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Monday, May 15, 2006

Our son brought a playful little Shih Tzu puppy into our house years ago. She loved to play with bubbles. Yeah, she would chase those bubbles that we would blow on the floor, and it was crazy to watch. And she also loved bottles. You know, the plastic bottles? She would enjoy a good battle with any two-liter plastic soda pop bottle, and we'd throw it on the floor. She'd attack that thing! You could hear it all through the house! Here's this plastic bottle being thrown into the air, she forces it up against the wall, it thuds along the floor (oh, this is great when you're trying to sleep, believe me). Finally she would fight that thing until she was totally exhausted. And then you'd hear nothing. You'd go in and she was totally flopped on the kitchen floor. There she was, almost out cold. She had literally worked herself totally out of energy in combat with a dumb, plastic bottle.

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

The man in the Disney movie was an inventor. One of his inventions was a shrinking machine. Some have suggested that's what happened to me - a shrinking machine. It did happen to his kids' baseball. It crashed through the window of his laboratory and it landed in dad's shrinking machine, turning it on as it landed, and the kids were amazed to see how their ball suddenly shrank. Thinking this machine was really cool, they started playing with it - until the machine suddenly shrank them to an almost invisible size. And the anguished cry of the father is the title of the movie: "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids!"

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Apparently, the drunk driver liked our side of the road better than his side of the road. With our whole family aboard, our car was suddenly hit head-on. By God's grace, none of us was seriously injured, but our car went to car heaven, or wherever totaled cars go. I had a busy ministry schedule during the next few weeks, and our only car was gone. Then a friend called and offered to lend us his car while he was in Florida for the next six weeks. That was awesome! An hour later, he drove into our driveway with his brand new Cadillac Coupe DeVille. That was good news and bad news. The good news was that for the next six weeks I'd be driving my friend's brand new Cadillac. The bad news was that for the next six weeks I'd be driving my friend's brand new Cadillac! I've never driven so carefully in my life! I stayed well under the speed limit, I got the oil changed about three times a week, I didn't allow one scrap of food or drink in that vehicle. Hey, this was somebody else's treasure I was driving!

Thursday, April 13, 2006

My wife and I kept two special remembrances of our wedding: a tape of the ceremony and a piece of wedding cake. The tape was a much better idea. We froze the cake and then we ate some of it on our first anniversary. You've heard about chocolate cake? This was more like chalk cake. But the tape was a great idea. Often, even now on our on anniversary, we replay it. We relive that wonderful day that our marriage began. And we are there! Some couples go way beyond a tape - they actually dust off the old wedding dress, reconvene the wedding party, and do it all again for their 25th. You know, it's good for a couple to remember their wedding day. A trip back to the beginning can rekindle that spark.

Friday, April 7, 2006

As Lenny left our headquarters a few days ago, I said, "Man, you have really made a difference around here!" He really had. A company that was getting rid of a lot of office furniture donated about a dozen desks to our ministry, and we were thrilled to get them! They're good desks, but well, not exactly beautiful desks. They were all scarred and beat up, and on the surface they didn't look particularly useful. In fact, the company that donated them actually was getting ready to discard them before they learned about our need. So here, in a storage area, were all these ugly desks - until Lenny got his hands on them. One by one, he went to work with his magic touch and he slowly restored their original beauty. By the time he was done, it looked almost like we had just gotten a shipment of expensive new desks.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

We were staying one time at, well, as the camp song says, "a little cabin in the woods." As soon as we got unpacked, our seven- or eight-year-old son went for an exploratory bike ride up the trail. When he returned he got going a little fast, and then he hit a patch of gravel right near the cabin. The bike spun out from under him and he hit the ground pretty hard. When he got up, there was a lot of blood around his mouth. He had broken a tooth and it had punctured his lip. We raced him to a hospital emergency room where they fixed him up with a few stitches. Now, he took the second bike ride that day. That was the tough part; especially after what had happened on the first bike ride. But his Mother and I encouraged him to get right back on his bike. We knew if he didn't, it might take him a long time to get the confidence back to ride again. Well, sure enough, the boy bounced back. In spite of his fall, he decided to ride again and he kept riding for many years after that.

Friday, March 3, 2006

For the most part, spring is a season we really look forward to; everything's blooming and colorful. Unfortunately, though, spring isn't just flowers - it's floods! Some folks who live by rivers and streams must hold their breath a little each spring. Every year we see vivid pictures of whole areas submerged under flood waters, and we hear interviews with victims who have lost many of their possessions. But invariably, you will hear those victims say, "But we're thankful that at least all of us are safe." You know it's true - things can be replaced - people can't. In the spring of '97, it was Kentucky's turn to get hit by major flooding. On the news they showed a list on the wall - a list that was pretty moving to see. At the top were these words: "Missing people," then the names of loved ones who were missing in the flood. But some of those names had a beautiful five-letter word scrawled over them: "Found."

Wednesday, March 1, 2006

When our friends heard that our family had been invited to Alaska for a week of ministry, they were all excited for us. They said, "Oh, it's beautiful, you're going to love it! When are you going?" "February." "Oh." See, I get invited to places like Florida and Arizona in the summer; Alaska in the dead of winter. We had a wonderful week, but the time came for my wife and kids to fly home because they had to get back to school, and I stayed for several more days of ministry. We were out on the Kenai Peninsula, in an area that felt fairly remote. We arrived at this small airport one night to rendezvous with our pilot. Now, Dick was a missionary pilot, trained by Moody Bible Institute's top-flight pilot's school and he was experienced in flying into many remote areas of Alaska. But that night his cargo was the people I love most. My first cause for a little worry was his request to help him push the plane out of the hangar and onto the runway. It was icy, and I had never pushed my plane into position before. I didn't like that runway. It was covered with thick, deeply-rutted ice from one end to the other. And at the end of that fairly short runway was a big stand of tall trees you could run into. Oh yeah, and it was heavily overcast - no moon, no stars. Well, I helped my wife and three children crowd into Dick's little Cessna, I waved good-bye as they started bouncing and maneuvering down that icy runway. I really didn't like the conditions, but I was okay because I really trusted the pilot.

Friday, February 3, 2006

I couldn't just sit down and start using your personal computer. Of course, you couldn't just sit down and start using mine either. If you work in an office, changes are they make sure they can have access to the company computer that you use. Your computer, my computer, your company's computer are all protected from any funny business by something called a password. I can't get into my computer without typing in my password. Would you like to know what it is? It's... a secret.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Gal - that's the name of our missionary friends' dog. She and they have lived on a Native American reservation. Most reservation dogs (they actually call them rez dogs) are pretty aggressive. They'll meet you whether you want to meet them or not. But Gal is different. As soon as she sees anyone approaching, she heads for cover. If you try to befriend her, she just cowers in a corner and trembles. It's pitiful! We asked our friends why Gal was so withdrawn. It's actually a pretty sad story. She'd been abused as a puppy by her former owner, and anytime anyone got close, she was afraid they would hurt her like those other people had.

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