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| West Virginia farm near Ohio border. |
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| Ohio River crosiing from West VA into Ohio |
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| Family 2 from Xenia, OH |
On the road from Dayton yesterday, I saw a theme begin to develop. A Dedicated Services truck rolled in front of us with the slogan,"We are dedicated to Your Success." This was preceded by several tshirts with similar catchy sayings about hard work beating talent when talent does not go to work and another one saying, "Be 100% IN."
I missed the photo ops on these great slogans. Sorry. I was 100% in the moment and not on my camera phone. But I did manage to get "Enjoy the Little Things."
Which brought a giggle. Because I took a photo in West VA just over the Virginia line of a stall door that pulled OUTWARDS not inwards. Larger people appreciate that little thing. It is a huge thing. I was not going to post this stall door and the little amusement I got from that little thing until I saw that t-shirt. Thank JC Penney for the laugh. Ha!
Yesterday we saw God help several women know they are loved, beautiful and valued with makeovers. This re-emphasized God is dedicated to our success and His children are worth it. When Lesa told a story about when she was younger and broke as a single mom, she did not buy makeup. She could not afford to. This eventually lead to the mindset that she was not worth the investment, even when she could buy it. This story resonated with everyone present.
God is dedicated to our success and wants His people to put their best foot forward. If that means dressing for success in nicer clothes when going for a professional change, or putting on makeup in a professional manner, getting a new hair style, or getting the eyebrows waxed, the nails done or using moisturizer, then so be it. Budget it in. You are worth it. If God is dedicated to your success, you should be dedicated to your success, too.
I think I am inspired to buy a new wardrobe now ( but please do not share this with my husband. LOL. I am telling my Daddy God about it. No pressure, babe).
Then we met a couple who fosters companion service dogs for children. This couple, who are college students, have socialized more than 10 dogs so far and are willing to do it again even though they have to give the dogs away after bonding with each one.
I encouraged them to continue to give their hearts to others through their dedication to dog socialization for the service of other people,who are mostly children.
It was getting late in the day and we had every intention to get to Bloomington before night time. We hit the road.
Indiana just over the Ohio line
We passed many exits where we could eat lunch but no one was hungry or nothing sounded right. At one exit it looked promising but I felt like the next exit is where we should pull off. We left the freeway at exit 123 onto Route 3. We got gas there. I asked the attendant where is the best place to eat. He said to ask the man right behind me. He was the manager of a steakhouse. The man said, "I am going to the steakhouse across the street, its the best place around, meet me over there." So we did.
Montgomery Steakhouse is HUGE. And it is in the middle of nowhere between White Castle and somewhere else in a place called Spiceland. They have large named bands come out in outdoor venues, Biker Night, and host carnivals and other fundraisers for PTA and community groups. Like them on Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/montgomeryssteakhouse
Our waitress was Jane. Her name means graciousness. When she found out who were were, she came over to our table and asked for prayer. Her jaw set like flint, her eyes stern and sad and fighting back tears, she told us her son, who was covered head to toe in tattoos, had spent his tax refund check on Bibles to distribute to those who need them. And her co-worker spit in his face. He was letting it go, but Jane was having a hard time with it.
We encouraged her to show grace to her coworker who did not deserve grace, and not to be bitter or resentful. We spoke that God was not disappointed in her, and that He loves her right where she is, and that he is not mad at her no matter what she feels she thinks she should or shouldn't be doing.
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| Lesa and Jane from Montgomery Steakhouse. |
Please keep Jane's son, Steve, in your prayers.
And remember Jane, too.
We tipped her $100. She cried, "It is too much." "No YOU ARE WORTH IT ," we all said in chorus. There again, God is dedicated to Jane's success and her "being completely loved by Him status." And Jane needs a new phone. So now, I suppose she can get herself one.
We got back on the road after a couple of hours at Montgomery Steakhouse. We loved it there because we saw the tremendous vision of the owners and felt like The Circuit had similar purpose, only we also had a spiritual factor. God opened a HUGE door for us to bless and even paved the way for us to go there to bless his favorite daughter, Jane.
We played the alphabet game and got stuck on Q. All four of us.
After a couple of hours, we found a Starbucks on the road we were on. We had been inspired to find one earlier but they were all too far away. It was the first one we saw. We suspended the game and went inside. We blessed the servers there and I told the whole store,"GOD LOVES YOU!" on the way out.
We finally got to Bloomington, IN. We intended to get there before it got this late. Once again, God had other plans. Debbie Mitchell met us at our hotel which was located at 310 W College Street in downtown Bloomington. It was threatening rain but we wanted to go explore anyway. We got caught in the rain and it POURED! I do not remember the last time I played in the rain. There was lightening and thunderstorm and it was close so we wanted to go back to the hotel. We ran from awning to awning and doorway to doorway. We passed a homeless woman with a dog holding a sign. She was sitting in front of a bar with derelict looking man next to her. He was muttering and it freaked out Hayley a bit. We needed to get out of the lightening storm and hurried on. Then a man named Mike joined us along the sidewalk and talked to us much like Connie talks to everyone.
We dashed under a triangular overhang over the Firestone corner lot to wait it out a while. He was an amateur comedian and social network promoter with a girlfriend in Iowa who called him while we were speaking. When he found out we were doing random acts of kindness around the country, he wanted to join us. I thought this meant he wanted to follow us around the city but he opened up his leather wallet and pulled out $8.00. It was all he had. He demonstrated a random act of kindness to us while we were doing random acts of kindnesses.
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| Mike's random act of kindness. $8.00 cash for us to give away in a random act of kindness. |
We all went back to the room later and chatted while Connie watched the races from her handheld device. This morning we woke up and packed up and went to church together to a place called City Church for All nations. They had a greeter on the street, at the driveway, a greeter at the front door, a greeter in the foyer, and another one at the sanctuary door. We were warmly welcomed once inside by some of the regulars and the praise music began to play just as we came in.
The woman senior pastor, Sunny, taught from God's Word.
I loved the praise and worship time the most.
Then we went back to downtown Bloomington for lunch to FARM, a trendy restaurant that was amazing in every way.
The we went to Walmart (WHERE ELSE??) and bought school supplies for Debbie's grandchildren.
We prayed in the parking lot and said our see-ya-laters. I wanted to stuff her in the trunk but that would have looked bad. It would not have been to good for Debbie in there, either. We know she wants to be out here with us. And She is in our hearts. Then she called a couple times after that. :-)
ONWARD TO SAINT LOUIS! More later.
Love ya
Carol
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| Somewhere on Rt 70 in Illinois on way to St. Louis, MO |
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| Flat lands and big sky Rt 70 Illinois. |
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