Great weekends, behind and ahead

Each weekend of our EMC tour has been so enjoyable for me, and I trust for our participants as well. In Chicago last weekend, we were hosted by First United Church in Oak Park – Mamie Broadhurst and her team of volunteers couldn’t have been more hospitable. The Chicago cohorts welcomed us as well – what great people! (And they have a good review of the weekend with links to blogs of some attenders and a local newspaper article.)
Tracy Howe, our lead musician, was really sick, but she came on Saturday and did a beautiful job in spite of feeling sub-par. She was joined by Tim and Laurie Thornton of the Blackthorn Project – Laurie led for us on Friday night in Tracy’s absence. Beautiful music!
I was honored by the presence of Mary Nelson – a veteran of faith and justice activism for decades, and a leader in CCDA, one of the most important (imo) Christian organizations in the country. Mary and I were arrested together once, but that’s another story.
I got home late Saturday night and early Sunday was down in DC to watch my oldest, Rachel, running a ten mile race under the Cherry Blossoms. So much fun – even though it was cold and rainy. Grace and I are proud parents … blessed to have four extraordinary adult kids.
Today Grace and I leave for Chicago, where we’ll be part of the Shift conference for youth workers. Then we fly on to Seattle, where I’ll speak at Mars Hill Graduate School on Friday and then lead our EMC event Friday night and Saturday.

After Seattle, we only have Kansas City, New York, and Goshen Indiana left in our tour … I hope to see you in one of our remaining four cities!