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Thursday, September 4, 2008

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I had been on a radio interview, and I was about to sign off. Suddenly I heard this familiar voice chiming in, "Hi, Ron. This is Rosetta." It wasn't the lady who was interviewing me, it was the traffic lady, and she was up next as soon as they got rid of me. But she just jumped right in and said "Hi." Now I knew her voice because morning after morning she had been there giving us the latest scoop on how long the commute was on this road, or where the accident was on that road, or which roads had turned into parking lots. In the New York area, there's a lot of ways to go, and which one you choose any given morning can make the difference between on time or very late. So just before I signed off that interview, I thanked Rosetta for what she did for us every morning. I told her, "Rosetta, you help us pick the right road to be on!"

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

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Our friend, Mike, had just started up the pickup truck when the trouble started. Mike was taking the truck out for a test drive for some people who had just bought it. And as he backed it out of the new owner's garage, it suddenly started sputtering and stalling. He couldn't keep it running no matter what he tried. He got to a phone and called the old owner and said, "What's the deal with this truck you just sold?" Well, the man who sold it is an honorable man, and he was really distressed about this suddenly dysfunctional truck. Then suddenly he asked Mike, "Did you happen to mess with the radio at all?" Yes, he had. The previous owner told Mike to go check these two switches that are right next to the radio. This truck has a wonderful feature, especially for the country roads that it travels so much. It has a reserve gas tank. Mike had unknowingly turned off Tank 2, which was full of gas, and turned on Tank 1, which was totally empty. But the good news is that as soon as he switched from the empty tank to the reserve tank, Mr. Pickup Truck ran and ran and ran.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

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OK, I was a Flash Gordon freak when I was a kid. In case you've led a deprived life or you're too young to have this exciting heritage, Flash was that intergalactic hero made famous in a serialized movie made in the 1930's, long before anyone ever heard of Luke Skywalker or Captain Kirk. No, I wasn't around when it first came out, but those episodes have been showing ever since. Every episode was a cliffhanger. They always left you hanging with Flash in a terrible jam, about to be destroyed by some space monster or death ray. You were sure there was no way out of this one. But there always was. Somehow, no matter how bleak it looked, Flash always came through somehow.

Friday, August 29, 2008

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NASA had high hopes for their first Mars orbiter - it would make possible some exciting new research into the Red Planet. They were stunned when suddenly, without warning, they lost the Mars orbiter in deep space. After the initial shock, NASA tried to determine what went wrong. The answer was almost as alarming as losing the orbiter itself. The fatal malfunction turns out it was the result of a tragic error in calculations - bad math doomed the Mars craft. One set of engineers had worked with English measurements, while another set of engineers did their calculations by the metric system!

Thursday, August 28, 2008

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When our three kids were young, they'd run to the door to greet me when I was returning from an international trip. Isn't that tender! Yeah, but you need to know part of the reason for this enthusiastic greeting. You see, when I'm away from my family, I am a sucker for souvenirs. The one way I can be with them is by shopping for something for them, whether it's in Singapore, or Holland, or Australia. So there was a certain expectancy when old dad walked through the door. Oh, yes, there would be hugs and kisses, and we had missed each other, but the three kids each knew that those suitcases had things in them that weren't in them when I left. It's nice to come home with gifts for everyone.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

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Oh, man, we love the ocean! We love to walk the beach and if my wife has a head-start on me, I can figure out which way she went - Oh, I kid her about being a little paddle footed - she leaves behind footprints that make a slight "V" in the sand. Of course, when the tide starts coming in you can forget all the footprints any of us left that day! When the waves finish giving the beach a bath, you can't even tell anyone walked there today. Notice when they want to commemorate the careers of those Hollywood stars. They have them put their footprints in cement in the sidewalk, not in sand at the beach.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

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My outreach trips to South Africa have been with some wonderful ministry experiences. We saw African young people coming to Christ. We had the privilege of training South African youth workers to reach lost young people. And we're even training people to reach the lost and the young through radio. One afternoon we were able to sneak away long enough to visit one of the gold mines that helped make South Africa the richest country on that continent. Years ago this was the largest and richest gold mine in the world. Today, an old miner take guys like me, puts a helmet on them, gives them a light, and takes them on tours. It was fascinating to hear him describe how gold was uncovered and then extracted from deep inside the earth. At one point, he asked us to shine our light on one wall of the mine, and it sparkled with this bright, yellow gold! It was amazing - beautiful! The old miner told us, "Don't get too excited." He said, "Real gold is black. It doesn't even look like gold. That stuff that glitters, well, that's just fool's gold.

