Just One Bad Century

Dusty Baker's boys came through for us last night, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals, and giving the Cubs a bit of space. Now the Cubs have to take care of Milwaukee before heading to St. Louis. In looking at the Cubs' pitching rotation, I think Ted Lilly should take the mound Saturday in St. Louis when I'll be there.

I found an interesting video in a series called The Karma Train on a website called Just One Bad Century that describes the way the Cubs made it into the 1908 World Series:

Thoughts on Jeremiah Wright

Last night I was doing some channel surfing. About 9:30, I grew tired of basketball, and hit the new channels. CNN had pre-empted Larry King to give coverage of Jeremiah Wright's keynote address at a fund-raiser for the NAACP in Detroit.

I was fascinated by the excerpts that I heard. I did not see the entire speech, though I set my machine to record its rebroadcast. A year from now, I will be teaching Anthropology. One of the basic ideas of missionary anthropology is that cultural differences are not better or worse, but rather are different. Wright had a segment that dealt with linguistics, ethnomusicology, even homiletics, where he parodied cultural differences between blacks and non-blacks. It was entertaining, and may be useful when talking about cultural differences my future missionary students may face.

When Wright's inflammatory post-9/11 statements came out, Barack Obama put some needed distance between his controversial former pastor and the campaign. Some of the talking heads think Wright should just fade into the woodwork. I found it ironic that one of the Republican talking heads was irate (and nearly irrational), concerned that this self-centered minister should fade into the woodwork rather than putting himself out there in public, hurting the political chances of Obama. Why was Wright there? Well, there were nearly 12,000 people present at a very pricey fund-raiser. I think he was there because his presence could bring in a lot of cash (and probably put a bunch in his own pocket at the same time.)

Back in March, I became aware that Jeremiah Wright had been featured in Christianity Today's Preaching Today series. Our preaching students are required to listen to a variety of sermons from that series. I made a mental note to listen to him preach in that series. This morning, I listened to his message in the series, dating from 1990. It was titled "The Audacity to Hope", and was based on 1 Samuel 1:1-18, about Hannah looking upward toward God in the middle of her barrenness. It was a good sermon. Ironically, Obama's second book (which I have not read) is titled The Audacity of Hope.

Wright is a proponent of Black Liberation Theology. Fair or not, that is the context from which he moves. The most redeeming part of his speech was the emphasis on cultural differences not being deficiencies, but rather differences. He advocated change in the manner in which we see those who are different from us, and also in how we see ourselves. That also is positive.

Back in March, when Wright's inflammatory statements hit the air waves, I found that one of his supporters, Frank Schaeffer (we used to call him Franky Schaeffer, the son of the late Francis Schaeffer--I plan to write more about him someday), wrote a piece for the Huffington Post titled "Obama's Minister Committed Treason But When My Father Said the Same Thing He Was a Republican Hero."

When I left home this morning, I popped in a DVD-R into the DVD Recorder, and started the replay of Wright's speech from last night. I'll edit the speech, and maybe some comments. I may show it (or portions of it) in Anthropology class next year. As to the damage Pastor Wright may cause to Obama's campaign--well, I guess we are just going to have to wait and see.

DGF

A Week in 1st Place--Will They Be in 1st On May 3?

Next Saturday, my son-in-law, Steve Robinett, and I will make a trip up to St. Louis to watch the Cubs play the St. Louis Cardinals. He has played in a fantasy baseball league for as long as I have known him, but I think if you were to pin him down, he is a Cardinal fan. I've made lots of trips to Cardinals-Cubs games with fans of the Cardinals. It should be fun. I would rather see the Cubbies win, but there are 162 games in the regular season, so who knows what will happen?

Jerry and Linda Mitchell, friends from Joliet (New Lenox), IL will be going to St. Louis. Linda is the sister of a great friend from high school, also a Cub fan. Linda's Mom is a super fan, as was her father.

I was reading a Cubs board, and saw a reference to Stephen Colbert (of the Colbert Report) where he said "Death to the St. Louis Cardinals". I googled that, and found a funny Colbert video (from opening day of the baseball season). It's short, but made me laugh (on the inside at least):

Missions and Baseball

I've just come back from a missions program at Crossroads Christian Church of Baxter Springs, KS. One of my students is an intern at the church, and put the program together. It was great. Shane Wood, of Institute for Christian Resources gave the message, and an excellent message on missions.

