They're Emerging in Bismarck

See Right Sidebar for Info and Tour Dates

Doug and I pulled out of Bend, Oregon at about 10:30pm on Tuesday night, following the final show of the West Coast leg of the tour. Over the next 42 hours, we drove, slept, ate like crap, and saw the wide-open expanses of our country that make up Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

The most visually stunning part of the drive was surely on Wednesday afternoon and evening, when we skirted the western and northern boundaries of Yellowstone National Park. And I'd place the Badlands of North Dakota in second place.

On Thursday morning, somewhere in western Montana, we put "coffee" into our Garmin Nuvi GPS, and it showed us Serendipity Coffee House in Dickinson, North Dakota, 56.6 miles ahead. (When you're driving 1,800 miles, 56.6 miles does not seem very long to wait for a decent cup of coffee.)

We pulled into Dickinson around 11:30 and dragged our sorry selves into Serendipity. And there, on the counter was Thursday's issue of the Bismarck Tribune with a large headline reading, 'Emerging Ministry.' What followed was a feature article on Prairie Table Ministries, started by Lutheran pastor, Scott Frederickson.

When I showed the article to Doug, as he emerged from the bathroom, he almost fell over.

We caught up with Scott by phone later in the day, and he and Doug had a nice chat.

And I could only think, That's the most appropriately named coffee shop I've ever heard of.