Monday, August 25, 2008

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Somehow we managed to surprise each of the three Hutchcraft kids when it came time for their 16th birthday party. Now our daughter's was a Teddy Bear picnic party. (You should have seen all those high school students coming with their teddy bears - even the guys! They really did!) And then the boy's themes were - well, there was the '50s theme, and then there was the Wild West party for another son. Actually, we have always tried to make something special out of the kids' birthdays. After all, your birthday is the only day of the year that's uniquely your celebration. It's always a great feeling to have a party in your honor.

Friday, August 22, 2008

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A lot of news stories just flash into our lives and then are forgotten almost immediately. Then there are those images that are just embedded in our brains for years to come. Several years ago one of those events happened, and a lot of us can still see the images of that dramatic rescue in our minds. A little toddler named Jessica had been playing in the backyard in Midland, Texas, and she plummeted down this narrow little shaft. She was wedged in there; trapped underground. It seemed as if the whole nation stopped to watch the tense vigil as rescuers tried to find a way to save that little girl. It was a long ordeal, but one rescuer, using a parallel shaft and working in the tightest of quarters, was finally able to get to little Jessica. And in a moment of incredible relief and joy, he brought her out.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

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I've had days when my back felt about 20 years older than the rest of my body. Sciatica is what I think the doctor called it. I just call it "sorebacka." I'm grateful I haven't had a bout like that for several years, but I can tell you that when I wake up crooked, I feel like just staying in bed or in any comfortable position I can find. But I got some good advice. Someone said, "Go for a walk when your back is hurting." Now, let me tell you this, walking is the last thing I feel like doing, but I decided to try it. I walked around our nearby lake, and by the time I returned, the pain had basically gone away. I had to force myself to exercise, but it was exercise that actually made me feel better. Now there's a new scientific study that compared two groups of people with "sorebacka" - one that took it easy and one that exercised. The exercisers reported less pain and more mobility. Now, what you don't feel like doing when you're hurting is what will actually help you stop hurting!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

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My friend, Bill, was used to handling heavy equipment, but he wasn't used to what happened that particular day. He had his trailer hitched to his dump truck. And Bill was driving his backhoe onto the trailer. One small problem - sort of a physics problem. As the weight of Bill and his backhoe pressed on the back of the trailer, the rear wheels of the dump truck were suddenly lifted up into the air which means no brakes on a downhill slope yet! So try to picture this: this man riding on a backhoe which is riding on a trailer, which is hitched to a truck that is heading straight downhill out-of-control. I said, "Bill, what did you say?" His answer was pretty simple, "Oh no! Oh no!!" He had absolutely no control. So how did he live to tell about it? Well, he threw that backhoe in reverse and backed off as fast as he could. Balance was restored and the truck and trailer - well, they jackknifed. And I'm not even making any of this up!

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

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When you work at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, you know there will be no physical link to the outside world for you between February and October. You are 840 miles from the nearest populated site and you're facing average winter temperatures of eighty below zero. Now, imagine being one of the women stationed there and discovering a lump that indicates you have breast cancer. Distant medical authorities determined that this lady must receive some emergency medical supplies. (And it really happened.) Getting those supplies, though, is easier said than done.

