Easter in Alabama

Stopped at a campground in Montgomery on Saturday and, as is our custom, looked up churches in the area that had worship services and Sunday School. We saw that First Baptist of Montgomery was only about 1.5 miles away. Their website said that they had a service at 8:30am and 11:00am with a Sunday School in between.

Sunday morning was very foggy. I plugged in our GPS, looked up places to worship, saw that First Baptist was indeed about 1.5 miles away. We decided to go to the early service so we would could park the RV before the traffic arrived. It only took a few minutes and the GPS told us to take a left on 2nd Street. We found ourselves going down a narrow road in a residential area. The next thing we know, we passed a church on our left and found ourselves in a cul de sac! We couldn't turn around but there was a paved driveway to nowhere that we could park in. The parking lot of the church was already full. This sure didn't look like the church I saw on the web but we were here and we couldn't get out soooo....this is where we were going to spend Easter. This church was the First Baptist Church of Greater Washington and was an all black church.

During our time in Mississippi and Alabama, we have noticed there is still a little racial tension and so we wondered how we would be received.....well, it was wonderful! Everyone was dressed in their Easter best and the kids were styling! They had about 50 children do a story and some singing and then there was a wonderful service with great singing and an enthusiastic sermon!

The funny thing for us was that when we first arrived we felt like we were in the minority....because of color. We never feel we are in a minority because of size! That's the conditioning of our society and you know what?.... we've got to stop that nonsense! We're ALL different....sizes, shapes, colors, likes, dislikes, talents and temperament. You'd think after thousands of years of living on the same planet, we'd get over it. Easy to say....tough to overcome all those years of conditioning!

Lord, help us to remember your two commandments....Thou shall love & Thou shall love...in spite of our difference and because of our similarities.