It's got to be one of the most unique sporting events in the world - it's the Iditarod, the ultimate sled dog race in the world This past year 68 teams lined up for the historic 1,000-mile race from Anchorage, Alaska, to Nome. Of course, it didn't start as sporting competition. It started in 1925 when the stakes were much higher than a cash prize - it was the lives of countless children in Nome who had been exposed to the dread disease, diphtheria. The only serum to fight it in Alaska was in far-away Anchorage. It had to get to Nome in the shortest time possible. And it was carried in an amazing, Pony Express-like, relay by one dog team after another. It took 20 drivers, some of whom braved mountain ranges, brutal weather, a merciless gale. But on February 2 - only 127 hours after the first team left - the last driver arrived in Nome with his tired dog team and 300,000 units of that life-saving serum.

It was one the causes Princess Diana was most passionate about. A little-known organization that addresses this issue won the Nobel Peace Prize. It's not an issue we think much about, but it's one that costs countless lives every year - land mines. They are the deadly leftovers of old battles, and many innocent people are injured or killed by them. A land mine is, of course, not where you can see it coming. It's buried. You're just walking along and suddenly the ground beneath you explodes, maiming or destroying an innocent person.

Little Eddie's daddy had agreed to play hide-and-seek with him. So while Eddie counted, Daddy hid. Then Eddie opened his eyes and started the search. Behind the curtains in the living room and the dining room. No daddy. Under the dining room table, the kitchen table, in the kitchen closet. No daddy. Which meant Eddie was going to have to look upstairs. Unfortunately, his father was nowhere in the bathroom or either bedroom. Which left only one place to look - the big closet - which had a light switch Eddie couldn't reach. With his heart beating a mile a minute, Eddie opened the closet door and stared into pitch-blackness. He felt to the left. No daddy. He felt to the right - R-R-R-R-R-R-R! It had to be a big bear! Eddie ran as fast as his little legs could go down the hall - R-R-R-R-R! The bear was chasing him! Down the stairs, through the living room, the dining room, into the kitchen, to the back door. R-R-R-R-R! He couldn't look back, but the bear was right behind him! And the kitchen door was locked! Suddenly the bear reached out and grabbed Eddie - and hugged him. It wasn't a bear trying to hurt him, it was a Daddy trying to hug him!

Our daughter's all grown up and a mother herself now. But she still remembers the day she got lost at the grocery store - and all the feelings that went with it. She was four - her baby brother was in the grocery cart - she was walking ahead of us as we browsed the aisles for our next meals. Somehow, she got way out ahead of us and into another aisle. She kept walking until suddenly she realized that her parents were nowhere around. She remembers it as one of the traumatic moments of her young life - she said, "The aisle was so long, the shelves were so high, and I felt so alone."

There are few moments in recent American history that are more indelibly etched in our memories than the explosion at the Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City in April of 1995. We've all got mental images of the twisted rubble, the terror and grief on victim's faces, and the heroic efforts of the rescuers to get into that building and save the survivors. There were also heroes behind the scenes as well. For example, there was a convention of restaurateurs taking place in a downtown hotel that day. Like so many people in Oklahoma City that day, as soon as they heard about the explosion and the rescue efforts, their plans changed. Suddenly, they set aside their convention schedule and commandeered the hotel kitchen - and dedicated themselves to supplying meals to the rescuers so the rescue work could continue uninterrupted.

It was the end of the day at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics - only a few thousand spectators were in the stadium as the last of the marathon runners were carried off in exhaustion to the first-aid stations. More than an hour earlier and Ethiopian runner had been the first to cross the finish line in this grueling 26-mile event. As the remaining spectators prepared to leave, they were stopped by the sound of sirens going off and policemen blowing whistles. There, entering the stadium came a lone figure wearing the colors of Tanzania - his name was John Akhwari. He was the last man to finish the marathon.

Our bedroom is on the southwest corner of the house - and that's the direction stormy weather comes from more often than not. So, believe me, we can tell when the weather's changing - especially when the season's changing. Often, in the night, our weather alert system goes off - then the severe thunderstorms come roaring in - the lightning keeps illuminating our backyard - and the wind and rain come slamming into the wall between our bed and the yard. You can sure tell when the season's changing!

