Gospel Bus

You may have heard of Soul Train, but I bet this is the first time you've heard of the Gospel Bus. It was new to me and Travis too, but it's precisely where we found ourselves Monday Night.

After the Red Sox agreed to my sweep plan and took care of business, we found ourselves with a free Monday night, allowing us to go to Ian's Denver Broncos vs. Green Bay game. Because Ian's cousin (Greg Jennings) plays for Green Bay, about 50 of their mutual family members had flown in. Ian hired a Greyhound to get them all to the game and back and told Travis and I to join the party.

Ian's immediate family who we know well were all riding with him to the game, so we were getting on a bus with about 35-40 people who had never seen us before, and as you can imagine there was a definite skin pigmentation difference that called a little attention to that fact. There were a few stares as we waved to our new friends, but everyone seemed to accept we belonged. (Ian told me when I asked him if people would be cool with us barging in to the family bus, "You know how to make friends. There was a time when we didn't know each other wasn't there? You can make them like you." Hmmm...)

Just as we were settling in and on our way, there was an outcry for prayer. Travis stopped playing brickbreaker and closed his eyes, only to hear someone start to preach the good word...for about 20 minutes. After about 10, I think Travis opened his eyes. We kept getting faked out by, "In Jesus name Lord, we.." which in our lingo means the end is near, but in our prayer givers lingo just meant it's time to get louder and go stronger. We prayed for everything and everybody, including the bus driver and instructing him to drive safely. There was a lot of group chiming in on this prayer and some rowdy clapping at the end. I liked it, and think we should consider clapping more at our prayers. Especially at dinner....cause we're about to partake of some darned fine cooking.

After that there was some serious gospel singing and clapping and good times. I almost grabbed the mic, but decided not to embarrass anyone with my sweet musical stylings.

Another good moment was when one of the aunts got up and asked everyone to raise their hands if they wanted Broncos to win, and then to raise your hand if you wanted Green Bay. People were hesitant, but doing it, and finally she said, "You all traitors. This is family people - you shouldn't be voting one way or the other! Look at me, I'm wearing both!" Lots of "You wrong girl" and "shoot..that wasn't right" 's were thrown around. I stood by my vote for the Broncos.

We had some sweet seats and the game was great. It ended in tie (just like they prayed for on the bus), and then Favre on the first play of overtime threw a sweet hail mary like pass about 80 yds to....drum roll.... Greg Jennings, our main man who caught it and won the game. He ran over to the rowdy family section near that very end zone and jumped up for hugs and to give the game ball to his mama. It was AWESOME! Of course once dad got his hands on it he wouldn't let anyone else touch it. Cousins were asking to see it and he would hold it out at arm's length and say, "See?"

After the game we went down to the tunnel to meet up with Ian and Greg and we hot herded up to the top floor to ESPN's live broadcast where they interviewed Greg and he wore his family reunion t-shirt they were all wearing featuring him and Ian. It was pretty cool.

The bus ride home was rowdy and everyone was excited. Just a short prayer of gratitude this time. I did like one comment I heard about greg from a raspy old man who sounded like the guy from the barbershop movie who said, "Greg can do anything. He good at anything. He beat you running. He beat you at football or swimming. He beat you at chess. He good."

It was a great weekend and I'll never forget the Gospel Bus.