Flight to St. Louis

Thursday 25 February 2010 turned out to be a very special day. On this day I left Baltimore to travel to St. Louis to meet with a Baptist community which is thinking about coming into the Holy Orthodox Church.

I left home around 7:30 Thursday morning. I knew that I needed to be at the airport before 8:30 since my flight was at 9:40. I was there around 8:00. I did not expect to get there as fast as I did. Before MTA completed the double tracking of the light rail, it would take an hour to get to the airport from downtown.

When I arrived, I had no trouble checking in and going through security. They did check my shoes. When I went through the metal detector the first time, I still had my cell phone on me and that set off the alarm. But that was not a problem.

On the way to my gate, I passed a Catholic priest and we got into a conversation. He was at St. Mary Seminary and he knew the St. Mary Center in the park across the street from where I live. He told me that there will be another major celebration coming up soon. I'm looking forward to it and I hope that I can be there. I could not attend the last one because it was Sunday morning.

At my gate there were two very cute little girls playing. Nicholai is about a year and a half and Sarah is about four. They were having a great time together and their parents were enjoying it. I got into a conversation with the parents and learned that Nicholai's mother is Greek Orthodox and so I asked her the name of her parish. It turned out that she is the daughter of Fr. Christopher, a priest whom I knew from Houston who is not in Bethesda.

When we got to St. Louis, Carol met me at baggage and then we went to lunch. After that she showed me where they hope to build the new church and we also went to see Assumption Greek Orthodox Church but we were unable to get inside.

We then went to her house and waited for my host Dennis to arrive. When he did, we went to his house where he cooked dinner. He is an excellent cook.