If you're an older "Star Trek" fan, your guy was Captain Kirk. If you're a younger "Star Trek" fan, as in "Star Trek - The Next Generation," then your guy was Captain Picard. And if you've never watched "Star Trek" any generation, you could care less. Kirk and Picard were the captains of the Starship Enterprise. And no matter what conflict or calamity they encountered, those guys were in charge. I've been told that Captain Picard would speak three words after he gave an order - and you knew who was in charge. With this commanding tone, he would simply say - "Make it so."

Last fall, we were having a fun family outing at a nearby theme park – until we found out that our grandson was in the infirmary with his parents and with the park’s emergency medical staff. The problem was that he had somehow gotten a small metal object in his eye – which resisted all efforts to remove it. Well, without hesitation, we quickly brought our park outing to an end and headed for the hospital – where, thankfully, a specialist was able to remove that object from his eye. But we had to take it seriously – he had something potentially damaging in his eye – and that could affect how he sees things from now on.

Our daughter gave us one of the greatest gifts of our lives when she and her husband gave us our grandson. We all got the blessing, but she had to do the work. And now she’s getting ready to do it again! Yep, grandchild number two! Now I know it’s not the process of having the baby that made her go through this again. Her first pregnancy wasn’t a whole lot of fun, and labor, well it really wasn’t fun at all. But in spite of that painful process, she’s doing it again – because of the beautiful result it produces.

It took a while to determine the winner of the 2000 Presidential election in America – but as soon as George W. Bush was declared the winner, he and his staff went into high gear to staff his new administration. It’s got to be pretty exciting to pick up the phone and hear someone from the President’s staff inviting you to join his team. Right after the Inauguration, I watched the swearing in of Bush’s White House Staff. You could tell the significance and privilege of what they were about to do. They committed themselves to some pretty high standards of integrity and morality. But nobody seemed to mind. They understood what an honor it is to be asked to serve in the administration of the most powerful man in the nation.

For a lot of people in California, the year 2001 began in the dark! The headlines kept telling us that millions of Californians were having to endure what was called “rolling blackouts”. Apparently, when the energy industry was deregulated, it was supposed to lead to utilities buying power at lower prices – instead, prices skyrocketed. And deregulation also forbade them to raise prices to the consumer. Whatever the cause, the result was clear. For certain designated hours, the power company had to turn off the power to different areas at different times. So when the blackout rolled into your area, you suddenly had no electricity – and if you had something to do during that time that required that power – tough!

In the last hours of his Presidency, Bill Clinton created quite a bit of uproar. He did what all outgoing Presidents of the United States do – he issued pardons to scores of Americans convicted of felonies. He was actually exercising a unique power granted to the President by the Constitution – to release a person from the legal penalties for a crime that they have committed. In the case of the Clinton pardons, there were a few that evoked reactions that ranged from surprise to shock to even anger – people who seemingly did not deserve a pardon. Whatever the merits or mistakes of those particular actions, all of us were reminded of a power we sometimes forget the President has – he can confer mercy far beyond what a person may deserve – in the form of that beautiful six-letter word – pardon.

After the Gulf War in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Kurdish people fled Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. They made it to a mountainside just inside the Turkish border where they set up a refugee camp with little or no food, medical help, or sanitation. Christian agencies, of course, felt the urgency of people who were dying there every day, so they rose to the occasion, and they came in with a flood of emergency help and supplies. Many Christian representatives were there – but missionaries from one agency reportedly experienced a unique receptivity to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While many Christian representatives worked from truck and distribution points, handing out food and blankets, the Operation Mobilization missionaries succeeded in getting unusually close to the people…because of the garbage. Mountains of trash just rapidly overtook that camp – dirty, smelly garbage that no one wanted to touch. But these missionaries plunged into picking up that repulsive trash. And the ones who were willing to pick up the garbage were the ones who found many people willing to hear about their Jesus.

