1 a.m.

Cassie came to visit me in Lawrence last night around 11:30. This is dangerous. Last time she came to Lawrence at midnight we ended up walking around Mass. Street and drinking coffee until 3 in the morning. Bad for people like me who have to get up and act awake at 7 a.m. Emphasize the word "act." 'Cause that's exactly what I do most mornings at work: coffee in one hand, face in the other hand. Ugh. BUT, I've decided that summer at 20 is too good of a thing to waste on sleep. Second semester of my freshman year in college I managed to stay up until 3 or 4 almost every week night and had the time of my life--so what makes now any different? I'm livin' it up.

ANYHOO, Cassie and I are a little obsessive about photography. We're nerds, but we're dealing with it. Cassie shows up from Kansas City with tripod and camera in hand. We head to some alleys downtown to do some timed exposure shots (I told you, we're nerds). Alas, Cassie's battery dies on her camera after one shot. Dangit (or famigt as Amy would say). We headed into Henry's for some Chai and Bible readin', a little dissapointed. After one cup of Chai, we just had to go get my camera (the one night it wasn't attached to my face, geez). So we made a detour to my house, picked up the camera, and were back on track. We settled back down at Henry's, discussing the Holy Spirit, the cool things God does (specifically in the lives of Cassie's friends who are on a mission in Thailand), and other general life stuff.


Then, this random guy walks up to our table, and this conversation follows:

Random Guy (RG): Are you guys reading the Bible....at 1 in the morning?

Us: Yeah.

RG: Is this something you normally do?

Me: Read the Bible, yes. Although I'm not sure how often I've done it at 1 a.m. But, really, it's good all times of day.

RG: That's just really wierd. Ya know, in a place like this. (gestures to extremely liberal coffeeshop in downtown Lawrence, KS.) I've never seen that happen here before.

Us: Oh yeah? (we were kinda taken aback, and couldn't think of any witty comments) It's just something we like to do...nothing out of the ordinary.

So, RG walked away and we kicked ourselves for not being more clever, and laughed at the whole situation. THEN, about 20 minutes later, RG returns, pulls up a chair and asks Cassie to look up a verse for him. We're like woah. He couldn't remember the exact verse but had an idea of what it said. We finally found it to be 1 Timothy 4:12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity. He told us that this verse popped in his head when he saw us sitting there. Interesting.

So we struck up a conversation with this guy (who turned from RG into Joel) and found out he used to be a believer but had fallen away for one reason or another. He continued to tell us that he hadn't meant to be rude earlier but was afraid that we might catch some serious flack by reading the Bible in a place like Henry's. Not 10 seconds later another guy walked up to our table and, I kid you not, said "Woah, is that a Bible?" Cassie and I just looked at each other, puzzled that people actually found this so wierd.

So, moral of the story is it's okay to stay up til 2:30 and drag your feet the next day if it means that you could share the Good News with a couple people and hopefully re-spark some interest in a former believer. Cool.