Day 10 -- Central High School, Little Rock

Yesterday was the final day of our trip (sorry I didn't get this posted last night, but my family took priority) and also one of our most powerful days.

We arrived at Central High School well before our 9:00 tour and our 10:00 appointment with Minnijean Brown and were met with a wonderful surprise. Another member of the Little Rock Nine walked in. So, before our tour we were able to spend a few moments talking with Terrance Roberts as well. In fact, after our tour, Minnijean suggested we join the group Terrance was leading at the memorial statues outside the State Capital building. It was a joy to be able to interact with both of them.

We then settled into a conference room where Minnnijean Brown gave us about two hours of her time. Our conversation covered a wide range of her experience from how she became one of the nine to how her personality shaped her experience to her family background that prepared her to her experience throughout the year at Central High School to encounters she has had in the 56 years following to what lessons she would have us learn still today to how this experience has shaped her spiritually. It was an honor and a privilege to talk with this passionate woman.

A common sorrow around our conversations at Little Rock was how few people today pay attention to the significant events that happened here in 1957. The ugliness of Central High School in 1957 revealed to the world the evil entrenched in the south and the complacency regarding it in the north -- much of it done in the name of Christianity. One quote I read from one of the nine was a sobering statement: "Some of the angels in chapel were the devils in the hallway." Ouch! Of the 1800 students at the school 100 of them actively abused the nine, 20 of them befriended the nine and 1680 of them were silent witnesses. I wonder how this ugly moment in our nation's history would have been different if the silent witnesses together would have risen up for what is right. Sometimes it is our silence that condemns us.

It was great to get home again. It was a wonderful ten days of learning and absorbing. Thank you again for your prayers! Now I get down to tackling my reading list (which just seems to keep growing!) and reconnecting with home and family. I'm not exactly sure how I'll maintain this blog. I'm thinking I will probably share some insights as I read and then reflect on each book as I finish it. We will see how that goes.

Day 9 - Memphis to Little Rock

National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel, encounter with Dr. Kyles, Little Rock High School National Historic Site

Wednesday...the National Civil Rights Museum was open! We arrived when the museum opened. If you aren't familiar with this location, this museum is located at the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated while he was working for the rights of the sanitation workers in Memphis. They did an excellent job walking us through the whole Civil Rights Movement from the very start through efforts continuing through today. It was a great place to pull all the pieces of our trip together and place them appropriately into one larger story. I realized how much we have learned and experienced when again and again I looked at pictures or displays and thought, "I've been there already."

God again gave us an unexpected treat as well. Our time at the museum opened with a 30 minute video entitled "The Witness" featuring Dr. Kyles. Dr. Kyles was the young pastor leading the movement in Memphis and who called Dr. King to come and help them. He was also the only individual who was on the balcony next to Dr. King when he was shot. As we were finishing our time across the street from the motel at the location where James Earl Ray took the shot we noticed someone being interviewed on the motel balcony -- a place tourists are not allowed to be. Of course, we went back across the street and confirmed our guess -- it was Dr. Kyles. We went back into the museum and took the opportunity to find Dr. Kyles and have a brief conversation with him and shake his hand. To be able to talk with these individuals who were eyewitnesses or participants in the events we are learning about is a privilege we hadn't anticipated.

I am impressed again at the power shown through humility and self-sacrifice that is evident in both the leaders and the participants of the Civil Rights Movement. I haven't had the time to draw the specific connections between our time here and the Beatitudes, but it is obvious that it will not be difficult to do. The power to change the world does not rest in guns and bombs. It is found in humility and self-sacrifice and a willingness to pray and move for justice in Jesus' name.

We arrived in Little Rock late this afternoon with enough time to go to the Central High School National Historic Site. Tomorrow we will be on the first tour through the school and then walk across the street to sit down with Minnijean Brown-Trickey -- one more participant. From there it is to the airport and home!

Day 8 -- Memphis

Today we hit our first tour snag. We woke up eager to walk to the National Civil Rights Museum at the site of the Lorraine Motel where MLK was assassinated. Before we left we pulled up the website to confirm that it opened at 9 and not 10 only to find out that the museum is closed on Tuesdays. Oops! Thankfully, we scheduled a bit of flexibility into our schedule. We will get to the museum when it opens on Wednesday morning and still make it to our last destination, Little Rock, in time to accomplish what we need to before our Thursday morning interview with Minnijean Brown-Trickey.

