Each year my mom’s friend sets up a group to go to a theater in a nearby state to watch a play, then have a tour of the theater after. It is always fun.
Usually we just drive down ourselves and meet at the theater, but this year she hired a “Tour bus” (Ha ha!) to take us down.
We all met in a church parking lot to board the bus. It wasn’t there yet so we hung out for a little while in our cars.
Finally, (there should have been a drum roll) up came the BUS! It was a majestic old school bus, (emphasis on old) painted black around the sides, with the words “Old Faithful Christian Ranch” painted on the sides. The windows were decorated beautifully with window paint, showing phrases such as “Go Jesus!”, “I love you Jesus!” And “Got God?” The crowning touch though, was the back window. Inscribed in giant colorful letters was the phrase “HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS!!!” We stared at it for a while, not daring to be the first to enter. “You have got to be kidding me.” muttered someone.
Finally we all scuttled inside, hunching down in our seats so nobody could recognize us. The motor roared to life, and we were off!
My brother and I and some of our friends slunk to the back and sat there.
It is amazing how fast your embarrassment will wear off when you are on a long bus ride. Within ten minutes we were peering out the windows at the scenery to relieve the boredom that was encroaching from all sides. A few minutes later we were playing paper games. A few minutes later we were singing. A few minutes later we tried to get some cars to honk. And so it went. You get the idea. It started to get fun.
We finally arrived at the theater. At the same time as lots of normal school buses. The shame returned to some of the members of the party. They threw their hoods over their faces and scuttled inside the theater as fast as their legs could carry them, which gave the impression that they were masked blurs.
I, on the other hand, was PROUD of Jesus. I put a swing into my walk and lifted up my head as I passed through the sinners that had come on other busses. Let them scoff and scorn. They would pay in heck.
The play was amazing, the tour after wards was neat. I will not elaborate on that part, as that is not what the story is about. The play was done. Time to head back out to the infamous bus.
The ride back was even better that the one there. One of my friends had brought a huge four pound bag of Reeses Pieces, some of us had giant root beer floats, and there was candy everywhere. We responded naturally and were all hyper. Heh heh.
We decided that all jeeps were driven by aliens who could hear us. So whenever we saw a jeep we needed to alert the rest of the people in the bus without letting the aliens hear us. So if we saw a jeep we would yell “SEAGULL!!!” and duck, screaming, behind benches.
Now we wanted people to honk, so whenever we passed someone we would press our faces against the window and make fish faces and pump our arms up and down.
We made a band and sang songs really loud.
We hid under benches as we crossed the boarder so that we wouldn’t get arrested. (I don’t know why we would have gotten arrested, but we would have, I am sure.)
We told ghost stories.
We made lists.
We ate, and ate, and ate, Reeses Pieces.We did the wave up one side of the bus and down the other, and it actually looked really cool.
We did yoga.
We told jokes for about an hour.
You get the idea. We had fun!
When we finally got back to the church parking lot where we had met that morning it was ten at night. We loaded into our cars.
As we were leaving the parking lot I looked back at our Old Faithful Christian ranch bus.
It will always hold a special place in my heart, but may I never see it again.
Usually we just drive down ourselves and meet at the theater, but this year she hired a “Tour bus” (Ha ha!) to take us down.
We all met in a church parking lot to board the bus. It wasn’t there yet so we hung out for a little while in our cars.
Finally, (there should have been a drum roll) up came the BUS! It was a majestic old school bus, (emphasis on old) painted black around the sides, with the words “Old Faithful Christian Ranch” painted on the sides. The windows were decorated beautifully with window paint, showing phrases such as “Go Jesus!”, “I love you Jesus!” And “Got God?” The crowning touch though, was the back window. Inscribed in giant colorful letters was the phrase “HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS!!!” We stared at it for a while, not daring to be the first to enter. “You have got to be kidding me.” muttered someone.
Finally we all scuttled inside, hunching down in our seats so nobody could recognize us. The motor roared to life, and we were off!
My brother and I and some of our friends slunk to the back and sat there.
It is amazing how fast your embarrassment will wear off when you are on a long bus ride. Within ten minutes we were peering out the windows at the scenery to relieve the boredom that was encroaching from all sides. A few minutes later we were playing paper games. A few minutes later we were singing. A few minutes later we tried to get some cars to honk. And so it went. You get the idea. It started to get fun.
We finally arrived at the theater. At the same time as lots of normal school buses. The shame returned to some of the members of the party. They threw their hoods over their faces and scuttled inside the theater as fast as their legs could carry them, which gave the impression that they were masked blurs.
I, on the other hand, was PROUD of Jesus. I put a swing into my walk and lifted up my head as I passed through the sinners that had come on other busses. Let them scoff and scorn. They would pay in heck.
The play was amazing, the tour after wards was neat. I will not elaborate on that part, as that is not what the story is about. The play was done. Time to head back out to the infamous bus.
The ride back was even better that the one there. One of my friends had brought a huge four pound bag of Reeses Pieces, some of us had giant root beer floats, and there was candy everywhere. We responded naturally and were all hyper. Heh heh.
We decided that all jeeps were driven by aliens who could hear us. So whenever we saw a jeep we needed to alert the rest of the people in the bus without letting the aliens hear us. So if we saw a jeep we would yell “SEAGULL!!!” and duck, screaming, behind benches.
Now we wanted people to honk, so whenever we passed someone we would press our faces against the window and make fish faces and pump our arms up and down.
We made a band and sang songs really loud.
We hid under benches as we crossed the boarder so that we wouldn’t get arrested. (I don’t know why we would have gotten arrested, but we would have, I am sure.)
We told ghost stories.
We made lists.
We ate, and ate, and ate, Reeses Pieces.We did the wave up one side of the bus and down the other, and it actually looked really cool.
We did yoga.
We told jokes for about an hour.
You get the idea. We had fun!
When we finally got back to the church parking lot where we had met that morning it was ten at night. We loaded into our cars.
As we were leaving the parking lot I looked back at our Old Faithful Christian ranch bus.
It will always hold a special place in my heart, but may I never see it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment