Nathan and I met at the airport at approximately 10:00 PM after I had spoken at Young Life and he had worked through many of his wedding details with his fiancee, Megan.  We were able to get a last minute, late night, bite-to-eat before our flight took off at 11:50 PM.  The all night flight took us to our 2 hour layover in Dallas.  

As I had mentioned in a prior post, I had been sick over the weekend (food poisoning) and my sleep patterns were off.  For some reason I had only gotten about 90 minutes sleep on Sunday night, and here I was up all night on the plane to Dallas.  As we arrived in Dallas I thought I’d find a nice soft floor to sleep on… hmmm, couldn’t find one of those, but I did try to catch some zzz’s.  Nope!

While in Hawaii I sent approximately 15 emails to churches in eastern TX along the Gulf Coast.  NOT ONE had emailed back, so we literally were an hour flight, and three hour drive (from San Antonio to the Gulf) away from scouting and had ZERO contacts.  Fun times.  However, while in Dallas, and not sleeping, I googled (yes, it is a verb now) TX/LA maps and found a small town, Vinton, Louisiana which fit my rural town profile (under 3k in population).  I was not able to do much more than google, “Vinton, LA churches” and it was time to board our flight.

Schlaud slept.

I didn’t.

We got the rental (a sporty Toyota Yaris) and off across I-10 we trekked. 

When were were driving through Beaumont TX I decided it was time to look at the webpage I had left open on my mac.  Nathan opened it up and we called the first church listed, Crossroads Baptist Church of Vinton.  Here’s the conversation:

Lady: Crossroads Baptist!

Me: Hi, my name is Brian, I was wondering if you have a youth ministry leader available?

Lady: Yes, we do, her name is Michelle, I’ll connect you with her

Michelle: This is Michelle

Me: Hi Michelle, my name is Brian… do you have a minute?

Michelle: (and with the most classic pause, ever)… ummm…. yeah? 

Me: (quickly) No worries, this isn’t a sales call, I promise…

With that I explained 30 seconds or so who I was, what Youthmark does and wondered if she might be able to meet in an hour.  Somewhat reluctantly she decided to let us know “someone would be at the church who might be able to help us with some contacts.”  

On that note, we decided to go for, nothing else to lose (and with me dreaming of a good night sleep, just around the corner)… so we drove to Vinton…

The Gulf Part Two coming later…

Grace,
Brian