Our rescheduled day today started with a tour of the Burkle Home, otherwise known as SlaveHaven, which was a significant site on the Underground Railroad through Memphis helping slaves find their freedom north in Canada. Hearing the stories of that house and seeing the trapdoor and and then the tiny hole in the wall leading to the cellar room which held so many people and their dreams of freedom was a valuable way to spend the morning. By the time we were done it was hot enough that we took the trolley back to our hotel for lunch.

In the afternoon we took a chance on something we hoped would be somewhat connected to the southern experience and went to the Cotton Museum. We had no idea what we were going to get, but were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the small museum. There is no way you can honestly talk about the history of cotton here in the United States without addressing the role that slavery and then the abusive share cropping system played in harvesting that massive cash crop. Thankfully this museum didn't ignore that truth.

After a birthday dinner at B.B. King's Blues Club tonight we are soon going to turn in so we will be rested for the two big stops we have left -- The National Civil Rights Museum and then Little Rock High School.

After that there is just one more location left...home! We are getting along wonderfully in these close quarters, but we are certainly ready to see our families again. Thank you all for your prayers for our safety and for our families. We are blessed!

Day 7 -- Money, MS and Vicinity

Bryant Grocery Store, Unnamed Cemetary, Tallahatchie County Courthouse, Barn in Sumner County/ETHIC Museum, Bridge over the Black Bayou


How do I put on this blog the experience of today? Whatever I put here will not be able to capture the experience. What we saw amounted to very little. We saw an old grocery store that is so run down that you see more vines than bricks on it's roofless four walls. We stepped through an overgrown plot of land on the side of a farmer's field where a few headstones were hidden in the grass. We went in an old sheet metal barn that used to be a cotton gin. We stood on a bridge that long ago was closed to cars and looked down into the Black Bayou which drains into the Tallahatchie River. We poked through a county courthouse whose better days were long, long ago. Besides one person at the county courthouse, we were the only visitors to these sites. Yet, each of these places moved us significantly.

These places tell the story of 14-year old Emmett Till who in the summer of 1955 traveled from his home in Chicago to visit his cousins in Money, Mississippi. Not knowing the culture of the Jim Crow south, a whistle in the direction of Carolyn Bryant at Bryant Grocery store triggered a sequence of events that night that found young Emmett kidnapped, tortured, murdered and dumped in the Black Bayou. Emmett's mother insisted on an open casket back in Chicago and for the first time the nation took notice of the horror and injustice blacks were suffering in the south. That reality struck the nation again when the all white jury acquitted the two men (who later sold their story of guilt to Look Magazine for $4,000) in just 67 minutes (which included a soda break). This tragic event was the trigger for this nation to begin paying attention to the Civil Rights movement. Please add one more book to your summer reading list. Read Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case by Chris Crowe. (It isn't too long and it even has pictures.) You will be shocked and saddened as you get a serious dose of the evils which were being perpetrated in the name of racism and prejudice in our nation.

Being at these sites moved our minds and our hearts in ways that all the reading and studying of this event had tried to do. Speaking with the man whose father was one of the murder's most trusted employees and was commanded, as a black employee with no rights or authority, to dump Emmett's body in the bayou was another moving moment as we heard how that broke his father for the rest of his life. History came alive today in a powerful and painful way.

"When we pray, we move our feet"

At the base of the Edmund Pettis Bridge is a plaque with John Lewis' picture and the African proverb that he famously quoted, "When we pray, we move our feet". What a fitting place for that quote. Lewis prayed for justice in the face of segregation, but he didn't then sit back and wait for those prayers to be answered. He listened for how God intended to work through him to answer that prayer. He moved his feet in the direction of his prayer...even if that meant moving his feet straight towards Alabama State troopers with clubs and tear gas. And because he dared to move his feet in the direction of his prayer, God answered his prayer powerfully.

As I thought about that standing there I prayed through the Lord's Prayer which I recite often. I went through that prayer line by line asking myself how each line I pray should direct my feet in practical action. I invite you to spend some time either individually or as a family praying through the Lord's Prayer together too and celebrate how your feet are already moving or consider how God is asking you to move them. We need to be people who move our feet in the direction of our prayer.