I got home, and found out that the Cubs won big-time today, sweeping the Pirates. The Cardinals and Brewers lost, giving the Cubs sole possession of 1st place in the National League Central. Eamus Catuli, indeed!

Combining a Cell Phone and a PDA

My first cell phone was the standard Nokia phone (kind of like a brick) several years ago. I have had several different models over the years. They are getting smaller and smaller.

I have used three different PDAs over the years. My first one was a Palm-based Handspring Visor that I used for a few years. I later sold it, and purchased a Toshiba Pocket PC. That machine died, and for the last couple years I have been using a Dell Axim x50v. As devices continue to shrink, the Dell Axim seemed to be huge. I used to carry it all the time, but recently I found myself carrying it only to chapel meetings or to church. Unless I was preaching somewhere, the PDA was the only Bible I would carry with me.

The problem was that carrying a cell phone AND a PDA was cumbersome. If I had the PDA in my pant pocket, it stuck out quite a bit. Normally I would carry my cell phone in the same pocket. If I had both in there -- well, you get the idea.

What if I could combine the two into one device? I checked with my cell phone carrier, and I was eligible for a phone upgrade. I found I could buy Samsung's Blackjack II in a refurbished model for a decent price. Actually I will be putting my Dell Axim on eBay in the next couple days, and expect to sell it for less than the phone cost.

A major use that I gave my Dell Axim was with Bible software. I have used both PocketBible by Laridian and the BibleReader program from Olive Tree. I had different Bibles that I used in each program. In PocketBible, I mainly had English Bibles (a number of different versions, including Study Bibles), and in the Olive Tree program, I had three Spanish translations, the NET Bible, and the Greek New Testament from Gramcord. A selling point in doing this is that I would be able to get everything the PDA did, plus what the cell phone did, for less money than what I could get for the used PDA.

I owned the Bible versions in electronic format. I thought this would be a proverbial piece of cake. The phone arrived yesterday afternoon, and I really do like it. It is quite a bit smaller than the PDA was. While its basic footprint is a little larger (height and width) than the cell phone I was using, it is a LOT thinner than my old phone. All in all, it's a very small package. I was backing up Bible files, to transfer to the new machine, so that I could put the PDA back to its pristine condition. Then I read, much to my consternation (on Olive Tree's website), that the Gramcord program does not run on a Windows Mobile Smartphone. I was not happy! The difference between a Windows Mobile Pocket PC and a Windows Mobile Smartphone is that the Pocket PC uses a stylus to tap on or to write on the screen, whereas the Smartphone does not. I guess the tapping on the screen was a big part of using Gramcord Lite. In fact, frequently I would tap on a Greek word, and then the lexicon entry would pop up on the screen with the morphological description of the word.

The bilingual readers (Spanish/English) among us will understand my next statement: "No contaron con mi astucia." Olive Tree may say that the Gramcord Lite program does not run on a Windows Mobile Smartphone, but I know differently. You can take a look at a screen capture I did of Gramcord running on my Blackjack II just before I went to lunch. As you can see, Gramcord Lite does indeed run on a Windows Mobile Smartphone. All is well with the world. The text shown is Luke 10:30, which was the basis for an excellent sermon preaching in our chapel today by a deaf brother, Jose Abenchuchen. The message was translated from ASL into audible English, or else I wouldn't have gotten very much out of it.

Now I'll always have my Bible with me, and it won't take up much room in my pocket. Life is good!

Happy Birthday!

April 8 is a good day! I was baptized into Christ on April 8, 1962 (has it been that long?), and my daughter-in-law, Emily, was born on April 8.

We are family! And we share a common birthday! Happy Birthday, Emily!

World's Largest Swimming Pool in Chile

Lola Mitchell (our friend and long-time forwarding agent) sent me a note about the World's Largest Swimming Pool, now certified by Guinness, which is located at a resort in Algarrobo, Chile. We used to go to summer camp near El Tabo, not too far south of Algarrobo, and used a vacation home of a friend a couple time just south of Algarrobo.

Check out this video from Reuters about it.

Gregory Fish is the Featured Filmmaker on SermonSpice.com

Our son Greg now has the distinction of being the Featured Filmmaker on SermonSpice.com. He has worked hard to produce a number of excellent short videos, both in English and in Spanish. Check it out here.

Way to go, Greg!

