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Wednesday, April 22, 2015

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For those of us who have traveled many summers with our Native American outreach team, it will always be remembered as the Night of the Bat. I was with a team of about 35 young Native Americans on a reservation in the Northwest. Most of us were staying in tents or teepees, and a few girls were sleeping in the dining hall. A few of us were in that hall wrapping up for the night, and suddenly a bat somehow got in the room and began doing aerial laps around the room. The reactions were priceless. The girls crawled into their sleeping bags, covered up totally, and screamed like "wolf man" was on the loose. There, huddled in one corner, was this mound of moving, screaming, wiggling sleeping bags. And the rest of the camp was waking up fast. Everyone was running toward the dining hall to see what awful terror had invaded.

Monday, April 20, 2015

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My friend, Jerry, was a pilot who's gone home to be with the Lord that he loved. At his memorial service, his son told some of the stories of Jerry's very adventurous life. He was pretty unflappable. I mean, that's a pretty good characteristic for a pilot, right?

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

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Let's see, there was Gilligan, the Skipper, too, the movie star, the millionaire and his wife. You know, it was the cast of that eternally rerunning sitcom, Gilligan's Island. Maybe you remember the story. They boarded the S.S. Minnow that day to take a what? (I want to sing it so bad!) A "Three hour tour." Little did they know a storm would come up and they'd end up shipwrecked on some desert island, and they'd have to stay there trapped forever in rerun-land. When they boarded that day, they had no idea how far they were going to go or how long they were going to stay. Some three-hour tour!

Monday, April 13, 2015

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I used to introduce my younger son by calling him "my baby" which is a little ridiculous if you look at the two of us. The boy I used to pick up is now the man who picks me up. And that's pretty embarrassing. He would greet me at an airport or some public place, still does, put his arms around me and lift me in the air. When I stand next to this moose in our family, I ask myself, "How did this child of mine ever get so much bigger than I am?"

Thursday, April 9, 2015

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Oh, the hazards of shopping in a mall! Let's see, overheating your credit card, maybe a pick pocket, an occasional mugging in the parking lot, being run into by a ship. What? Well, that's exactly what happened a while back to about a thousand Christmas shoppers at the Riverwalk Shopping Complex in New Orleans. Navigating the most dangerous stretch in the Mississippi River near there, this freighter suddenly lost power. It's unbelievable! In or near its path were two cruise ships holding 1,700 people, and a riverboat casino with 800 people on board. The potential was there for hundreds of fatalities.

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

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Well, several years ago it was our turn again for the cicadas to pay us a brief visit. You can't really complain; they only drop by every 17 years. What a life these critters have! They suck on a root in the ground for a while, they finally emerge, they climb a tree, they make a lot of noise for about three weeks, and they die. You talk about "get a life!"

Monday, April 6, 2015

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I have some fond remembrances of the dog we had when we lived in New Jersey. See, there were few things that could make Missy, our dog, go bonkers more than her original master, our youngest son, coming home for a visit. She would literally dance in the hall when he walked in. This one particular time I remember pretty well.

Thursday, April 2, 2015

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You've got to feel bad for the youngest child. Look, there's a thousand pictures of the firstborn, "Hey, we've never had one of these before!" Maybe 300 or 400 of the second born. And then, if you're lucky, maybe like 30 of the final arrival. Oh, we loved him just as much. We just didn't have as many pictures of him. Probably because his brother and sister wore us out.

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

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On the Sunday before Easter, my pastor was talking about the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And my mind wandered, (not the pastor's fault) to a horse that I met one day in Texas.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

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I grew up around Lake Michigan. And when I was little, I used to go in it. Now I mostly just look at it when I'm in Chicago or in the Great Lakes area. Part of that is because of what happened to me when I was ten years old. My memories of that lake are memories of a struggle I will never forget. I was out with my friends. I didn't know how to swim and I was too proud to tell them. Well, I started to go under. No one took me seriously. I mean, I'm yelling. I'm trying to get some help. I'm drinking the lake! I'm in a panic, flailing around, and my friends are going, "Oh, Ron, you know him. He's such a clown!" Great! Finally, just in the nick of time, someone came. They grabbed me and they literally saved my life.