Day 5 -- Selma

Civil Rights Memorial and Center (Southern Poverty Law Center), Brown Chapel, Edmund Pettis Bridge, Voting Rights National Museum


We realized last night that we have shifted into Civil Rights information overload. Our minds are full. Our legs are weary. Names and stories are getting confused in our minds. Jim even said, "I'm getting tired of reading plaques" (words that I never thought I would hear). We have read a lot and learned a lot and experienced a lot. Thankfully God gave us an unexpected blessing that raised our excitement for this endeaver again today.

We finished up our time in Montgomery with a visit to the Civil Rights Memorial and Center. While we were in the neighborhood we did also venture away from the Civil Rights and into the Civil War with a visit to the First Confederate White House which was just two blocks away. (Yesterday's visit to the Alabama State Capital also included the senate chamber where the southern states voted to secede from the Union.)

After wrapping up Montgomery we hit the road to the small city of Selma, Alabama where "Bloody Sunday" and the Selma-to-Montgomery March marked the political and emotional high point of the Civil Rights movement. We have been looking forward to this visit for a long time. Specifically, we were most eager to walk across the Edmund Pettis Bridge. This is a "bucket list" moment for people like us. If you are not familiar with this series of three marches starting with "Bloody Sunday" which arose out of the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper, please take the time to read the history of this pivotal moment here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selma_to_Montgomery_marches

It was a thrill for us historically to follow the march from the steps of Brown Chapel through the city of Selma and over the Edmund Pettis Bridge. It was even more moving as we tried to put ourselves in the shoes of John Lewis and Ralph Abernathy as they led the long line of 600 marchers. What did they say to each other when they crested the bridge and saw the local posse and state troopers waiting for them at the bottom of the hill with clubs and tear gas? What were their thoughts as they realized that they very well might be walking into another beating? What did they feel knowing that this could be the moment they are killed for what they believe in? The conviction and commitment it took for them to walk over that bridge and for 600 others to follow them is astounding. The cameras that delivered footage of "Bloody Sunday" to the nation and to the world turned the tide of history.

Walking that bridge was a significant enough experience to satisfy us for the rest of the day as we continued our drive to Jackson, Mississippi. However, on the walk back into Selma we decided to stop into the Information Center just to see what they might have to offer -- we didn't expect too much. Soon after we entered we were invited to join a tour group listening not to a movie or a park ranger or a historian but to a local woman who at age 11 was one of the 600 who marched on "Bloody Sunday" and Turnaround Tuesday and the start of the final March and whose 14 year old sister was the youngest person to complete all 51 miles of the final Selma-to-Montgomery March. To hear her story was priceless.

As an 11-year old her experience transformed quickly on "Bloody Sunday". She liked the walking and the singing and the excitement of being a part of the action. That was fun. But then came the tear gas. Then came getting knocked down and knocked out. Then came getting stained by her sister's blood before her gash was sewed up with 28 stitches. And then, two days later, both of them again walked on "Turnaround Tuesday". This time she was rightfully scared instead of blindly excited. It was the hands of her 14 year old sister who pulled her over the crest of the bridge refusing to let her give in to fear and turn around. As a result, she experienced the true joy of having the same troopers who had attacked them protect them on the third march towards Montgomery. It was a treasure to hear the story of someone who was there and humbling to hear about the courage of a child.

Blessed Conversation

We had an unexpected special treat late this afternoon -- an encounter we couldn't have designed. When we showed up for our 3:00 tour of the Dexter Avenue Church parsonage Jim and I found ourselves to be the only two guests of the church member tour guide. When she shared that she became a member of the church when Dr. King was pastor we realized that she was in Montgomery during the Bus Boycott and the Selma-to-Montgomery March and probably many other significant events. When she shared that she has lived all of her life in Montgomery we realized that she was here for ALL of the events we have read about and studied. Instead of another 18-minute video she graciously answered our questions about what it was like for her to be a young black girl in segregated Montgomery and a young black woman living through the struggles of desegregation. History came alive for us more in that casual conversation than in many other very well done museum presentations. We never did get to see the video and we are just fine with that!

(We weren't allowed to take a picture, but she liked us enough to let us sit in MLK's dining room chair around the table where not only many meals were eaten and meetings held, but the SNLC was formed. I realize that may not be too exciting for most of you, but for history geeks like us, that was a memorable moment.)

Day 4 -- Montgomery

Rosa Parks Museum, Montgomery Greyhound Station/Freedom Rider's Museum, Walk the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery March, Alabama State Capital, Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church, Dexter Avenue Parsonage


"Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted."

