plains, ga

ok, so my sunday school had its annual breakfast social over the weekend.....and the speakers were 2 of our own....clara and kay....who recently made a dizzying 48 hour journey to plains, ga and back.......top attend jimmy carter's sunday school class........i am jealous, obviously.....that i had neither thought of this sooner, or made the trip earlier......but we are now considering a group excursion in january....the month described by miss jane as the least attended month....miss jane being amy carter's 4th grade teacher who manages the sunday school crowd just like a teacher would manage a throng of 9 year-olds.......the visitors arrive and go through security at 8:30 am...long before the 10:00 starting time........and there are the do's and don't's......to be gone over.....and who sits where.......the roped off sections are for actual members of maranantha baptist church........the history of plains, the carter national historic site......and the church itself are detailed before jimmy ever comes over from home to teach.......jimmy carter is the only president to be a sunday school teacher, before during or after the presidency........and though he grew up in plains....maranatha baptist ws not his home church......sometime during his presidency a black family moved to plains.....the daddy was a baptist scholar of some sort....and when they applied for membership in 1st baptist...carter's home church...they were refused membership.......and 29 of the 100 members of record walked out of 1st baptist....and formed maranantha....who name is aramaic for welcome, god....or something like that.........when the carters moved back home after the inuagurals.......and sunday came...the story goes that roslyn sat up in bed and asked jimmy......ok, so where do we go to church this morning?......and they went to maranantha........and jimmy carter, nobel laureate, teaches sunday school to all-comers on any sunday when he is in town........the lesson on that particular sunday was on the last chapter in luke.......both clara and kay had their pictures amde with jimmy.....fyi- for those who will quickly understand these things.......madame gibson was also along.....and she was quite disappointed that she was not allowed to chat with jimmy about her lifelong admiration.............at our breakfast....clara gave the introduction....with a freudian slip.......she mentioned that when bush came in the sanctuary to teach..........and there was a hearty round of laughter from the group....the thought of dubya having a weekly sunday school lesson.............to absurd for words..............