The election of 2000 will not soon be forgotten in the United States – it lasted 36 days past Election Day. The loser actually got the most popular votes, and George W. Bush finally prevailed with the most votes in our Electoral College. Now it wasn’t the first time there was an interesting presidential election. Take the one in 1888. Like Al Gore, Grover Cleveland carried the popular vote but he failed to carry his own state. And like George Bush, Benjamin Harrison became President with a majority in the Electoral College. In those days, of course, it took a while to get the news. When the head of the Republican Party arrived at Benjamin Harrison’s home in Indianapolis, he proudly announced that they had emerged victorious. As the Party leader crowed over the victory, he found the President-elect in what was described as a prayerful mood. Benjamin Harrison’s response? He simply said, “Providence has given us the victory.”

I had a special visitor the other day – Steven, who is the son of one of our Team members. Cerebral palsy left Steven with some severe mental and physical limitations – in fact, more than any parents could manage at home. So Steven is in a special care facility – and he’s a special young man from whom his parents say they have learned so much about God’s love. Because he’s not home much – and because I’m away a lot – his Mom brought him in the other day so I could meet him. I was just on my way to the radio studio to meet a pressing deadline when Steven came in. I got to tell him how much his Mom means to us, how much she talks about him and loves him, and how much I liked what he was wearing. Even though we were just visiting for a few moments, Steven suddenly started pulling at his coat. His Mom said, “You want to take off your coat and stay a while, don’t you, Steven?” She said he doesn’t do that much. That really got to me.

Most of the top-selling Christian videos in America have the same name on them - Bill Gaither. He has assembled some of Gospel music's legends for what he calls "homecoming" musical gatherings. And as the videos have grown in popularity, some of yesterday's Gospel legends have become legends to a new generation. One of those is a pillar of Gospel music, Vestal Goodman. Belting out her songs with her trademark hankie in her hand, she uses one of the most powerful voices in her field.

But, according to her husband Howard, it wasn't always that way. In fact, he said that when they were first traveling together from revival to revival, Vestal had just this quiet little voice, which is pretty hard to imagine today. But he said something happened the day a storm blew through the camper park where they were staying and that storm destroyed most of what they owned. That night, at the revival service, Vestal got up to sing as usual - except it wasn't usual. Suddenly, for some unexplainable reason - no doubt, supernatural - she belted out her song with a power and authority neither she nor her husband had ever heard - and that has been her trademark ever since.

I was the Boone County Spelling Bee champion once. Aren’t you impressed? I held the title for a little while. That was soon forgotten, and someone else held the title. I’ve been chairman of some things, president of some things – but the titles come and go. You can be “captain”, “most valuable player”, “director”, or “Woman of the Year” – nice titles, but they don’t really have any lasting significance. There’s one that does ... and you’re a candidate.

Lenny Skutnik was just one of thousands of federal workers heading home from work that January night – the night Air Florida’s Flight 90 crashed into the Potomac River near the Pentagon. The plane had failed to clear the 14th Street Bridge, and it fell into the frigid waters of the Potomac. A few passengers who had managed to get out before the plane sank were in the icy river, crying for help.

Lenny Skutnik saw the plane go down ... he heard the cries of the passengers in the water ... and he jumped into the river to try to help. He actually managed to save the life of a woman who otherwise would have almost surely died in the Potomac that night. A couple of weeks later, during President Reagan’s State of the Union address, Lenny Skutnik, everyday guy, was introduced as a real American hero on national television by the President of the United States.

Anyone who has taken their child to Disney World has almost surely been required by Junior or Junioretta to ride ‘the ride’. It’s this little boat you take along the winding path of a brightly colored canal. You’re surrounded on all sides by singing dolls representing children from every part of the world. And they’re all singing the same song with the same refrain: “It’s a small world, after all.” Over and over again, they sing, “It’s a small world after all ... It’s a small, small world.” And it’s cute – for a while. But after the 93rd chorus of that little song, you’re ready to swim the rest of the way just to get out of that tunnel. Inside you’re screaming, “I’m sick of a small, small world!” Actually, that’s how a lot of us are feeling about our life.