June 4, Flagstaff, AZ

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We left early from our motel in Santa Fe to try and make up time. We are hoping that if we can make up time, we can go through L.A. on Sunday which would likely be the best traffic day of the week. Also, we need more time to go up the Pacific coast. Traveled through Albuquerque and on to Gallup where we were supposed to have spent the night last night. We stopped at a grocery store and bought some cut-up fruit with the idea of going to a park and having fruit for lunch. When we were exitting the grocery store, we noticed a patio table and chairs that was for sale and chained to a post by the front door. So, like the country folk we are, we just sat down and made a spectacle of ourselves as people were walking in and out of the grocery store.

We noticed a sudden change after leaving Gallup and moving into Arizona. The landscape was even more desert-like with huge red rock cliffs and caves. We arrived at Flagstaff and tried to find a US Bank. There wasn't one so we went to another bank to get a cash advance off the credit card. When they tried, it declined because I had requested more than the credit card company would allow. The bank would not re-submit a request since they are limited by their policy to only do one such transition in a day. So I had to run down the street to another bank (it was almost closing time) and try again. This time it declined because security put a hold on the card. I called the credit card company and they reset my security so I went to a THIRD bank and was able to get some cash. My brilliant reasoning told me that since there are US Banks all over North Dakota as well as all across the country, there would be some there. Not so.

Our text today is from II Chronicles 36:14-21 which is about the Israelite people being taken into exile. The priests and the leaders mocked and rejected the message of the prophets who had come to warn them to repent and save themselves from the fate. Since they rejected the message, God delivered them into the hands of their enemies, the Chaldeans. The men were slain by the sword and the rest, which was mostly women and children, were taken to Babylon.

Today as I was going from bank to bank seeking out a solution so I would have some ready cash in my wallet, I had a little bit of a feeling of what it might be to be a stranger in a strange land with no resources. Certainly I did not face the kind of loss they did, but I did have some moments of desperation with little recourse for finding cash. Thankfully, my desperation was shortlived and all turned out well in the end. Not so for Israel who remained in captivity for 70 years and lost their culture and loved ones.

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