Cubs Picked to Win World Series--Is That a Good Thing?

On the eve of MLB's season, both Karl Ravech and John Kruk of ESPN's Baseball Tonight, picked the Cubs to win the World Series this year. Kruk picked the Cubs to beat the Cleveland Indians, and Ravech picked them to beat the Detroit Tigers. I would be happy with either one of those results. I thought about taking the video of Baseball Tonight, and converting it to You Tube, and posting it here, but alas, that would be a violation of copyright. If you didn't see their prediction, you'll just have to take my word about it.

The Cubs played their home opener, and dropped a 4-3 game to the Milwaukee Brewers in 10 innings. Neither closer was effective. Kerry Wood plunked the first batter he faced, and ended up giving up 3 runs in the top of the 9th. The Brewers brought in their new expensive closer, Eric Gagne, who gave up a single, a walk, then a 3-run homer to the new Cubs right fielder, Kosuke Fukudome, to tie the score in the bottom of the 9th. Fukudome had a slightly less than stellar Spring Training, but is now batting 1.000, having gone 3 for 3 today, including a double and a home run. Bobby Howry gave up a run in the 10th, and the Cubs were unable to score in the 10th, losing their first game of the season. There are 161 more to play. Maybe they can go 161-1 on the season! There is an off day tomorrow. I hope the Cubs even the Milwaukee series on Wednesday afternoon!

The most recent edition of Sports Illustrated that has made its way to my house (March 31, 2008) makes the prediction that the Cubs will make it to the World Series, but will lose to the series to the Detroit Tigers. Well they lost today too, to the lowly Kansas City Royals. Maybe there is hope for the Cubbies.

Eamus Catuli!

National Honor Society PHI UPSILON OMICRON

This evening we attended a short ceremony in which our daughter, Charissa Robinett, was initiated into the PHI UPSILON OMICRON National Honor Society. She left her job in Human Resources at Leggett & Platt in Carthage last August, to go back to school at Pittsburg State University. She is studying in the Family and Consumer Sciences Department, and plans to start her own interior design/home staging business when she graduates.

She has done very well, and of course we're proud of her. The ΦΥΟ Honor Society website (as I heard in the ceremony) says that "the Honor Society name, PHI UPSILON OMICRON, originated from the initial letters of the first, second, and last words of the Greek phrase which means "The Light of the Home." My problem with that (and one of the things that I do is to teach Koine Greek) is that if I were to write the Greek phrase which means "The Light of the Home", I would use only two Greek words, which would look like this (first in lower case letters, then in all upper case letters):

There is indeed a PHI, an UPSILON, and an OMICRON in those two words. The PHI is the initial letter of the word for light. The OMICRON is the initial letter for the word home. Greek would not use, however, a separate word for the English word of, but rather would use a genitive case ending, which in the case of the word for home would end in an UPSILON.

I guess there aren't many Greek scholars in Family and Consumer Sciences. My sister, Jacque, who is pretty smart (she is an older librarian [private joke]), guessed that those were the three Greek letters that had not been used yet for a fraternity, a sorority, or an Honor Society.

At any rate, we're proud of you, Charissa. You go, girl!

Roger Powell in Italy

Roger Powell (the Reverend) has been playing professional basketball in Italy this year. I have been following his season there, which is not all that hard to do since they only play one game per week.

A couple weeks ago he erupted for 33 points in a game, by far his best game of the season. You can get the results from the Lega A Website. His team page is found at Teramo Siviglia Wear.

I found a video summary of his 33 point game (taken from Italian TV). About 15-16 seconds in, he gets an offensive rebound, and slams it back into the basket. If you watch the video, Powell is number 11 on the team wearing red uniforms.

The Cubs have their season opener on Monday afternoon. It will be cold in Chicago.

After tomorrow, we'll have our Final Four for the NCAA Men's tournament. Can Davidson knock off the Jayhawks? I'll be hoping they can!

