I was with several members of our Team in the relentless evangelism schedule of one of our "Make A Difference" Weekends. We were getting pretty tired and our minds were totally focused on our outreaches. In fact, so tired and so focused, that I forgot about a radio station that was calling me for a live interview that afternoon. Now, I had just awakened from a brief nap and the phone rang. Thinking it was one of our Team members, I jokingly answered, "Good morning" - at 4:00 in the afternoon. Somehow, I was able to rebound immediately and go enthusiastically into that interview, and I don't think the folks on the other end ever knew I was surprised by their call. When I told my Team members about this, Esther said, "Ron, I've seen you come to life like that a lot of times. You're like a ventriloquist's dummy." I thanked her for sharing that, and she felt she should clarify what she meant. She said, "No, no. You're like this." Then she closed her eyes, hung her head, and leaned lifelessly against the wall. Then, without warning, she opened her eyes real wide, started moving her head from side to side, and said, "Hi, everybody! How ya doing?" I laughed so hard I could barely drive.

My friend Jim loves to wear this shirt that says, "I've been to the wilderness" - that's on the front. On the back it says, "I can handle anything." Sounds a little cocky maybe, but he did earn the right to wear the shirt. He went on a two-week wilderness program where they pushed him, and all those on the trip, to go way beyond their limitations. Running for miles, climbing for hours with a heavy backpack, living off the land, blazing trails, enduring the heat, going solo for two days with almost nothing to live on. Hard? Yes. Fun? Not particularly. Worth it? Ask Jim. Or, better yet, read his shirt. "I've been to the wilderness - I can handle anything!"

Spock, Scotty, a doctor called "Bones," the Starship Enterprise, the transporter, the Klingons - they're all part of a universe millions of people know as Star Trek. And if the oft-repeated TV shows weren't enough, the Star Trek crew became the stars of several major movies. And then came the new crew, set even farther ahead in our future - "Star Trek - The Next Generation." They were still boldly going where no one had gone before on the Starship Enterprise. But "Star Trek I" and "Star Trek II" had at something more than a ship in common - they both had a strong captain in command. First, Captain Kirk - who always seemed to have things under control. But then along came the "Next Generation" skipper - Captain Picard. He had a lot less hair than Capt. Kirk - but he seemed to be even more in charge. There was never a question as to who was in charge of the ship, the crew, and the situation. And when Capt. Picard would give an order, he would follow it with three "no argument" words that were always the bottom line - "Make it so."

You may not be able to tell over the radio - but I'm not a very big guy. Oh, I'm big inside. But outside, more of a Volkswagen than a semi. Which makes it amazing that both my sons ended up playing line in football. That's usually where they put the monsters. Actually, we used to joke that linemen wore their IQs on their jerseys - you know, like 75. But it was brawn more than brains they needed to either hold the line while their opponents were trying to move them or to break through those gorillas on the other side of the line. There are just a few simple instructions that every coach wants every lineman to learn and live by. Our guys heard this one all the time - "Keep your feet moving." No matter what. Even if it feels like you're going nowhere. Even if you're getting hammered. Even if you think it's doing no good. As long as you keep driving - as long as you keep your feet moving - you're making a difference. The alternative - getting knocked down.

I looked, I blinked, I looked again, and I still wasn't sure what I was seeing. We were driving next to a railroad track when I saw a vehicle moving along the railroad track, but not a train. A pickup truck. He was moving right along down the track like a train, but a truck? Trucks have tires, railroads have tracks. Tires don't ride on tracks. Well, as I looked closer I realized what was going on here. This was a maintenance truck for the railroad, specially modified to run on tracks. It was mounted with special train wheels extending out from both the front and back of the pickup. So because he had been specially outfitted, he was able to go where he normally could never go!

I don't know if you've ever driven across the United States, but it's something you want to think twice about, it is a long haul. Now how about riding a bicycle across the United States? That's what my friend Scott did when he was a college student with a group called Wandering Wheels. That's a lot of wandering! Scott said he was excited about the idea until the day the leaders displayed a map of the whole country on the side of their chuck wagon. It looked, in a word, impossible. But they started on this Mission Impossible anyway. Each day, they'd get up and just start riding again. "So he took it a day at a time, then?" No. Scott said when the riding really got tough and his legs were just about to go on strike, he would just aim for that next telephone pole. And pretty soon, he said, that huge map got conquered, one telephone pole at a time!

It's pretty funny the lengths some advertisers will go to convince you that you should buy their product, like those Samsonite commercials. Remember, the suitcase in the gorilla cage, taking every form of abuse a gorilla could give it? And then there was the one where they threw it out of a plane and it survived. But the pioneers of this kind of "hammer it to prove it" advertising were the makers of Timex watches. Their motto was hard to forget - "Takes a lickin', keeps on tickin'." I don't remember all the ways they beat up on their watches, but it seems to me they attached one to a ski boat, one to the underside of a truck that was bouncing along a bumpy road. They gave it all kinds of hammering that proved the quality of their product.

The most boring part of any youth group outing is the long bus trip, especially if the trip is from Michigan to Arizona. Not long ago I interviewed some kids who went on this mission trip to the Navajo Reservation, but I don't think they will remember the trip as boring. Because of the carelessness of another driver, their bus had to swerve sharply at one point and the bus went off the road and started to roll all the way over into a ditch. Needless to say, it was very scary. One-by-one they emerged from the bus and thank God, no one was killed. Some were injured and had to be treated at a local hospital. Well, when they finally arrived at that Indian reservation they were a sorry looking bunch. They weren't able to bring all their luggage with them, some were on crutches, in braces, patched, bandaged. But when they found out at least one reason why the bus had rolled well, they have been thanking God for that accident ever since!

Well, some of us had to wait almost 20 years for it - but the 1996 New York Yankees finally won the World Series. Now they had to be the champs to do it - the Atlanta Braves. And after the first two games of the best-of-seven series, I thought the Yankees had gone into a coma - they got creamed. Ah, but that's when it got exciting - they came back to win next two games. The series was tied at two games apiece, of course - and the then Yankees appeared to doze off again in Game Five - they were behind 6-0! Speaking of dozing off, that's what at least one Yankee fan did - including the guy I heard buying a newspaper the next day. He saw the headline announcing that the Yankees had come back and won that game 8-6! He grabbed that newspaper, saw the outcome of the game, and then said some things I can't quote - after which he said, "I can't believe it! I gave up on them in the seventh inning and went to sleep!" He missed a great victory.

It was a beautiful day for sailing, and our friend Dave had invited us to go out on Long Island Sound with him and his wife. It was not hard to decide whether to go. The Sound was relatively calm that day - there was a very gentle breeze and not a cloud in the sky - but suddenly Dave announced to us, "We're heading in." I couldn't think of a single, rational reason to waste the rest of such an idyllic afternoon. I said, "Why Dave?" He said, "To beat the storm." Right? I checked the sky again, and there were still no clouds. Well, we headed for the harbor and pretty soon Dave was lowering his sails and we went the rest of the way propelled by his motor, and sure enough it started sprinkling as we entered the harbor! As we tied the last canvas around the folded sails, the skies opened up and dumped! Now, I was impressed - and dry, thanks to Dave hearing some static on the radio, knowing where that station transmitted from and sensing that rain was on the way. He saw no clouds, but he expected the rain.