Lakeshore Community Church and the Russell Rider Vanguard Huron, Ohio Day 14 - Sunday - June 16, 2002  Back   |   Next

Lakeshore Community Church We get up at 8 AM and have a family breakfast of toast, eggs and fruit. By 9:30 we have arrived at Lakeshore Community Church, which is a part of the Southern Baptist denomination. Tim and Brian introduce me to their friends and everyone makes me feel welcome. Before the service has even begun I feel new friendships taking root. Tim pulls me aside and gives me a little care package of Earl Gray tea (my favorite!), Swiss Miss hot chocolate, spiced apple cider, coffee, and a small camping stove he knows I will need in the months ahead. At Bible study, Tim leads a guided discussion on forgiveness and freedom from the Gospel of Matthew 18:21-35. During the discussion, I cannot help but wonder, what would have happened to Othello if he could have forgiven himself? Would Desdemona have forgiven him? I think he would become a burnt out case and find a way to lose himself, and perhaps in the process rediscover something that he had lost. And I could only hope she would have forgiven him. During the service a live band sings praises to Jesus Christ. One of the singers, I later learn is Emily Cawrse, who has just graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago and is now preparing to go to the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan. After all the singing, Pastor Shawn comes before the congregation and announces for the first time that he and his family are preparing to go on a four year missionary trip to Warsaw, Poland. Though it isn't official yet, he hopes to leave in the fall, and many of his friends and church members stayed after the service to wish him well and pray with him. After the service Brian shows me around a section of the church that he helped to build. Part of the church had once been a video store. Now there was enough room for storage, adult and children study areas, as well as a day care. When I came back to the worship room, Chris brought out a cake. Apparently, when somebody asked me how old I was I told them I would be twenty-six in a couple days. Chris must have overheard this and had a cake prepared for me. The whole church sang Happy Birthday to me. For one who has grown up with a summer birthday when friends are just not around (or vice versa, when I am not around friends), to have an unexpected party is just one of greatest surprises ever! While eating cake I meet Emily's father, Dick Cawrse. He is famous in Huron for his Macaroni and Cheese. Before saying goodbye, Dick gave me an unexpected but very welcome gift he said to keep for a rainy day. I hope to someday have some of his legendary Mac and Cheese. I also meet many other great and kind people who wish me well, including another giant Marine (this one towering above me), and a man who has a brother who wanders Latin America and keeps in touch by email. I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only crazy person in this world.      After church the Russell cyclists escort me to the starting point of my day's journey The Russell Rider Vanguard After church Brian and his sons Connor and Bronson prepare to ride with me. His sons escort us to the perimeter of their neighborhood. Brian rides twenty miles with me to Castilia so that I may get to where I am going without getting lost. Sunday afternoon is warm and sunny. We ride through an agricultural district of winter wheat and newly sprouting corn. Though the wind is rough I am reminded by what John Napier once told me during lunch at the Market Place, that wind reminds him of breath of God. John is a friend of mine from the College of William and Mary and is going on to seminary school in St. Andrew, Scotland. I share this with Brian and we have our Hemingway moment on the road, beneath blue majestic skies slung with white cloud. After saying goodbye in Castialia we part ways. I finally make camp an hour before sundown at the Sandusky Whitestar Campground in Gibsonburg, Ohio.