Thursday, July 16, 2015

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Driving in Mexico? Oh, that's an adventure. Actually, riding with someone who's driving is an adventure!

Some years ago when we had an office in Latin America, I was with our director of Latin American outreach. He was very skillfully and amazingly navigating the challenges of the traffic in his city. Don's little boy, John, was in the back seat and at one point our back seat helper reminded Daddy that he was supposed to be getting in the next lane for an upcoming tunnel! It took a little doing, but Don managed to get over there somehow, at which point little John in the back seat had a word for his father. This little voice said from the back seat, "Good job, Daddy!" See, John says that pretty often. He likes what his father does, and he tells him.

Monday, July 13, 2015

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It was sort of good news/bad news for our youngest son. But it was mostly good news. He had sensed the strong leading from the Lord to go into full-time outreach to Native Americans. That meant he would be driving those exciting, rugged reservation roads. But there was no way that was going to be possible without a four wheel drive vehicle.

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

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I went out shooting, yes, as in a gun, with a friend of mine a while back, and I got a high caliber scare! The report of one volley of gunfire was so loud it literally made me deaf for a little while. I mean it was just temporary, just a few minutes, but I'll tell you it was all the deafness I ever want to experience. It is not a pleasant prospect to imagine hearing no children's laughter, no tender words, no music, no birds singing, and I had a new understanding of the tragedy of deafness. There's one kind, though, that isn't a tragedy. It's a triumph.

Friday, July 3, 2015

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If you're from Texas, you know that Alamo is more than just a rental car agency. The Alamo, you know, is that old Spanish Mission in the heart of downtown San Antonio where an estimated 200 brave freedom fighters took their stand against the army of Mexico in the battle for Texas independence. Now, I've been there and I've seen the Alamo. And on my last visit, I was moved again by the sacrifice that those people made. They gave their lives for the cause of freedom. But only after inflicting heavy losses on the enemy army and inspiring what turned out to be the ultimate victory with the Texas battle cry, "Remember the Alamo!"

Monday, June 15, 2015

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Our dog, Missy, had to share our attention with another pet. Yeah, it was a canary that we named in honor of one of our Native American friends. We named the canary Cherokee. Now, this little yellow cheerleader was great for when you were in a bad mood because he never was! As soon as you uncovered his cage in the morning, he began warbling his repertoire of happy tunes. It might be a sunny day, and you had happy singing from him all day long. It might be a miserable day. Guess what? Happy singing all day long! It didn't matter how the people around our canary felt; happy, stressed, noisy, quiet, or down. It just didn't matter. No matter what, he was always singing!

Monday, June 08, 2015

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My schedule? Oh, forget it. It's ridiculous! So much so I often can't get to stores before they close. And banks just don't seem to have schedules that are made for guys like me. Here I am after banker's hours with nothing in my wallet but pictures of my family. But, listen, a great thing happened! The ATM was invented, the ATM card just for people like us. What a concept! Any time of the day or night I can go in with an empty wallet and use that card to instantly access my account and walk out with something in my wallet. Good deal.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

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Velcro Man! That's what my wife and I nicknamed one of our good friends. And Jack, if you happen to be listening, I'm sorry you have to hear about this through the radio. Jack is Velcro Man! Everywhere we look in his house, his vehicle, his studio, we find a problem solved by Velcro; that special fabric tape that has hundreds of little hooks on one side and loops on the other side. Man, when you can connect them, they stick together!

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

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Sometimes I think my schedule looks like an episode of Mission Impossible. Some years ago, I was speaking for the Billy Graham Crusade Committee for two pre-crusade leadership rallies. They were in two completely different locations on the same Saturday morning. One was in the heart of Philadelphia and one was in an outlying suburb. They were scheduled back-to-back, and we had to make a very flying trip when I finished speaking in the city to get to the suburbs.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015

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Back in the good old days my wife and I would go camping with our kids when they were young. We did some camping after they were grown up too. But it was actually easier without the kids. You know the routine. We'd get the three little Hutchcrafts ready for bed, make sure no bears were going to eat them during the night, and then we would snap all the snaps and tuck them into their sleeping bags, tied up all the flaps and zipped all the zippers on the tent door. Finally, able to settle into our sleeping bags, having found the most comfortable piece of ground underneath that we could.

Thursday, April 30, 2015

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When our daughter got married there was one song I told her I did not want to hear at the wedding. You know, "Where is that little girl I carried, where is that little boy at play?" Okay, I'm not going to sing it for you, but you know the song. Well, the time really did fly, like the song says, "Sunrise, sunset, swiftly pass the years." It's a song that taps into some very deep feelings about the mystery of life, and I don't think I could have handled it at my daughter's wedding. It points out how that parade of Saturdays and Tuesdays and Thursdays just sort of seem to flow together into years-so just yesterday my daughter is a bouncy little girl cuddling on my lap. And then she's a poised bride on the arm of her new husband. But that song also captures the real practical essence of this massive entity we call "my life"- it boils down to those bite-size chunks called days. It's almost as if we die each night when we hit the bed and we get resurrected each new morning to a fresh new day.