Photo of Church Planting Course

Top Row: D. Fish, S. Philip, S. Huffer, R. Fletcher, J. Gibbs, D. Smith

Bottom Row: M. Wulf, L. Schaubert, A. Oliver, J. Henke, L. Hutton

Photo taken in the office space for the Orchard Group

(3 blocks from Empire State Building)

Reflections on my trip to New York City

I accompanied a group on 9 OCC students to New York City on February 29, for a seminar on church planting. These are some thoughts that I shared with our faculty on March 7:

Seminar: Church Planting Orientation with Dave Smith
Location: New York City
Date: February 29-March 3, 2008
Reflections by David Fish

Is this program worth keeping?
By all means! I have gone on a number of trips with students in the past. Never have I seen students so completely engaged in "class" material. Given the fact that students pay such a small fee to cover the cost of the trip, it is a great deal for them. They realize it, and I believe are thankful. We are 1½ semesters into a two-year experiment. I would concur with the students who give rave reviews. The partnership between OCC and the Orchard Group is unique. OCC is in a budget-cutting mode. If we had to cover all expenses for this program, I suppose that we would have to eliminate it. Thanks be to God for our partnership with the Orchard Group. I'm wondering if this program bombs out, if we might want to hire Dave Smith to be Rusty Hedger's assistant.

David Dean House of South Slope, Brooklyn.
Those who have gone on New York trips before are familiar with the David Dean House, kind of a youth hostel building that is part of a Baptist mission outreach in New York City. The accommodations are not up to a 5-star rating, but the people are nice. Sleeping arrangements are dormitory-style (on bunk beds), but that really doesn't matter, since we spent very little time there. The people that work there (Matt and Pamela, and Megan) are very nice. I was surprised to learn that they were from Missouri, and studied at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar. When I realized they were from SBU, I asked them if they knew Dr. Jim Frost. How what they not know Jim Frost! He is the Chris DeWelt of SBU! They replied, "He was my professor! He married us!" Jim Frost has been a guest lecturer for our Perspectives course for the last couple years, and will speak in our class this year on April 29. I will be happy to give him greetings from Matt and Pamela (a married couple), and their friend, Megan, who live, work, and minister in Brooklyn.

Lectures/Conversations with Church Planters.
We met with a series of church planters, both from within and without the Restoration Movement. Dave had asked each one of them to respond to the following questions:
Why be involved in church planting?
Why do church planting in an urban setting in general, and in particular, why in New York City?
What advice would you give to someone who was considering church planting?
The different church planters offered slightly differing answers regarding methodologies, sometimes dependent upon a particular neighborhood in one of the boroughs of the great city. A common thread was on the church planters knowing themselves, with their particular areas of giftedness. I detected a move away from what church planting science used to say, namely that if you do this, this, and this, you will get this result. It doesn't happen that way in New York. There is a tremendous need for contextualization of the gospel message. The distance from missions to church planting is not far!

Is the Restoration Plea Still Valid Today?
Yes, it is! We met with people from different ends of the denominational world. All recognize that Christ is largely absent from the city, and are working to do whatever it takes to bring the city to him, without holding tightly to denominational distinctives, because the need is so great! I personally enjoyed the contact with Redeemer Church. We even celebrated the Lord's Supper there! The gospel was preached. They are Presbyterians (as were the Campbells). I was able to hear just part of the lecture by Dr. Mark Reynolds, who heads up the church planting division of Redeemer Church. What is so appealing to me, though, is that their church planting division has financially supported over fifty church plants, only fourteen of which would consider themselves to be Presbyterian works. The Restoration Plea is at work in New York, among church planters who see allegiance to Christ as the higher goal, than quibbling over pet doctrines. Are there problems with cross-denominational efforts? Yes, there are, but I applaud the unity efforts. On Sunday we attended three church services, at Redeemer Church, Forefront Church, and Gallery Church. Digging deeper (as we are wont to do) reveals denominational/doctrinal distinctives, but Christ gets the top billing.

Can This Program Create Internship Possibilities for our Students?
It already has! Dave's assistant (of sorts) is Nathan Winstead. He interned at Forefront Church while he was a student here. He returned to NYC to help out. Vocationally, he works for Jews for Jesus. Matt Berry, Tim Little, and Kyle Welch will be doing internships beginning this summer (that is, if Doug Welch approves his brother's internship). A student who went with us (Levi Hutton) will likely do a year-long internship at Park Slope Church starting in January 2009. This is likely just the beginning of internship possibilities.

The Sights and Sounds.
Friday night we visited Central Park, Rockefeller Center, and Times Square. We were on the Top of the Rock observation tower, and it was snowing! Saturday night we went to see The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, which is not something you get to do every week, thanks to generous donors of the Orchard Group. We walked miles and miles (and I found two nice blisters on opposite feet). We rode the subway everywhere we didn't walk. I noted a similarity between roads in Joplin and the subway of New York. Here we have road closings for construction at night. In New York, they have train closings for construction at night.

