Quist World Tour

Usually we spend Easter morning celebrating the resurrection of our Savior after keeping watch during the long, somber, but hopeful season of Lent. Easter Sunday also means gathering with one or the other of our extended families to enjoy the gift together. Let’s just say this Easter was a little different. Prestonwood Baptist Church was a growing presence in North Dallas in the 80s; by the time I graduated from high school they were in a new, bigger, mega-church building nearby. Fast forward a few decades, and there are now 3 different, huge campuses that are all part of the same church. We went to the main campus in Plano, which seats 7,000 people, for the third service (11:00). The only other service today would follow ours, and it is in Spanish. The overflow of the crowd sat in the chapel nearby and watched on a screen. This is not unheard of for the Prestonwood community, since the other two enormous campuses watch church on the big screen every week! Pastor Jack Graham is simu...

This morning we went down to the lobby of our hotel for breakfast. This is a nice hotel, but the area seemed a little sketchy. I was a tad concerned about leaving my van in the parking lot all night, but we had emptied it out completely, and all was well. This may or may not have had something to do with the fact that a police car was parked near it all night. We got in line at the breakfast buffet, Andrew at the lead with me 4 or 5 people behind. He had some trouble with the wafflemaker, and I looked up to see a man helping him with it. Then I did a double take—this guy looked familiar. Very familiar. I said, “Jimmy?” He looked up and said “Hey Kristy!” Then he realized the guy he was helping was Andrew, who has changed enough in the last 6 months to make him almost unrecognizable. Jimmy is married to Ingrid, one of my college roommates and still a caring friend. He and Ingrid and their four children were on their way to Florida from GR in sort of a roundabout way, and they’...

On the road again, this time driving to Dallas with my three kids, friend Jodi from church, and her 3 kids, all in my minivan. You may think it’s crazy, but it seems like my children spend less time irritating each other in the car if other people are around. So far it seems to be true. I’m going to Dallas to revisit my adolescence, since I lived there during my middle and high school years. More on that later. Jodi and her kids are going to visit her sister, who moved to the area with her husband and children last year. Today we drove from Grand Rapids to West Memphis, Ark., where we took refuge at a Comfort Suites. It was a long day of driving, but the adults-in-training (ages 2-15) handled it with aplomb. Everyone got along well and stayed happily glued to whatever electronic entertainment they could get their hands on. Jodi got them to look up briefly to make note of the Mississippi River as we drove over it. Travelling with a 2-year-old made me realize again how much t...