February 22, 1998

INVITATION

It was a little after 8:00 a.m. when I had the bike packed up and was on the road heading north on U.S. 1 towards Washington, D.C. The temperature was cool in the forties. About a mile down the road, I got stopped by a lady who wanted to know what I was doing and invited me to worship at her church in Hampstead, VA. The church would have been a little bit out of my way but I wasn't sure that I wanted to attend another Baptist church after meeting two "pass-off" ministers who were Baptist last Wednesday. After a few minutes, I was persuaded to go.

I arrived at the Victory Baptist church about a half hour before the Sunday school started. I was able to meet with Pastor Beer. He asked me to talk to the high school kids instead of attending a regular class. The class was okay but there were just five kids. I spent pretty well the whole time talking and sharing with the group. There were quite a few questions. Afterwards, one boy slipped me four dollars and the teacher slipped me eight dollars. Also, I was able to pack up some Hostess fruit pies that came in with some day-old bread that the church distributed.

During the service, the pastor had me sit up on the first pew with him. Before his sermon, I was asked to speak for about fifteen minutes giving a short testimony and explaining what I'm doing on the road. During the sermon, Pastor Beer kept on referring back to me. In all, there must have been at least twenty referrals.

Before the last prayer, I was asked to stand in front of the congregation with three guys who were getting ready to go on a mission trip to Russia in April. When the prayer was finished and the service ended, a lot of people to give me hugs, shake my hand while slipping me some money. In total, I was given one hundred twenty-five dollars in donations. It was around 12:30 p.m. when I finally left the church and got back on the road.