Day 49 - Ride Like A Thriver
We got a good early start on the day, beginning to perfect our morning routine, calling out our checklist and happily not leaving things plugged in or there for us to run over.
Morning moment of prayer.
We had a beautiful unhurried morning ride on several different roads. The advantage was it was an early Sunday morning.
Texas bugs are BIG and our front window shows the proof!
We will ride into Louisiana tomorrow.
And then THIS happened…
Thankfully he was just checking to see if we had tags. (Of COURSE we do!)
We finally rode into Silsbee, Texas and found a little shop to get breakfast tacos. The owner didn't understand what a service dog was and her son finally came to investigate. This was our second experience with confused restaurant owners not knowing the law.
It’s okay we set them straight. And Jax just laying under the table quietly seemed to assure them he was legit.
And then in walked 87 year old spunky Patricia. I could tell she had just come from church. She was a regular and ordered her favorite chicken salad, insisting on her free donut on the side. Chuck ran over to pay for her and just missed the chance so we invited her over to sit with us and talk. At 87, she had no more surviving family members (they had all died) except for her step children and 9 grandkids. She told us she was her late husbands 3rd wife. “I love his former wives,” she quipped. “The first one gave me the kids and the second gave me money.”
After sharing our story with her and giving her a signed copy of our book, she shared how her mama was Cajun and never had learned how to read. Cajuns weren't allowed to go to school all those years ago. But she could cook! She still questioned to this day why she had never taught her mama how to read.
Miss Patricia just needed some time to talk. To be seen. To tell her stories. She gave Chuck lots of kisses on his cheek and had a smile from ear to ear. “This has made my day or maybe my whole month!” she exclaimed as she hugged us repeatedly.
As we walked up to the register to get a treat for dessert, she rushed up insisting on paying and shoved two twenty dollar bills into our hand.
This is how we keep being able to do this trip. With generous hearts of people being moved to donate. These are the beautiful, simple moments where we stop and give of ourselves a little. Whether it’s an elderly lonely woman in a donut shop, or meeting a man diagnosed with prostate cancer in the Walmart aisle who needs to be reminded that he serves a God who performs miracles. Those are the people (and about 10 more today is various places) that needed to hear the story of Hope.
It’s the Rita and Tina's of the RV park we pulled into without a reservation, who graciously drove me around on a golf cart to pick out the very best spot, closest to the pool, and press a bill into my hand as a donation and then discount the park fee, ending up giving us the night for free. Or the checkout lady that pulls out her little change purse and hands us a dollar bill and whatever change she can scramble as a donation while she is checking us out. Those somehow become the most meaningful, the most heartfelt, the meager offering that turns into the “widow’s mite” and becomes somehow more significant than the larger donations. It’s from their little that they give a lot.
It’s gifts from our Father through His precious children obeying His call for them to be generous; to help do His work on earth perhaps not even knowing how fruitful our assignment will be.
Heaven will be delightful when our Savior recounts to you all of what your generosity seeded and sowed into.
It was SO hot when we arrived and Howie had trouble cooling down.
Pool bound was the only way to cool down (and of course we met 2 families!)