Monday, March 30, 2015

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I had a mountain of work to do to prepare for some radio programs that I was scheduled to record, and the way things worked out I ended up doing it on the road. I was traveling by van about 12 hours with two of our team members. Now, let me make one thing clear. I like to drive; a guy thing maybe. I'm not the greatest passenger. I don't really like to ride, but I had so much work to do, I needed all the time we were driving on the trip to get it done. So they actually set up this little office for me in the back of the van, and they brought along a little power pack that would allow me to use my computer all the way. Very reluctantly, I climbed into the back of the van and settled in to work and watch someone else drive. At first it drove me nuts. But by the end of the trip, I realized how much creative work I'd gotten done in my office on wheels. What a productive day I had! All because I let someone else drive.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

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Jenny's only two years old, but she's already teaching her parents. She often announces, "Let's pray." She doesn't always pick her times real well. Dad might be studying or Mom might be involved in her housework or trying to get ready for something. That doesn't stop Jenny from saying, "Let's pray." She grabs your hand, closes her eyes and she expects you to do the same. She's fully expecting Mom or Dad to drop whatever they're doing. Mom told me, "I don't dare tell Jenny, 'Oh, later honey, I'm too busy now.'" Jenny's only two, but you know what? I think she's got the right idea.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

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Our youngest son was one week away from his sixteenth birthday, and we had surprised his older brother and sister. It was going to be tough to surprise this one for his sixteenth. So I picked him up from his friend's house and we went out to eat. I said, "Hey, you know what, we've got to go over to the next town." He asked why, and I said, "Well, I've got to check out this stable over there. We're thinking about having a Campus Life activity there and I need to find out what it will cost."

Friday, March 20, 2015

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Someone said to me, "Don't forget to tell your wife!" I said, "Wait a minute. I'd better write it down. I'm Mr. No Gig." They looked at me kind of funny. See, computers have gigabytes of memory. And I think sometimes I've reached mine, so I am like "Mr. No Gig". Look, I'm too young to be losing my memory. I think I've just used it up, that's all. There's not room to put anything else in there.

Thursday, March 19, 2015

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I was in Georgia when a friend said to me, "Do you know which team is one of the best football teams in our state?" When I said I didn't know, he said, "The Georgia School for the Deaf." I've got to tell you that kind of caught me by surprise. I wasn't expecting a school for the deaf to be like football champions. He said, "Man, we played them when I was in high school and you always had to get up for that game. They were always the toughest."

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

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When you think of a name that goes with magic, you'll probably think of Houdini. Harry Houdini was the master of illusions, of incredible escapes, which makes it almost ironic how he died. He defied all kinds of dangers in his life. Like the time they tied him in a straight jacket, hung him upside down from the eves of a tall building and he got out. Then there was the time he escaped from an air-tight tank filled with water.

Friday, March 13, 2015

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Those of us who lived in the New York area at that time added a frightening new word to our vocabulary. It was called "wilding". In fact, that word was the entire front page headline on one newspaper after this brutal attack in Central Park. A 28-year-old jogger was raped and viciously beaten by this gang of 10 - 15 teenage attackers. Besides an ugly sexual assault, she was beaten with rocks, and a foot long pipe, and then left for dead in a puddle on a 40-degree night.

Wednesday, March 11, 2015

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Often when I speak at a church, there is like a question and answer time at the end of my talk. There was this one time when the questions ranged from things about our ministry, to questions about how to reach lost people, to my family; it was a little bit of everything. Well, one man in the back asked an amusing question. He said, "Where do you get all this energy?" Well, I have been accused of being the Energizer Bunny.

Monday, March 9, 2015

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Peter and Shirley were members of our ministry team, and their daughter was kind enough during her last semester of college to buy a dog. That meant that when she finished college, the dog moved in with Peter and Shirley. They inherited Starbuck. No that's not coffee! That's a black Labrador retriever.

Friday, March 6, 2015

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Over the years I've been accused of having a case of technophobia. Well, that's probably true. I remember the first time somebody got me a computer, which was very nice. That's how they got me into the computer age. I have to say it scared me to death. Now, look, I'm living in a world of computers, and so I grudgingly at that time said, "I've got to make friends with this computer by learning a little more about it. Some of my non-technophobic friends were explaining computer installation to me and one of them said, "Ron, I guess we'll have to install a dedicated line." Wait a minute! Wait, that's a word I understood - dedicated line. Sure! In fact, I understand it even better now thanks to, yep, computers.

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