married lives, Ross and I shared communion.For those of you who don’t know, Ross is a member of the Missouri Synod Lutheran church. I am a member of the United Methodist church. For the most part –
although there are those in both faiths who would staunchly deny it – the faiths are similar. There are, however, some important sticking points. One such sticking point is the topic of open and/or closed communion. Traditionally, the bulletins of MS Lutheran churches have a little note in them that explains communion is closed to those who are not members of the MS Lutheran community. At this church, however, the note was a little different. At this church, the note listed the beliefs a person must have to take communion. If you as a member of worship agree with those beliefs, you were welcome to take communion. And so, I went. And so, I will always remember Immanuel MS Lutheran fondly.
As always, we were warmly greeted by the members of the church and practically escorted from the parking lot to the pew by friendly, smiling faces and people who were interested in who we were and what we were about. Several of them had friends or relatives in and around the
Winfield area.Because the church is located across the street from the University of Kansas campus, we were expecting a service that was college student friendly and young at heart. We were not disappointed and were also introduced to another novel aspect of this particular MS Lutheran church.
They had a vicar. Because it is important for a person serving in a vicarage to have opportunities to preach from the pulpit, we heard from Vicar Will Main – a nice young man with a million dollar smile who also was serving in mission at Haskell Indian Nation University just down the road.Vicar Will was from the Dakata Sioux tribe. He was nervous, forgot to close the gospel reading and got lost in the middle of his sermon. But his Pentecost message was spot on as he spoke of the uncomfortable aspects of change. He spoke about the trappings of success – how continuing to do something the same way because it has worked in the past can
lead to problems. He spoke about how during Pentecost, God used change to step out of a successful comfort zone and spread Christianity to a world that was not familiar with the Jewish tradition. And he ended the service with words spoken in his native Sioux language.When the service was over, we hopped in the car receiving the well wishes of many of the same people who led us into the service and headed back to the hotel
to change, pack the car and head downtown to meet up with Brenda’s cousin Phyllis and her husband Jim. Jim is a retired Lawrence fire fighter who is turning 80 this year, but who doesn’t look a day over 72. (Jim, you can pay me later.)We met them in downtown Lawrence and had brunch at Tellers. We ate there because Isaac was fascinated with the idea of a restaurant that used to be a bank. Immediately upon arrival he said that he had to use the restroom – which he knew was located in the bank’s safe. The food, however, wasn’t near as good as the conversation around the table. Still, we enjoyed the meal and the fellowship and received several tips from Jim and Phyllis who are great travelers in their own right.
After promising to come to their house when we were finished “seeing the town,” we headed into the heart of the KU campus to wander through the Museum of Natural
History. On a tip from Phyllis, we also saw a stick house that had been created outside of the museum by artist in residence Patrick Dougherty. Patrick creates his work from saplings found from local sources and uses them to create massive sculptures sometimes as high as 40 feet. He created this one as part of an ongoing University project called “Trees and Other 
Ramifications: Branches in Nature and Culture.”And then we turned our attention to the four stories of dusty looking specimens from all over the world stuffed and stuck behind glass for us to view at our leisure. The best part of this free museum was BugTown – located on the
first floor of the exhibit area – and the large replica of an HIV virus.In the former, we walked past cages of creepy water beetles, hissing cockroaches and huge poisonous crickets. We easily spent about 1/3 of our time at the museum in this room alone. It was pretty cool.
It was too early for the bees to take up residence in the bee tree at the top of the museum. So, after wandering all the way through the rest of the exhibits, we headed back out and off the campus to see Jim & Phyllis again. We spent the better part of the early evening chatting with them in their family room and having a great time discussing trip memories and getting more tips of things to see and places to go. Phyllis served the boys a slice of gingerbread and cool whip which they ate with gusto. Thanks Jim and Phyllis for a very nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon and evening.
When we left, we turned back to I-70 and then south to check in to our hotel in Emporia for the night. After a quick dip in a crowded pool, we went back to the room to bed. We needed lots of shut-eye for our big day on the prairie tomorrow!