Before I left for this sabbatical one of you shared with me an insight you learned about this verse while you were studying the Beatitudes. Many of us wonder who Jesus is referring to when he mentions those who mourn. We assume he is talking about those who are deeply saddened. When we think of deep sadness our minds often settle on the deep sorrow we experience when someone we love dies. I don't believe Jesus here is blessing those who are heartbroken over the loss of someone they love (although he does provide that comfort and blessing in other passages). Instead, this mourning is a deep sorrow over the loss of something rather than someone. It is a deep sorrow over the brokenness of this world and the injustice all around them. And that sorrow is so deep that even though it might not be an injustice that affects them, still, they can't help but invest themselves into the righteous fight to right that wrong.

In our experiences today I was impressed with the many whites who mourned enough about the injustices being inflicted on their black brothers and sisters that they were compelled to enter into the battle when they very easily could have remained safely on the sidelines.

I heard about Viola Liuzza, a mother of 5 from Detroit, who saw the horrors of Bloody Sunday in Selma (where we will be going tomorrow) and knew that she needed to get involved. As she was transporting marchers home from Montgomery to Selma she was shot and killed by the KKK who had pulled along side of her on highway 80.

I read about Robert Graetz, the white minister of an all black Lutheran church in Montgomery who was the only white member of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) that organized the bus boycott. In accepting the call to pastor in Montgomery and following his conviction to stand along side of his black fellow pastors he was not only harassed and persecuted, but his house was bombed as well. Interestingly, today, in his retirement, he and his wife have chosen to return and make Montgomery their home. In her 80s, his wife will soon be getting her degree from Alabama State University which in the past had been a predominately black university.

I read about Clifford and Virgina Durr who together immersed themselves completely into the battle against segregation in Montgomery as a lawyer and an activist. Clifford provided bail for Rosa Parks and represented her (as well as many others) in court. Previously,Virgina befriended Rosa Parks and invited her to participate at the Highlander Retreat where she was introduced to many Civil Rights activists and was inspired and convicted. Together Clifford and Virgina offered their home to students coming from the north to join the protest.

These are just a few of the many people who were convicted to step forward recognizing that this was their battle to fight even if the injustices were no theirs to bear. (Including the many who participated anonymously by providing the funding to keep the bus boycott possible.) They could have easily idly sat by and avoided the pain and suffering that came their way. But they didn't. They mourned...they hurt...they moved...and because of them we are blessed.

I like my comfortable, privileged life. I'm sure they did too. What would move me to lay it down like they did? Today gave me a new perspective on Jesus' words in John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friend."

Day 3 -- Birmingham

Civil Rights Walk, 16th Street Baptist Church, Civil Rights Institute, Kelly Ingram Park (Gaston Hotel, Trailways Bus Station location) -- Listened to MLK's speeches: "The Address to the First Montgomery Improvement Association Mass Meeting" and "I Have a Dream"

We spent today in Birmingham, Alabama -- known as the most segregated city in the United States in the early 1960s. Here some of the most powerful and painful events of the Civil Rights Movement took place. Remember from yesterday, the initial Freedom Riders' trip was ended here after the beating they took in this city's bus station (we stopped by the street corner where that Trailways Station once stood). It is also here that some of the greatest victories took place, but at a significant cost.

We started our morning dodging the raindrops (yes, we wish we could send some of the rain to those of you wishing for it in Michigan) as we walked the Civil Rights Walk consisting of 15 historical markers placed at key points throughout the city telling the story of "Project - C" (C for Confrontation) which transformed this city. In the face of the injustice of segregation, the blacks of Birmingham confronted injustice peacefully and accepted the consequences. They walked into the public library and read until they were arrested. They gathered in the park until they were arrested. They went to City Hall to pray until they were arrested. They intended to fill the jail cells of Birmingham.

The leadership and motivation behind this crusade against segregation came from some unexpected corners. Most of the organization and motivation for this movement and for the sacrifice it took came from the church and its pastors who themselves willingly went to jail as well. Fred Shuttleworth, a pastor, was a huge force here in Birmingham and beyond. Towards the end of this crusade MLK himself marched on Palm Sunday in the face of a new edict forbidding marching on that day. It is during his 8-day stay behind bars in a Birmingham jail (we saw those bars today) that he wrote the powerful "Letters from a Birmingham Jail" which includes poignant lines such as "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" and "Justice too long delayed is justice denied". The place of the church front and center, which as been evident again and again, made me think about the place of the church community in our own lives (is it the place where we look for true direction in our daily life and motivation to transform our lives and our world) and about the message of our church (are we the mouthpiece calling out for transformative justice). What is the place and purpose of my church community in my life and in our world? Is it what it should be?