The city presents unique challenges for ministry. One church planter we met with told our students that they are likely to hear about the need for life-long learning. When I heard him say that, I said Amen! to myself. Then he changed it up, saying that in many ways, to be effective in reaching people in New York City for Christ, we need a spirit of life-long unlearning! He was addressing particular biases inherent in many of us Midwesterners, that create a hindrance to New Yorkers hearing the gospel. I think he was right on!

I'm thankful to have had the privilege of making a trip to the Big Apple with some of our finest students. May God give the increase from our intentional effort to insert ourselves into the city!

David G. Fish
March 7, 2008

Colored Motives

I wrote most of this post over a month ago (final edit on Monday, March 17), but wanted to get it posted. Rose and I participated in an elective class at our church on Wednesday nights since January. It has been a lot more fun than I anticipated. The presenters were what I would call my consuegros (a term that my Chilean friends would understand--I really can't think of one word in the English language that captures who they are), the parents-in-law of our son, Greg, Van and Tammy Benson. Maybe if Tammy were the dominant, up-front, presenter, instead of inserting extremely poignant insights when her fun-loving husband needs a lifeline, it would not be as much fun. The reality, however, is that it has been fun, and lots of it.

I think that Van is a very able communicator, and the group dynamics the occurred in the class sessions were valuable. The class is called Motive Matters. I've been hearing a lot about it for the last year and a half ago, when it came to the forefront of family discussions at the in-law stage. Emily (our daughter-in-law) asked us to take the personality/core-motive profile online. You can take a free test by clicking on the link a in the first sentence of this paragraph. We took the test months ago, which resulted in being assigned to a particular color (in this system: red, blue, white, or yellow). I

have seen personality grouping systems in the past, and have pretty much made fun of them. Several years ago, we as a faculty went through some sessions in a similar system called True Colors. The president's wife was a certified trainer. I think just about every department in the college had access to that training. I heard lots of talk about people being this color, or that color.

Over thirty years ago, we came across Tim LaHaye's Spirit-Controlled Temperament, which divides personality/temperament types into the following categories: sanguine, choleric, melancholy, and phlegmatic. LaHaye revived some ancient personality theory with that system, popularizing it for the evangelical world.

Gary Smalley and John Trent created a similar system based on traits of animals: lion, beaver, otter, and a golden retriever. Those developed in a book titled The Treasure Tree. It appears to me that Smalley may have modified his descriptions, now using these categories to describe basically the same thing: Captain, Social Director, Steward, Navigator.

All of these systems are similar. Van and Tammy credit the Color/People Code with saving their marriage. They will be going to Utah soon to become re-certified as trainers. Most of the training work they do is in the corporate world. As followers of Jesus, however, they enjoy presenting these concepts within the church, as they can freely add Scripture. I commend them and their work. I was enriched by participating in it. I think they will begin a new cycle at College Heights Christian Church as a Wednesday night elective on March 26.

Litmus-Test Political Issues and Barack Obama

I enjoyed living through the transition from the government of Chilean right-wing dictator, August Pinochet, to the democratic process. There was almost nothing in the process that I did not enjoy. As the air waves, and printing presses moved from censorship to the free expression of ideas, I followed the political process with eagerness. My kids remember countless trips across the city of Santiago, practically begging me to turn on an FM station with music. I usually responded with a terse answer: "I bought the car. I bought the radio. I decide what we listen to."

The political process in the U.S. is getting into high gear. Though my beloved wife tires of the issues and mud-slinging, I rather enjoy following it. I count it a privilege to cast a vote, and while I wonder how much difference my vote can make, I continue to exercise that privilege.

Pinochet's followers in Chile assured that unless his followers were elected, there would be chaos. Chile has elected four presidents (all from an anti-Pinochet coalition) since that time, and though there are challenges, life in Chile is pretty good these days.

Since returning to the U.S., I will confess that there has been one issue that has been a litmus-test issue for me: the sanctity of human life. That one issue, more than any other, has informed my vote. I recognize there are problems with being a single-issue voter. My good friend, Dave Schultz, wrote an excellent column on that a few weeks back for the Huntington (IN) Herald-Press. He referenced Timothy Hesburgh, long-time president of the University of Notre Dame, who certainly is on the same side of this issue that I am on. Hesburgh expressed concern, however, that "many of the candidates that were pro-life were 'anti' many of the social issues that he cared about."

