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The tragic shooting that killed four students (and the shooter) at Marysville High School in Washington shocked everybody. When it first appeared that 15-year-old Jaylen Fryberg was the shooter, it was all the more shocking.
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A dog and bubbles: Ah, There's an amusing combination! I think my wife discovered this when our little Shih tzu dog was just a puppy, a new member of our family, (and I'm happy to report, the only one with four legs), and she was kind of still discovering her world. My wife went out and bought one of those containers of bubbles, you know the one with the little wand that you could blow the bubbles out of? We used them when we were kids.
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I had just finished up a great conference in Canada, and Michael, our Field Director was there with me. We were walking back to our hotel to pack up and leave. I was really tired and pre-occupied when he handed me this envelope. I noticed a phone message written on it, and I distinctly remember Michael saying something when he handed it to me, but I was concentrating on that message that been written on the envelope. I looked at who it was and I said to myself, "Oh, I already made that call." And since I was finished with the message, after I got in my room I threw the envelope away.
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It was the biggest event of the year in the little town of Cornwall; the annual Christmas pageant, starring many of the people of the town. When it came time for casting the various parts, every parent was pushing for their son or daughter to be included. On audition day, it didn't take long to match every part with just the right person.
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Like most Americans, I just about O.D. on the news. No matter what it's about! It could be news about elections, or some economic problem, or eruptions in the Middle East. It's all important, but it's not exactly in the "joy to the world" category.
So I absolutely loved the feel-good story out of New York City that went viral across Facebook a couple of years ago. It was about the friendly policeman and the freezing homeless man. And it had "Christmas Story" written all over it.
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When my son was in college I think his favorite Christmas song was "I'll be Home for Christmas." That might be every college student's favorite song. He started counting the days, the hours, and the minutes until it was time to go home. But none of our kids have ever experienced anything like what my wife calls her loneliest Christmas.
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The short story writer, Bret Hart, gives us a story out of the Old West about a town called Roaring Camp. I think it's a story that brings the miracle of Christmas into very sharp focus into our lives today and I want to share it with you.
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In some ways I'm glad the three little Hutchcrafts aren't little any more. When they were, the day before Christmas always meant assembling some "easy to assemble" toy. I hate those words! It wasn't easy to assemble. Oh, and the day after, oh that's nice. It usually meant fixing what was not easy to assemble in the first place. It seems like the day after Christmas there was always something was broken. Actually, there's some fixing that needs to happen before Christmas.
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We were trying to teach some young leaders the importance of teamwork. One of the exercises I used was to have them put together a puzzle. (I thought it was a bright idea.) You tear off a page of a magazine, tear it into pieces, dump it into the middle of each small group, and see who could put their pictures together first. It didn't work too well. See, I forgot one little thing. I forgot to give them a copy of the complete picture so they could see what it should look like when it was all together. Duh! Now, I've tried to work on one of those big, many-pieces puzzles myself, and I've had the same frustration because I didn't know where the top of the puzzle box top was. It was really hard to put the pieces together when the complete picture wasn't there.
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Christians that were in Russia anytime during the 1950s to about 1990 were familiar with the voice of Nick Leonovich. For decades before the Iron Curtain came down, Nick had been faithfully broadcasting the gospel in Russian to his people. When the doors began to open, and Nick would travel through Russia and meet those Russian believers finally, a lot of them would stop him and they'd say, "Hey, I know your voice! You led me to Christ." Wow!