I was humbled and thrilled with the role that children played in the movement here in Birmingham. At one point through this long "Project - C" process the blacks of Birmingham were getting weary. Volunteers to march out and be jailed once again were getting more difficult to find. Money for bail was running short. It looked like the project might fail. It is then that the children stepped in. Thousands of children (mostly high school aged and some younger) took to the streets in organized marches and filled the jail cells of Birmingham. It is the children who chose to march when Police Chief Bull Conner was waiting for them with fire hoses (with 100 pounds per square inch of force) and german shepherds. If you are willing to take the time, read the story of the Birmingham Movement, especially the courage of the children, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_campaign. How young is too young to make a significant difference? Young people, don't wait to step forward for justice -- even in small ways. Sometimes we think we need to wait to until we are all grown up to be used by God. Perhaps that thinking causes us to miss the opportunities God designed for us, as children, to make a difference for Him.

Our time at 16th Street Baptist church where a bomb killed 4 young girls on a Sunday morning was sobering. These girls hadn't made the choice to put their lives the line, but their deaths brought the horror of injustice to light literally all around the world. Their deaths were a significant factor in the Civil Rights movement. You can read their story here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16th_Street_Baptist_Church_bombing

Our afternoon drive from Birmingham to Montgomery was filled with the voice of MLK as we continue to listen to him motivate and inspire. Yesterday we heard his eulogy for the girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. Today we heard his earliest speech as he addressed the organization here in Montgomery as they began their bus boycott in response to Rosa Park's arrest as well as his "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington DC. What a powerful speaker! It raises a bit of envy in this preacher!

Day 2 Anniston

Our drive from Atlanta to Birmingham with a stop in Anniston, AL was even more powerful than our morning at the MLK Historical Center. If you know nothing or very little about the Freedom Riders take a moment to read some history of this very significant, daring and powerful part of the Civil Rights Movement. (Here is the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_riders.)


Atlanta to Birmingham through Anniston was a momentous segment of the Freedom Rider's journey. The racist segregationists of Alabama were ready to welcome these rebels who threatened to confront their southern way of living. In the small town of Anniston we found the small alleyway where the Greyhound bus stopped and was immediately surrounded by 50 members of the KKK who, for the 15 minutes the police gave them, attacked the bus breaking windows and slashing tires all the while shouting threats to those on board. The wall of that alley now has a painted Greyhound bus with the question above it, "Could you get on the bus?" Could I? If I were alive then, would I have volunteered to ride...to be threatened...to be beaten? I know what I would like my answer to be. I doubt that would be the honest answer.


From that alley we drove the old Highway 202 six miles out of town where the slashed tires finally gave out. Along the side of that lonely highway the KKK members from Anniston surrounded the bus, forced the door locked and fire bombed it, intending to burn the riders to death.


The parallel Trailways bus was just an hour behind the Greyhound bus. We stopped by the location of the Anniston Trailways bus station where those riders were greeted by segregationist thugs who boarded their bus and beat them before sending them on their way to Birmingham where they where another beating was waiting for them.


Yet, through all of this, every rider from both buses wished to continue their quest through Alabama and down to New Orleans. They were not willing to give in, no matter the cost. When they couldn't continue, a new batch of riders arrived and finished it for them. A whole wave of Freedom Riders began. One moving poster I saw showed the mug shots of hundreds of Freedom Riders who were arrested in Jackson, MS in 1961 labeling them "Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement". And that is exactly what these unknown men and women were. It was powerful for both Jim and me to stand in that alleyway and along side of that highway and ultimately to walk into the Birmingham station and try to imagine both the courage and the sacrifice of those riders...all for the cause of justice and righteousness.


As I stood in that alley and where the bus was bombed I thought of Matthew 5:11-12. "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." Perhaps we could add, "when people beat you and bomb you and try to burn you alive". They willingly stood up to this horrendous evil they knew was waiting for them no matter the cost. I hope they have experience God's blessing for their sacrifice. We have.