Along that vein, the words of Jesus are haunting, "Go and learn what this means, 'I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.' For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." (Matthew 9:13, ESV) In Matthew 23:23, he calls mercy one of the weightier matters of the law. It is ironic that politicians that show the greatest concern for the rights on the unborn, have little regard for the social issues of poverty. I have read both Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of World Hunger and Chilton's Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators. The golden mean of Biblical tension (to use a phrase often used by Robertson McQuilkin) is somewhere between those two extremes.

But let's get back to the litmus-test issue. Jill Stanek is a member at Parkview Christian Church in Orland Park, IL, where Ozark graduate Tim Harlow ministers. Parkview is a megachurch, which may cause some to think they may have watered down the gospel message. Mrs. Stanek was a nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, IL, when she discovered that babies were being aborted alive, and then were abandoned to die. She was instrumental in what has become known as the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which passed both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and which President Bush signed into law in 2002. Stanek detailed much of that story in a WorldNetDaily.com column dated July 19, 2006, titled "Why Jesus Would Not Vote for Barack Obama." The cartoon originally appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times, and later in Stanek's column linked above.

Barack is the charismatic candidate. Hillary is much maligned. But while Barack was doing everything possible to impede similar legislation in Illinois, the U.S. Senate, of which Mrs. Clinton was a member, passed the bill with unanimous consent.

It makes me wonder . . .

Got Fukudome?

The Chicago Cubs just released a new print ad campaign, highlighting the expected contribution of their new Japanese outfielder, Kosuke Fukudome. It says, "I don't need an interpreter. My bat does the talking."

An eBay seller has a T-Shirt based on the "Got milk?" campaign. It simply asks, Got Fukudome? The Cubs have him. I hope he lives up to expectations. Eamus Catuli in 2008!

Two Simple Questions

After Israel's sojourn in Egypt, God gave His law. Within that law, I found these verses:

Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt.
Ex 22:21 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984).

Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt. Ex 23:9 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984).

When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God. Le 19:33-34 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984).

Was Israel to distinguish between documented and undocumented aliens, in deciding how to treat the aliens that lived among them?

Another question: What would Jesus do?

Reprise of the Ice Storm

I actually wrote this post on Wednesday, December 12, posted it initially, then deleted it because it was kind of a dumb thing to put an ad in cyberspace to say that our house is without electricity and we are out of town, so come on over and take our stuff.

We are back from Texas now. I think that the lights came back on one day after we left home.

Ice Storm across the Midwest

I would much rather deal with snow than ice. We were in Texas early in January (just before our Spring Semester 2007 started). An ice storm ripped across the plains as we were traveling north. In order to avoid icy roads in Oklahoma, we headed east to Texarkana, attended Sunday morning services in Murfreesboro, Arkansas, and traveled north through Arkansas, avoiding most of the icy roads, until we got to the extreme northwest corner of Arkansas. The last 35 miles was rather difficult, but we made it home safely. We never lost power, though many in Joplin did.

We were warned of the possibility of another ice storm last Saturday night. Many in the Joplin area woke up Sunday morning without electricity. We had power at our home. Sunday afternoon, my nephew, Scott McGill, his wife Lindsey and their two kids came over, as their home was without electricity. Sunday afternoon our satellite receiver iced over, and we lost TV. The kids watched DVDs, and all was fine. I had been listening to a Joplin AM radio station streamed on the internet. I woke up Monday morning (about the time I usually do--5 AM), and decided to start listening to the radio station streamed over the internet. As I was booting my computer, we had some loud sounds coming from nearby transformers, and we lost power. Now 2 1/2 days later, we're still without power, and I don't expect to see electricity in our house until we return from a trip to Texas on December 23. I hope that I am wrong!

About 58,000 customers in the Joplin area lost power. Their website currently says that 33,000 customers are still without power. It has been an experience. OCC was also without power, and the decision to cancel final exams was made late on Sunday. Students will receive whatever grade they had in the class, without taking final exams. Power is back on at OCC (I showered this morning in the dorm I lived in 35 years ago). We have had quite a few meals at my Mom's this week (she did not lose power--buried power lines are a wonderful idea).