Monday, August 18, 2008

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I was in the room when my friend Bob went up to the speaker for the day and made a fairly startling statement. He took his three young children with him, pointed to them, and said to this speaker, "If it weren't for you, these children wouldn't be here." Needless to say, the gentleman looked at him pretty curiously. But that was not an overstatement. And it attested to a dramatic miracle that my friend had experienced.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

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When our Native American outreach team went to Alaska, our only means of getting to remote Eskimo villages was by missionary aircraft.  Oh, man, our pilots were the best!  Many days we had to fly through low cloud ceilings and low visibility.  On a day like that, our pilots were checking every hour on the weather at our end and at our destination.  There was finally a break where we could fly, but it all looked pretty dismal when we took off.  The pilot of the plane I was in was instrument-rated, which enabled him to go to a higher altitude.  The pilot of the plane accompanying us wasn't able to take the high road.  So, my pilot kept in radio contact with the other pilot, but believe me, our planeload and the other planeload were seeing two totally different views.  From where the other plane was flying, it was dark, it was dismal, and it was very overcast.  But we were above all that. We were enjoying a beautiful, sunny day with all those clouds beneath us.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

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When our older grandson was 14 months old, he had a ball discovering his world. I loved to take him in my arms and get him excited about something in God's world. I'd point to a tree, or a flower, or a dog, or a cow and teach him the word for it. After that, whenever we'd be together, he'd start the pointing, and he'd give me his version of the word for whatever he was point to. But I think I saw the greatest wonder in him when he'd look up at the night sky. It didn't matter what was going on around him, he'd start looking up and pointing at the moon, at the stars; oh, man, he loved the stars. He just couldn't miss those lights shining in the dark night sky.

Monday, August 11, 2008

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When we were involved in building a new headquarters for our ministry, I have to confess that was new ground for me. I've been involved in building people my whole life, but not buildings. It became very clear that there is a specific order in which you have to do things. Obviously, you don't just start by having the carpenters show up and start putting up the building. There has to be a foundation laid first. But wait - you can't lay the foundation or start building until you have the detailed plans for the building. Yes, it takes contractors, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, pavers, and heating and air conditioning people. But first, the architect! Without his design, it would be just a mass confusion at the construction site. But thankfully, we had a gifted architect lay out a detailed plan, and things are working well because everyone is going by the plan.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

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Not long after the Gulf War, an Air Force chaplain planted this mental picture in my head I've never forgotten. He told me what he considered to be the ultimate example of loneliness. The chaplain said, "To me, lonely is a fighter pilot in his F-16, on a night mission over enemy territory. The only light is this eerie glow from his instrument panel - and his instruments indicate that his plane has just been "painted" as a target for an Iraqi SAM missile. The only sound he hears in that ultimately lonely moment is this song playing in his headset - God Bless the USA.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

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I was going through a basement closet and I found some buried treasure. Actually, it was a little suitcase filled with the love letters that my wife and I had exchanged over two years of our courtship and engagement - and no you can't see them. It was pretty moving for me, though, to read them again after so many years. As I relived our early romance through those letters, I had an idea, why not put some of these in a scrapbook and give them as a gift to my wife. Small problem: how am I going to do this and keep it a surprise? Well, I set up a partition in the back half of our basement. I moved some big furniture around to further obstruct the view, and I made myself a secret "No Trespassing" workshop! Finally, one day I presented my wife with this book entitled "Chronicles of a Lifetime Love." She had no idea what I'd been working on for her - I did all the work on it, out of her sight!

Monday, August 4, 2008

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We were tooling across the backside of the Navajo reservation in this borrowed station wagon. Actually, some friends had loaned it to us so we could take some of our reservation team sightseeing. We could have gone back on the main road, but the back roads were shorter. So, I checked my gas tank before we set out through these long, unpopulated stretches: three-quarters of a tank - plenty of gas. We went about 30 miles and the car started sputtering to a stop - really in the middle of nowhere - true nowhere! We spent several nervous hours hoping and praying for a way back until this dear Navajo man stopped for us and he drove 60 miles round trip to bring us back some gas. It turned out that our gas gauge was broken. It sure looked like we were almost running on full, but we were running on empty.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

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It's amazing how nasty things can get when it comes to settling whose land a certain piece of ground is. We have some friends who have an interest in just such a controversial decision and the stakes are actually pretty high. The judge has to decide who really owns this particular property and then how it should be handled. There's a lot of rumors in the air; a lot of intrigue. Before the legal proceedings start, the judge has suddenly recused himself from that case. In other words, he's stepped down on this one because for some reason - maybe a conflict of interest - he's basically saying, "I don't think I should be the one to judge this one."

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