Atlanta Vision Trip: Making memories that span 8 states!
by Bryan H.
Did you know that Igloo was founded by Eskimos that couldn’t handle the southern heat? Or that the name Kia was a misspelling from a Korean businessman trying to sell bike gears… gea… KIA! That’s just a sample of some of the fascinating trivia we learned from Pastor Jonathan as we went on our epic 2,500 mile road trip to Atlanta, Georgia!
We took off from Austin early on Friday morning and headed straight for Louisiana. After making a quick stop at H-mart Houston for lunch, we finally got to New Orleans late in the day. There, we saw the St. Louis cathedral and stopped by the famous Café du Mond for coffee and beignets. Thumbs up!
The next day, we drove the rest of the way to Atlanta. We spent the afternoon at the World of Coca-cola Museum where we sampled sodas from around the word and saw the vault housing the legendary secret formula.
On Sunday, we visited two churches in Atlanta, Passion Church and Grace Mid-town. It was really neat seeing a church very similar to us in Grace Mid-town, as they were planting churches at universities, and even recently sent out a team to plant a church in Washington DC!
In addition, we also visited the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site. The museum very powerfully outlined MLK’s life and all that he had to face during the civil rights movement. We were inspired by how God worked through MLK to head the civil rights movement, as well as how MLK clung to God to persevere through the trials and fears that he faced.
On Monday and Tuesday, we spent the day visiting the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, and Emory University. At each of the campuses we went out in pairs to do spiritual surveys and engage in spiritual conversation.
Even though we only had a brief time at each campus, it was really an exciting time meeting the students and planting the seeds of the gospel. At each of the universities, there were several encouraging stories as God brought to us many people who were spiritually hungry and curious. As we went to each of these campuses, we left feeling a great sense of the spiritual need at each university and challenged to take our role as messengers of the gospel all the more seriously.
To cap off our trip we visited the Smoky Mountains as well as quick stops in Nashville and Memphis.
Then we drove the long return trip all the way back to Austin, but not before stopping for a feast at Jin’s Barbeque in Plano!
After the trip, we’re thankful for the chance to visit and reach out to each of the campuses. We are also really thankful for all the fun times we had together. From all the stories and jokes we shared in the long car trips to all the different places we visited together, each of us returned with many memorable moments to treasure!