wasn't so diligent this time. Ooooppsss....sorry.
After our time in Bowie, we headed out for Washington, D.C. And it was sweet! We mostly did sightseeing while we were there but we did get to stay a night with an old friend of mine from my days in UCI and his awesome girlfriend. It was a cool reconnection.
The best part of DC-everything is free! We saw a couple Smithsonians- the Museum of Natural History and the Air & Space Museum. We got to see Ford's Theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, we toured the capitol building, and got to see the Library of Congress! All for free! We didn't go to a lot of the typical things because, if you'll think back with me, we drove through DC back in late December when we drove from Jersey to Georgia. Back then, we saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the War memorials, and those things that you can see at night time.
Rewinding just a bit, when we first arrived, we met this really awesome couple named Adam & Lauren (I think). We needed our picture taken and so did they, so we swapped cameras and started talking. We shared a lot with them about our trip and they seemed intrigued. We didn't get to question them about their beliefs too much, but we did work the gospel message into our story of the trip and different aspects of it, so they heard and they seemed receptive. They were really very nice and interested to talk to us. It was just refreshing to have that since so many times (especially in Delaware) we are "shunned", so to speak.
The next morning we went to church and boy did we sit behind the wrong people! They were just super distracting the whole time. One of the teenage girls had brought her boyfriend who didn't look like he wanted to be there and she kept trying to get him to enjoy it. They made it all around difficult to focus & learn. The message didn't seem that strong either, there was a lot of skipping around and putting in ideas that weren't necessarily there.
After church we headed back down to the inner harbor only to be confronted with one of our biggest problems-parking. The only free parking we could find was valid for the next hour, after which time, you couldn't park on the street without a permit. We drove quite a distance and it was the same thing everywhere, so we ended up driving back, finding a spot, then walking around for the next hour. We came across a guy who stopped us. He said that him & his wife hadn't eaten in a couple of days and that the missions wouldn't take them. "Could you find it in your heart in God's name to maybe get us money so we can get food?" We told him that we had a bunch of food in our van if he wanted to walk back with us to get it, but he declined. Sadly enough, that happens often-hungry people decline food. I'm not saying that his motives were sinister, but it sure did seem a little weird. I like to hope the best for people, but sometimes they leave you little room.
Not too long later, we had to move the van. With a lack of parking anywhere and nothing else to do, we drove to another large city, Annapolis. Parking was difficult there, too, especially I think because of the weekend, but we kept looking. As we were driving, we noticed that there was a baseball game going on and it looked free so we stopped in and by golly it was free! I told Marc, "I'm liking the amount of baseball in my life lately." We got to watch the last few innings of Navy vs. Lafayette. In the bottom of the 9th with the score 1-1 and one man on, the batter doubled to left field, winning the game. It was pretty exciting! Leaving there, we almost immediately found a free parking spot. It was a bit off the main strip, but we are no strangers to walking so walk we did. We walked up and down those streets. Annapolis is a beautiful little town-we really only got to see the historical part of it. I'm not actually sure if there is any other part, but that part was nice. Marc stopped to talk to a teenager on a bench who wasn't too sure what he believed, he hadn't put enough thought into it-a common response. It's funny because Marc makes a great point-if we were going on vacation in a foreign place, more than likely we would do some research on that place, the language, the people, the customs, etc. Well, eternity is WAY longer than we can even fathom, but people make no thought of what it will be like there and why not? I'm reminded of this little ditty that I heard once. Satan is conversating with some of his demons, trying to come up with the best way to lead people astray. One says, "Maybe we can tell them there is no heaven or hell," but Satan responds, "no, no, that won't work. God has shown them better than that." Another says, "What if we tell them that there is no God?" Again he replies in the negative, "No, only a fool would believe that. It's obvious that there is." Some time passes and another chimes in, "Maybe we can tell them that there's no rush?" "That's it!" says the devil. "If they think they have as much time as they need, they'll live for themselves with no thought of what's to come!"
I'm sure there was probably never such an interaction, but it's a great illustration of this guy's demeanor. I shudder to think that by the time my kids are 16 that they would have never been confronted with the truth.
After that, we happened upon a street fair that was going on! What luck! That provided entertainment, but not very much opportunity. Continuing on, we came across this guy (you guessed it) sitting alone on a bench. He looked like a wanderer, a street kid (although older than "kid" age) so we sat and talked with him for quite some time. He said that deep down, he believes in God but, in not so many words, he always tries to escape Him. He seeks the truth in other places and is always brought back to the place where he finds Jesus. Internally, he realizes that God is the truth, but for whatever reason, doesn't let himself be given over. To hear that he knew God (sort of) was definitely an encouragement. It's conversations like that that especially make us feel as though God set it up for us to be there, to talk to this particular person and plant a seed in their life. Yet, even as much as he knows God, or at least of Him, he still was off in many of his ideas, one being that everyone finds their own way and there are many roads. Flat out, it's not true. There is one way to heaven and that is Jesus. True, all roads will lead you to eternity, but only one will lead you to heaven. Not liking that doesn't change it.
From there, we were blessed to cash in on movie vouchers we had! Yeah! What a nice way to relax and spend the rest of the evening.
The next couple of days we spent in the city of Bowie, Maryland. There was a huge shopping center that we got to walk around for a while and gave us a lot of opportunity. One guy we talked to used to be a Catholic but left the church as soon as he was old enough. We meet a lot of people like that and what I think it is is that the people can get so caught up in tradition, parents don't properly communicate to the kids, or maybe even understand themselves, why they're there and what it's really about. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing the Catholic church, I know there are Catholics who genuinely love the Lord (I've met some awesome ones!), all I'm saying is that there tends to be a disconnect between the head and the heart sometimes but that can be true with people of all religions I suppose. But back to this guy-he hung out for a minute but didn't really care to talk too much about religion.
Another interesting conversation that we had was with a guy outside of a Sears. Marc tried to share with him but after not too long he cut him off (politely) and just said that he didn't have a lot of time because he was on break from work and that he used to date a minister's daughter so he's heard the gospel up and down. It's good that he knows it, but its sad that he's so hardened to it.
I usually write down the people we talk to so later I can tell you fine people about them, but I wasn't so diligent this time. Ooooppsss....sorry.
After our time in Bowie, we headed out for Washington, D.C. And it was sweet! We mostly did sightseeing while we were there but we did get to stay a night with an old friend of mine from my days in UCI and his awesome girlfriend. It was a cool reconnection.
The best part of DC-everything is free! We saw a couple Smithsonians- the Museum of Natural History and the Air & Space Museum. We got to see Ford's Theater where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, we toured the capitol building, and got to see the Library of Congress! All for free! We didn't go to a lot of the typical things because, if you'll think back with me, we drove through DC back in late December when we drove from Jersey to Georgia. Back then, we saw the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the War memorials, and those things that you can see at night time.
37!
Baltimore's inner harbor
Ninja Warrior!
my Dodgers were playing at Camden Yards
and I was very tempted to go.
Hello awesome.
some interesting sights around the bay
I love baseball!
Geez, I'm not sure if that's enough time....
Chesapeake Bay in Annapolis
sweeeeet house!
And then it was DC!
Smithsonian, Museum of Natural History
the Hope Diamond
Capitol building!
Ford's Theatre, where President Lincoln was assassinated:
the box he was sitting in, I believe on the right
Washington Monument, under construction
White House!
Smithsonian, Air & Space Museum
a space capsule from one of the Apollos
The Wright Brothers
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