Marian Days Festival

There is a festival that is held here in Carthage each August called Marian Days. There are over 40,000 Vietnamese Catholics who pilgramage to Carthage for a festival in honor of Mary.

It has been a real eye-opening experience for me as I was heading home from church on Wednesday night and had to take a detour around the festival grounds on the main road out of Carthage to our house.? It is also amazing to see so many people waiting in line at Wal-Mart–at the normally less than busy times!? I’m not very good at math, but any time you can have four or five times the people in our city, it is going to be crazyiness!

Please be in prayer for a group that were making their pilgramage here to Missouri from Houston, Texas.? The bus they were traveling in was thought to have had a blowout and tragically turned over just north of Dallas early this morning.? There are thought to be 14 dead and 40 injured in the accident.? Here are some articles at CarthagePress.com and JoplinGlobe.com and it has been on CNN and the news channels.

It makes me think of all of the trips that we take to do missions all of the time.? We (Forest Park) have a group in Brazil this week.? I also know that many people are also trying to take those last minute trips before school starts next week.? So in other words . . . Be safe.