Day 2 -- Atlanta

Our first full day on our Civil Rights journey was everything I had hoped this experience would be. It was interesting, insightful and significantly challenging to my heart and mind. Our morning was spent at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historical Center which included a tour of his birth home and the Center for Non-Violence. Our afternoon followed the journey of the Freedom Riders from Atlanta to Birmingham through Anniston, AL. I will post a separate entry for both of these opportunities.


At the MLK Historical Center I was impressed not only by the life of MLK, but also by the power of those who stood beside King as the leader of the Civil Rights Movement. It was their willingness to stand bravely beside him no mater the cost or the risk, even when it put their own lives in danger, that was absolutely key to the effectiveness of King as a national and world leader for the cause of justice. Months ago one of you sent me a TED presentation on youtube about what it takes to make an effective leader. The core of that presentation was that when someone steps out as a leader it is actually the person who steps forward to stand beside that person who gives the affirmation and credibility which transforms him or her from a radical loner to a potential powerful influencer for change. The willingness of so many people to stand beside MLK is what made him such an effective influencer for change. There are so many significant leaders in the Civil Rights movement whom most of us know little or nothing about-- Lewis, Abernathy, Bond, Bevel, Farmer, Shuttlesworth, Young, Williams. But their standing beside and working along side of MLK is key to the movement. In our car conversation Jim Vos mentioned to me that in bullying situations it is moderately effective when a potential victim dares to stand up to a bully. Yet, when one other person stands beside that potential victim, I believe Jim said that the bullying stops 98% of the time. That is the power of standing beside. It struck me that in our desire for justice we don't necessarily need to be the person who takes a radical stand. Perhaps the most effective thing we can do is stand along side of someone who has already taken that risk and stepped forward in courage. Our coming along side of that person may be what transforms them from radical loaner to a powerful leader. Who do I need to stand beside for the cause of justice? Who do you need to stand beside for the cause of justice?


One of the places that MLK was greatly influenced was around the dinner table in his home growing up. Everyone was required to be home for dinner each night and the conversation around that table was significant and life shaping. It is around that dinner table that the young children were included in civil rights conversations with their parents and grandparents. How deeply those values were engrained in the children was demonstrated when MLK was 6 years old. MLK went with his father, a very well respected pastor and community leader, to purchase a pair of shoes. When MLK Sr. was told to enter the white-owned shoe store through the back door instead of the front door which was reserved for whites only, he stormed out to the car and told his son something like, "I'll never accept that the races are not equal." At 6 years old MLK Jr. responded with, "Daddy, I'll help you if I can." That commitment which was modeled at home and taught around the dinner table was rock solid at 6 years old. It made me wonder about dinner tables in our culture today. Is anything being taught there? Is the family even together? If not, when is it that we as parents are having those significant, life-shaping conversations? That is a time that we can't lose.


There were so many insightful quotes from MLK Jr. that it is impossible for me to choose one to write. As we are traveling from city to city we are listening to many of his key speeches on CD and hearing so many more profound insights. It would be wise of me to gather many of those quotes in one place...a future project.


Trivia question from the morning...something I never knew. Martin Luther King Jr. was not the name given to him at his birth (so the parallel to the reformer Martin Luther is simply coincidence). At the deathbed request of MLK's grandfather, both Martin Luther Sr. and Jr. changed their first names to Martin when MLK was a child. Does anyone know what his given first name was instead of Martin?

In the Air Again...

36 hours...that is how much time I got to enjoy at home after being out of the country for 4+ weeks. It was a great time studying in Israel and then enjoying Switzerland with my family (and avoiding the serious heat that many of you "enjoyed" in Michigan). It was really good to reconnect with my family again. (I've got a new respect for those of you who travel regularly for business...it isn't easy being gone!)

This morning I got on the plane again, this time with Jim Vos, and found myself in Atlanta by the afternoon. We arrived early enough to spend some time at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Site where we spent time at the Ebenezer Baptist Church and at Freedom Hall where Dr. and Mrs. King are buried. After those visits it was 6:00 and the park was closing for the evening. We will be back first thing in the morning to absorb more of this park including King's birth home and the Center for Non-Violence before we head to Birmingham.

In just the brief time we have had here we have already been challenged to consider how committed we are to the cause of justice and what we are willing to give for that cause. I'm sure that is a question we will be forced to consider often during this week.

Our hotel tonight doesn't have wireless so this post will probably have to wait to go public until sometime tomorrow (Wednesday). I'm looking forward to posting my thoughts over the next 9 days!