We were in Gainesville, FL the first Sunday of our trip. We attended worship service at "Southwest United Methodist Church". The service was a contemporary service so there was a lot of singing of praise and worship songs and the message given by the pastor was a very good Biblically sound message. What really impressed us was the friendliness of the parishioners. When we first walked in we were warmly greeted by 10-15 people; after sitting down more people came over to welcome us. After a number of songs were sung, the congregation were told to greet each other. They spent a good 5 minutes greeting each other and several more people came to us saying what a pleasure it was that we were there. After the service more people came to meet us and invite us to coffee and cookies in another building on the property. We talked to the pastor for a few minutes then as we headed over to the other building more people stopped to talk with us. When we were finally on the sidewalk, one of the ladies we had met earlier asked if we were going for coffee and cookies. We were meeting some people for lunch, so we had to tell her that we wanted to, but that the parishioners are so friendly we had spent the fifteen minutes we had before we needed to leave talking with different parishioners. It was a great spiritual uplifting to be with such a friendly, loving congregation.

One of the stops we made on the cruise was in Key West, FL. We asked directions at a tour booth and after a pleasant conversation with the lady in the booth as we turned to leave Ernie said "God Bless" to her. As we headed across the street Dale said "Did you hear what she said as we walked away?" Ernie had not, Dale told him that the lady suddenly realized what he had said and she said "Oh, and you too." Later we went into a store and Ernie bought a shirt. After paying for it as we were about to leave the man behind the counter said "God Bless" to us. This may not seem like much at first, but when you consider that Key West is a real party town and not a place where you expect people to react this way it was a very spiritually uplifting experience.

On the cruise we selected open seating for dinner in the dining room. We ate breakfast and dinner each day in the dining room electing to share a table with others each time. We sat at tables for 4, 6, 8, and 10. Before each meal we said a blessing for the meal. When sitting with 1 other couple they would be respectfully quiet while we prayed and on a couple of occasions we were thanked for doing the blessing. At larger tables we frequently prayed with others at the table continuing their loud conversation and maybe a couple of people being repectfully quiet. One evening a couple that were originally from India sat to Ernie's left. Ernie told the gentleman that he was going to say a Christian Blessing for the meal and he wanted to let the man know that he did not mean it as a way of disrespecting him if he was a Hindu or of some other religion. The man told Ernie that he had been born into the Hindu religion, but did not practice it. He also mentioned that he met with some Christian friends to discuss spiritual things. Ernie took Dale's hand in preparation to pray and the gentleman took Ernie's hand and his wife's hand indicating to her that she was to take the hand of the person next to her. So we ended up with all ten people holding hands around the table. Though some of the people had a look on their faces like they were trying to figure out what was going on, it was a wonderful experience to have this reaction from someone who does not consider himself a Christian.

Last updated:   may 21 2017