On the weekend of May 4th, we drove through to St Paul, MN to visit our good friends, the McCoys. We hadn't seen Seth and Jen and the kids since they'd moved there from Chicago, over a year ago, so we were really excited to spend time with them. Seth is the Emerging Generation Director (high school and college age kids) at Woodland Hills Church, and he invited Eric to speak at their service on Sunday evening. So not only was this an opportunity to hang out with friends, but it was like old times when Eric and Seth worked together in student ministry out in the Chicago 'burbs. In some ways, I think Eric felt he'd come full circle - to be able to work with Seth in this capacity, but this time around to have the freedom to really share from his heart and convictions. As we all know, the last time he did that we ended up moving to the city! He spoke on church history from a Mennonite perspective, and then spoke about our experiences of community and the church at Living Water and in our neighborhood. There was time for Q&A and it was a very interactive evening, with many of the students coming up to Eric afterwards feeling quite impacted. We'd prepared a little slideshow and one image showed a Google map with our city block - there was quite a bit of surprise when they were told that as many as 35-40 people from church were pretty much our immediate neighbors! And many more people live within a 3-4 block radius. I guess it's not something you come across every day.
What else did we do that weekend? Well, we drove around St Paul and Minneapolis, to get a feel for the Twin Cities; had lunch in a cool Global Market spot; almost test drove a Toyota Prius; grocery shopped for ingredients for a delicious bean soup, which we ate while watching Lost, attended Woodland Hills morning service (Greg Boyd's message was hard-hitting and awesome); and hung out with some of the students and leaders after the evening service, around a bonfire.
Alas, Monday morning it was time to leave, so after a delicious brunch in the charming French Meadow Bakery & Cafe, we hopped in our rental car and sped off home to Chicago. Sped being the operative word.... :( Unfortunately, I was happily driving along (Eric was taking a nap) when a cop pulled me over. He told us he'd been trailing me for 4 miles (yep, that's me, can't tell the difference between a BMW and a Toyota Camry, so how am I supposed to recognize an unmarked patrol car?) and that I had been driving an average of 87 miles per hour (22 miles over the posted 65). Ouch. He hit me for the full amount, and gave me a hefty fine. Where's a trunk monkey when you need one?
Ah well - despite the unfortunate incident on the way home, all in all we had a great weekend!
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