DC for the National Day of Prayer

Mallory and I had a wonderful time in Washington DC. We went for the National Day of Prayer, but we were able to do lots of sightseeing too. We have been to all these places before, but Mal and I enjoy them so much and could go again and again.

I really liked this quote. It was especially powerful given that we were seeing it two days after the U.S. got Bin Laden.

Check out the Reflecting Pool. They are finally redoing it. It was so stagnant and gross. We heard that it will be circulating this time.

This is Mal's "I fell off the back of the Lincoln Memorial" picture
What a huge structure!
Kind of a neat picture from the Lincoln Memorial - you can see the Washington Monument and the Capitol (barely) in the background.
You may have heard that the National Christmas Tree was blown over by strong winds several months ago. Here is the new one. It needs to grow quite a bit before December. Mal was very much looking forward to the American History Museum. It was under renovation the two times she had been to DC. It was great to see the Star Spangled Banner that flew over Ft. McHenry. Martha Washington's dress. We find it fascinating to see these historic relics. Okay, maybe the Muppets are not relics.... Apolo Ohno's skates Michael Jackson's hat We went to see our congressman, Pete Olson. He welcomed us to "our" office and told Mallory to sit in "her" chair. He talked about how he works for us and called us his "bosses." He had quite a bit to say about how Houston was denied the space shuttle. He is among the congressman working to get the one designated for New York to be moved here. I am very glad he is working on that, but it seems unlikely that this administration will change their minds.
We were on our way to the House gallery to watch a vote. It was so interesting to watch the vote and get to see all the congressmen we follow in the news.
Tuesday night we had a dinner honoring Shirley Dobson for her 20 years as chairman of the National Day of Prayer.
We had a feeling that Michele Bachmann would be there. She said to us, "We have a big decision to make. Please pray for us." She is going to decide sometime in June if she is going to run for President in 2012. I really respect her and the things that she stands for.
Louie Gohmert was also there. He is the representative from the Tyler, Texas area. After the dinner he led a tour of the Capitol for us. He does an amazing job on this tour telling all about the Christian history of America. We had seen him speak on the floor of the House earlier that day about having no federal funding for abortion.
Each state gets to have two statues in the Capitol. (Texas has Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin.) California recently changed out one of theirs to add Ronald Reagan. When this statue was finished they brought Nancy Reagan in to see it. She walked around it and noted that the jacket had a slit in the back. She said, "Ronnie never wore a jacket with a slit. You will have to fix that." They did.

Louie (he does not want you to call him Congressman) told us very interesting facts about many things in the Capitol. This is the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He talked about the back and forth relationship that Thomas Jefferson and John Adams had. In this picture, he is pointing out that Jefferson's foot is awkwardly stuck out, as if he is stepping on Adams foot. It is thought that artist may have been asked by Jefferson to do that. These two men had a bet for a dollar that they would out live the other. Adams final words on his death bed were "Jefferson still lives." What he did not know was that Thomas Jefferson had died several hours earlier. These two very influential founding fathers both died on July 4, 1826.

We got to go in the chapel that is for congressmen only.

Wednesday we had a ladies prayer time. We broke up into small groups and Mrs. Dobson was in our group of five.

Joni Eareckson Tada, the Honorary Chairman for NDP, spoke to us. She has such an inspiring story!
Mrs. Dobson
We ran into Congressman Allen West in the halls of the Capitol. We talked to him about hearing him on Glenn Beck. He is a freshman congressman from Flordia who Glenn was trying to convince to run for President. He served in the military for over 20 years, and his career ended after an incident where he fired his weapon in an unauthorized way in order to protect his men. He fired it over the head of an Iraqi policeman who he believed had information about an ambush about to happen to his men. His intent was to scare him into giving up the information. It ended his career, but he said that he would do it all over again. He came to the NDP dinners, and he spoke at the National Observance. He sounded like a Baptist preacher - he was really bringing it!
We were so thankful that it stopped raining just before our turn to read the Bible at the Capitol.
We read Matthew 27-Mark 3.

The Supreme Court

There was another NDP event on Wednesday night. They prayed over the people who would be speaking at the National Observance.

Dr. Dobson is always so friendly and engaging. He espeically directed his questions to Mallory.

The National Observance was a very powerful time of worship, encouragement and prayer. We did see that Michele Bachmann and Louie Gohmert both attended. Other congressmen attended also. We saw them (they all wear lapel pins), but we did not know who they were. It was so encouraging to know that many of them do care about prayer and its role in our country. Louie was teary when Joni spoke and when Jenny Owens sang. Jenny was the guest musician who lost her sight at the age of three.

Focus on the Family invited the NDP attendees to come to a pre-release screening of the new movie Courageous. This was made by the Flywheel/Facing the Giants/Fireproof guys. Courageous was an AMAZING movie that will touch many families. It is about the role of a father in the family. It calls dads to their God given role to spiritually lead their families. It is the best movie they have done yet. It has funny parts and very serious parts. It releases on September 30 and must do well opening weekend in order to stay in theaters. Be sure to see it on opening weekend!

This picture is of the "bad" coach in Facing the Giants. He is the one who was always eating a sucker. He is a pastor at the chruch in Georgia that puts out these movies.

This is Ken Bevel- he is also a pastor at that church. He played alongside Kirk Cameron in Fireproof, and he is a main character in Courageous. During the Q/A someone asked him if he had training in acting. He laughed and said no - that he had just retired from many years in the Marines. He began to attend that church, got involved in the movies and joined the staff. He said that he wanted to do well so he went to Blockbuster and rented all the Denzel Washington movies. He wanted to learn acting from him. Halfway through the movies he felt like God was telling him to put the movies away and get down on his knees. He seemed like a professional actor in this movie. Louie Gohmert was also at this event. He we got to visit with him before the movie, and he told us some very interesting things about Congress. Ask me if you want to hear - this has taken way too long!

It was a wonderful trip, and I was so very glad to get to go with Mallory!