Monday night we were to have an Open House at our place for all of my students and the girls who live on Goodman Hall 2nd floor. We had a quick meal at Mom's, then traversed the city to our home, and lit candles, just in case anyone showed up. It would not have made sense for kids to travel in the dark, with power lines and trees down across roadways. Thankfully, no one came. We went to bed in a cold house, but piled on the blankets. I thought it was great. We were really toasty under the blankets. It reminded me of being in Southern Chile, and going to bed in a cold house, but being very warm under the blankets.

Yesterday, we bought a Kerosene Heater. Years ago in Chile we used kerosene for heat. These heaters have come a long way since then, using cleaner kerosene (1K), and are much safer. We thought about picking one up Monday afternoon, but the word was that there were heaters to be purchased, but finding kerosene would be difficult. I found a pallet of 5 gallon drums of 1K Kerosene at Home Depot yesterday, but no heaters. I heard that Lowe's had heaters but no kerosene. When we decided to do it, I bought the kerosene first at Home Depot (over $7.00/gallon), then went to Lowe's to buy the heater.

We used it in the house last night, and it worked very well. The house was at 42 degrees when we started it up (about 9:30 PM). By morning, we were at 67 degrees. I'll go home in a bit and get it ready to go for tonight.

We are leaving Friday morning (Dec. 14) for Texas. We'll spend Friday night in the Dallas area, then make the long journey south on Saturday. I'll share the pulpit with Greg in the Spanish service at Central Christian in Brownsville. Other than that, we'll be staying out on South Padre Island. Greg will take Monday off, and we'll celebrate Christmas with the Texas Fish Clan on Monday, December 17. Charissa and Kimberly are going with us. Charissa will fly back on Monday night. Kimberly will fly back on Wednesday night. We'll leave South Texas on Saturday, December 22, make the trek to the Dallas area, attend church there on Sunday morning, and then drive home. I imagine that is when we'll see electric lights on at our house.

I'll get grades turned in before we leave. I hope you have a blessed Christmas.

DGF

Some Thoughts of the Republican Presidential Candidates About the Bible

Last night CNN and YouTube partnered in putting on a debate among the Republican Presidential Candidates. I DVRd most of the debate (I lost about the first 15 minutes). I probably watched about half of what I recorded. I'll finish watching the last 40 minutes or so before I delete the file.

I was interested, however, in a segment in which a YouTube participant asked the candidates their belief about "every word" of the Bible (the one he held up was a King James Bible). This is my first time to upload a video segment to YouTube, and to place it on my blog:

Jesus: God's Promised Gift

School started again this morning, after an entire week off for Thanksgiving Break. My boss, Mark Scott, preached in chapel this morning. We have just two more weeks of class before Final Exam Week, so there are only 3 more chapel services now.

His assigned text was Matthew 1-2, "The Gift . . . Promised". He opened with a verse from Proverbs:
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life. "
(Proverbs 13:12, NIV)

He divided the first two chapters of Matthew into four literary units, with this dominant theme: The Promised Gift would not be deferred by:

1. Questionable Roots (1:1-17)
2. Suspicious Origin (1:18-25)
3. A Looney King (2:1-18)
4. Seeming Obscurity (2:19-23)

Mark did a masterful job, which drew me towards Christ. The audio should appear on the college website within a couple days. I recommend you check it out. You can either listen online, or download the sermon file in MP3 format.

The songs selected during the worship time contributed to the service. Songs were interspersed with Scripture readings taken from Matthew 1-2. The lyrics to a song we sang were especially significant to me, and probably put me into the Christmas spirit, Welcome to our World, by Chris Rice:

Tears are falling, hearts are breaking

How we need to hear from God

You've been promised, we've been waiting

Welcome, Holy Child

Welcome, Holy Child

Hope that you don't mind our manger

How I wish we would have known

But long-awaited, Holy Stranger

Make Yourself at home.

Please, make Yourself at home.

Bring Your peace into our violence

Bid our hungry souls be filled

Word, now breaking Heaven's silence

Welcome to our world

Welcome to our world

Fragile finger sent to heal us

Tender brow prepared for thorn

Tiny heart whose blood will save us

Unto us is born

Unto us is born

So wrap our injured flesh around You

Breathe our air and walk our sod

Rob our sin and make us holy

Perfect Son of God

Perfect Son of God

Welcome to our world.

May the Christ of Christmas indwell your world.

DGF