Usually when someone has received a death sentence for their crimes, you can count on it years of legal appeals to try to stay alive. That's what makes the true story of a prisoner named George Wilson so amazing. He was convicted of killing a Federal guard during a robbery. But public sentiment at that time was so strong against capital punishment that he eventually received a full pardon from the President of the United States. But, unbelievably, when the pardon was brought to him in his prison cell, he refused it! The Supreme Court was actually called upon to decide how this very strange case should be handled. And they ruled that a pardon is a piece of paper whose only value must be determined by the one receiving the pardon. George Wilson died for what he had done - because he refused to accept his pardon.

I must confess, I never thought I'd live to see the day when it would happened, but it did - and the whole world saw it. It was that awful wall in Berlin that was there for so long, where so many East Berliners died trying to escape to freedom in West Berlin. No one tried to escape to Communist East Berlin. The Communists erected that ugly wall to keep their people in, covered it with barbed wire, and guarded it with vicious dogs and vicious guards. Most folks, I believe, thought that wall would always be there. But almost overnight, in those dramatic days in 1989, (you can probably picture it in your own mind), the people were allowed to demolish that wall. It was one of the most dramatic moments of the 20th Century. And in the streets of Berlin, 100,000 people chanted four words over and over again - "The wall is gone! The wall is gone!"

When we secured land to build our Ministry Headquarters, we barely noticed the barn that was standing on that land - until God blessed us with some truckloads of donated materials - which needed a place to be stored. Suddenly, we were taking a second look at this old pole barn filled with hay. The center was the only part that had walls - walls with rotting wood. The east and west sides of the barn had no walls, just some rotting old poles holding up a makeshift roof. We asked a contractor friend if there was any hope for the barn - especially since some folks had said to just bulldoze it. The contractor said the rafters and foundation were good enough that something might be able to be done.

If you've been to Disneyland or Disney World with children, they made sure you got on this cute little ride called "Small World." It's this little boat that takes you on a trip down this winding little canal where these precious little dolls sing to you. They're dressed like children from all over the world, and they're singing this little song to you - "It's a small world after all." And it's cute - for a while. The problem is they keep singing it to you, around every bend, from every side. By the end of that ride, you are sick of a small, small world!

There was no warning. All the power just suddenly went out in this building where we have our offices. No thunder, no lightning, no wind - just a sudden shutdown of our computers, our phones, our heat, all our power. In an instant, our building was dead. And it stayed dead for two full days making for some interesting opportunities to be resourceful, flexible, adaptable, inefficient! Our offices are in a pretty old building. And when they dug into the cause of the shutdown, they found that some antique electric part in the building had finally just died. Now, since this part was apparently original equipment - probably from sometime around the Revolutionary War - it was impossible to find another part like it. They don't make them anymore! So we're talking some creative electrical work here! Those old connections just couldn't deliver what is needed for today's demands!

The truck driver just drove up and dumped it in my driveway, but I was very happy to see it. It was my cord of wood - a winter of warm fires in our fireplace! See, we had ordered it during a special sale, which others apparently took advantage of big time. The driver told me some people had ordered five cords of wood. When I asked why, he said, "It's for their wood stoves. They're depending on it to keep their house warm this winter!" No wonder they ordered a lot of wood for the winter. And when they run out of fuel, they run out of fire. When they run out of fire, it gets very cold.

If you don't know how to swim, it's just not cool to let your friends know it - and it's just not smart not to. Especially if you're going into the lake with them to swim. This is not theory we're talking here. It's history - my history. The scene was Lake Michigan. The ten-year-old who couldn't swim was me. And I was too proud to tell my friends. Suddenly, as I waded deeper and deeper, I lost my footing, and I began drinking the lake. My friends thought it was funny. They just laughed and said, "Look at Ronnie. He's such a clown!" I was dying. I had gone under for the second time - and I can almost feel the terror of that moment even now as I'm telling you about it. Now obviously something happened or I wouldn't have lived to tell you about it. I was helpless. I couldn't contribute a thing to my getting back to shore. Thankfully, someone came who could. And that rescuer did it all.

It's definitely the age of doctors who are specialists. Including one of the latest, new specialties - the spin doctor. The spin doctor is actually to be found in the world of politics. As soon as some news breaks that might be damaging or embarrassing to a political leader or candidate, someone on their staff talks to the press about it - and they find a way to put a positive or undamaging "spin" on those revelations - to put their man or woman in the best possible light. The more powerful you become, the more "spin doctors" you need. And depending on how good the "doctor" is, a lot of people may end up believing the "spin" rather than the truth!

Years ago, I was at a youth conference where we needed to raise some money for a camp scholarship fund. So we challenged the kids to buy their counselor into this Friday night food fight. Oh, well, the kids found the money all right! So Friday night all of us leaders showed up on the field of battle with the campers watching like these sadistic spectators at the Roman Coliseum. Now, for starters, we got hosed down so everything would cling to us. I'm embarrassed about the food we wasted, frankly, but I'm at least glad we paid for a few kids to get to camp.

The Titanic has sailed into the Internet - bigtime. You wouldn't believe the mountains of information available about the sinking of that "unsinkable" ship back in 1912. With the Academy Award-winning movie, and endless TV shows and articles, a Broadway musical - fascination with the Titanic is at an all-time high. A lot of this information has been known for decades, but suddenly there's a tremendous appetite for that information. Like the tragic mistake made that fatal night by a radioman on the Titanic. The ship had received a number of warnings about ice ahead, and had adjusted her course southward as a result. But two hours before the Titanic hit the iceberg, the radioman received a warning from another ship about a major iceberg, along with the longitude and latitude coordinates. They put that iceberg right in Titanic's path. It's the one that sank the ship. But the radioman didn't know it was in their path. He was busy that night, so he stuck that message on a spindle where it could be dealt with later. That one choice doomed him - and 1,500 other passengers who died that night.