Driving in major urban areas of America can be a challenge - especially if you haven't done much of it. But my ministry team member was doing a good job of navigating the Chicago area, driving me to a number of locations where I was speaking. In one case, he was following our local host who was leading us to a place where we had never been. Honestly, we had no clue where we were going without him. I got to telling my driver one of my many stories, and he even seemed to be enjoying it. We were in the left lane, and suddenly a car came up behind us in the right lane, flashing his lights. Then he pulled up next to us, waving his arm out the window. It was our host. Apparently, we hadn't been following him for quite a while. So he led us in a daring - maybe scary is the word - U-turn to try to get us where we were supposed to be.
Just another day on the subways of New York. That's what Wesley Autrey thought it was going to be as he waited for the next train with his two young daughters. There it was - the light of the approaching subway. Suddenly, a young man near him stumbled off the platform and fell onto the tracks below. Later, that 19-year-old's family said it was because of a recurring medical problem he had. With the subway approaching, Wesley Autrey made his choice. He dove on top of the fallen man and rolled him into the drainage trough between the tracks. Then he threw his body on top of the young man, forcing him to stay down. It was too late for the subway to stop. The train ran right over the spot where one man was literally laying his life on the line for another man. The subway missed them by two inches.
October is beautiful in many parts of the U.S. It's fall; it's the time, as I told my kids, that the angels come out at night and paint the leaves red and yellow and orange. Pray for my kids. Forget the angel part. The trees really do put on a fantastic show of color in the fall, and spring isn't bad either. After the gray and brown, or even barren of winter, I love that fresh green of spring's new life. But in between fall and spring, there's this long stretch where the trees are basically colored "dead." Well, not all the trees. There's life all year long; there's green all year long. They don't lose their color, however dead and barren the rest of the world around them may be. They're evergreens!
It's one of my wife's favorite recipes, and she served it to our Team at one time. I always smile when she serves what she calls "Javanese dinner" because I know what's going to happen. She'll tell the guests what's in the dinner and instruct them to go through the line and pile the ingredients on in the order that they're served. And several guests will look at one another as if to say, "You've got to be kidding." The ingredients include rice, chicken, celery, coconut, pineapple, noodles, onions, cheese and a hot broth poured over the whole thing. (Now listen, please don't send for the recipe. I don't do recipes. I just eat them, so I can't send you a recipe.) Now listen, there's lots of skepticism about this menu, you know. Then the guests go through the line, they risk it and they love it. I saw the person who had the most doubts about what all those ingredients would be like when you put them all together go back for seconds and thirds.
"Made you look!" That's a classic line from when we were kids. As we're driving through some of this continent's steep mountain ranges, We have seen a sign that's guaranteed to make me look. You usually see it on a long drive down a steep mountain. The sign says, "Runaway truck ramp ahead." Of course I immediately look in my rear view mirror! If some big old semi with failed brakes is barreling down the mountain, about to run me over, I would like to be the first to know! I'm not sure what I'd do about it, but at least I'd like a moment for my whole life to flash before me. Those ramps are long emergency ramps, usually covered with something like sand that will help a truck grind to a halt. Now, if you've ever smelled the hot rubber of overworked brakes on a mountain, and you probably have, you know that providing a way to stop runaway trucks is really a good idea. And they must be needed. I often see fresh truck tracks in that sand!
When you live and work on a remote Indian reservation, as our sons have done for a number of years, you get good at shopping without going anywhere. Because anywhere is so far away! Our sons have gotten to be very skilled Internet shoppers. They've found gifts there, I didn't even know existed, and they've found bargains I was jealous of. Sometimes, I've been able to watch over their shoulder as they bid on an item that's being auctioned on the Internet. They've gotten pretty good at knowing what it's going to take to own what's being auctioned. For all the little tricks of the trade, there's one decisive bottom line. Everyone knows that it belongs to the one who bids the most.
Most of us had some classes in high school where we sat there and grumbled, "When am I ever going to use this stuff?" In some cases, we really have ended up using what Miss Pringle taught us. In other cases, we were right about never using it. There's one class that I've benefited from almost every day of my life, including today - typing class. Sure, I started out with one of those Selectric typewriters. Younger listeners are asking, "Selectric? What's that?" Never mind. Today, I'm typing on a computer keyboard, but I have a lot of writing to do. It's a good thing that I learned to type those many years ago. In fact, my wife says I'm one of the fastest typists she knows. With the amount of work I have to get done in a day, do I have a choice?
It's an amazing true story from the history of the Cree Indians of western Canada. Through many courageous exploits, a young man named Maskepetoon became known as the bravest warrior in the tribe. One day a man came to Maskepetoon's camp talking about peace - something his tribe had never known because of that relentless blood shed between his Cree tribe and their longtime enemies, the Blackfoot. But this man with a black book called the Bible introduced this warrior to the Creator of all. The missionary told him of how the Creator God's Son defeated the Evil Manitou, the Enemy of all. He climbed to the top of a hill and gave His life on a cross as a peace offering. That meant peace could be restored between the Creator of all and the people He had made.
Now, I know what it is to need a stamp. You've got something that has to be mailed - like an urgent bill, for example. You've gotten spoiled by having electricity in your house, and you really don't want to see what it's like without it. Your electric bill is due, the check is written, the envelope is addressed, but you can't find a stamp. But something that happened during a recent election has to be ultimate postage desperation. An absentee ballot arrived with an unusual stamp on the envelope; a picture of an inverted World War I airplane. The news report said that stamp may well have been a rare collector's item worth $200,000! I know postage rates are going up, but this is out of control!
They call it the "terrible twos" because of the new challenges a toddler presents as they hit that two-year mark and they issue their first declarations of independence. But we're not getting many "terrible" reports about our two-year-old granddaughter. If there is any terrible, it's being eclipsed by her "terrific twos." One exciting thing about two is the incredible word explosion that goes on. Our little princess knows so many words now, and she's really a talker - which is really a strange mutation in our family. Sometimes, she seems to know not only the words, but even some pretty important meaning behind the words. She's been known to sit down right next to her daddy as he's reading his Bible with her Bible open, as well. And she knows what that book is called. She says "Bible." But more and more now, when she picks up her Bible, she says two words that she knows go together, "Bible...Jesus."
Comments (3) 
