We also were part of a pilot program to preview a bunch of videos called “God Provides” produced by Crown Financial Ministries.  These are really first rate videos that explores what real faith looks like from many angles through key Bible stories. The ones called “Lifted Up” and “Abraham and Isaac” were tear-jerkers for me.

Another interesting thing happened this week. My son T-10 was part of the awards ceremony for his 4th grade class. It was really cool. He won a bunch of academic awards including getting the high score for the math Olympiads, being part of the 4th grade Battle of the Books team which got a silver metal and he was chosen as the student of the year for his home room. We were so excited. Anyway, it was kind of interesting. We had to go up for the final award because they honor the parents as well as the students for that particular award. Of course I forgot and wore the rattiest pair of shorts and polo shirt I had that morning (almost didn’t take a shower) because it was fairly early in the morning and we usually don’t have to do much at these events. Anyway, during the ceremony I was feeling some discomfort in my knee. Not too bad but it was getting progressively worse. By the time it was time for us to go up, I could barely put weight on it. It was scary. I managed to get up there with Lisa because I didn’t want to ruin this special day for my son. Anyway, after getting home, the situation got progressively worse. By the evening, I could barely walk. I borrowed a colleagues crutches. It made it hard to sit for a ministry meeting, etc. It was difficult. It was a struggle to even get from my office to the kitchen at home. I was thinking it seemed like swelling and inflammation and didn’t feel any structural damage so I decided to wait till the next day. Well the next day, while weak, I was able to walk and everything was slowly getting back to normal.

God really reminded me of something yesterday. It takes so little time for a situation to go from great to bad to great again. It takes very little for that to happen. This reminded me of how fragile we are and how much we depend on God to keep us doing the things that we do. Pray as I send Alex off on Sunday and as we welcome several students from the airport this week.

Still, this week was very hard… Several dear friends are going home long term this weekend. In addition, several of our staff have had some huge family crises and we are transitioning one of our kids through teenhood and another through being a Webelo… I can’t remember when we have had more “stuff” to do in my life. No I take that back, back in High School, the weeks before I left for New Jersey for the first time, I had just about every hour scheduled with packing, having dinner with someone, etc. It was just as non-stop but the idea that that sort of life style not ending any more can be daunting… Still the exciting thing is that God is showing me through daily time in His word and in prayer that it can be done. We are being forced to depend on Him for every second of every day and it actually works!

One of the things we end each Bible study with every week is “if this passage is true, (which I believe it is) how does it change the way that you live…” I’ve been really challenged this year to make this question a part of every Bible truth that I know and imagine this… THE BIBLE ACTUALLY IS TRUE AND LIVING AS IF IT IS ACTUALLY WORKS! Imagine that…

Well, imagine my surprise to find that one of our students, one from Colombia of all places also loves hockey and plays a lot in his home country. Julian must be very good. He has traveled to the U.S. in the past for international tournaments with players who play pro roller hockey in the states. One Friday night, this game me the opportunity to take out the old blades, my skates and pads. (They really smell after being in storage for so long) It was really fun. I even let him use my old practice skates while he is here.

Well in talking with him, I found out that he had never been to a real life ice hockey game. God placed it in my heart to take him and I prayed that the opportunity might come up. When it rains it pours when we take things to the Lord. First, my colleague, Jason and I jumped online and were able to get $99 tickets right next to the ice for a fraction of the price. Then, a member of our church said she had some free tickets that she wanted to share with us. You should have seen Julian’s face when we shared the opportunity with him: the chance to go to two games in one week. The smile was bigger than the smile of the Cheshire cat. He wanted to go to both.

Tonight was the first of these games. It was truly amazing! We sat right up on the action, so close we could see everything – from faces pressed up against the glass during a fight to pucks scooting around the boards right in front of us. It was an exciting game AND the Stars played well for once. Julian and our other friend Alex, also from Columbia seemed like they were in heaven. We saw big hits, goals galore and interestingly, right before the end of the game there was a fight right in front of us. Yikes!

I know both of our friends from Colombia were blessed greatly, both in different ways. On the way up and back we had some great conversations about life, about Columbia, the USA, about things even deeper too. Most of all, we truly enjoyed each other’s company. I know we will never forget this experience and it will forever knit us as friends and hopefully allow us to share even more deeply all in the context of a couple of guys enjoying time together watching a common sport that they love. Praise the Lord for His goodness.

For Houston Weekend some loaves and fish action happened this week…

• As of last Friday, we were short  host homes for 70 students the weekend trip to Houston. Your prayers brought in just enough host homes such that as of YESTERDAY every student AND volunteer has a home to stay in.
• As of Monday, we were short 6 cars to transport the 60 students from UTA and TCU (not to mention UT Tyler, Collin College, SMU & UTD, UT) to Houston. As of today, there are exactly enough cars to get them all there fairly comfortably.

Here is a story about a student… Kamal is a student from Saudi Arabia.

• Kamal shared on Friday night that he has really been knocked over by the warmth of the American people. He is very talkative and enjoys interaction with the Americans.
• Kamal asked if he could use our bedroom for his daily prayers on Friday night and then he asked which way is East so he could pray to Mecca
• Pray for Kamal that God will help him to see Jesus in us and that he would not outright reject Jesus but that he would stay long enough for God to impact his life… that he would not be seed dropped on the hard ground, but that the ground would be soft enough for something to grow.

Today, we got to be part of a community “carnival” at that apartment. We played sports with the kids. There was face painting, manicures and pedicures for the girls, arts and crafts for the smaller kids. There also was a baskeball hoop and all kinds of sports equipment. There was lots of food and wonderful fun.

My job was to go around taking pictures of everyone especially the families. Many of the families have very few pictures of them and so taking their picture is a very special thing. One little boy was having so much fun, he kept asking me to take his picture over and over again in funny poses. This will further the long term ministry of the apartment church as Andrea will be bringing these pictures for the families to take as a special gift. It made me very proud to see my kids getting into it and “making sacrifices” to do it. Jonathan was playing football with little Joshua (Understand Jonathan hates football… this was a image sacrifice in a big way) C-6 played with the kids though she cried a bit too because they didn’t want to play with her doing the stuff she wanted to do… Of course that is normal and you should have seen her before we went, we wanted so bad to go.

The people from the church were incredible. A couple of teenage girls were doing the manicures and pedicures… It kind of reminded me of Jesus washing the disciple’s feet. Some of the teenage boys were playing all kinds of stuff with the kids. Seeing some of the guys painting bag “pumpkins” and some of the gals face painting and shaving ice. It was really really special. Anyway, it seemed that everyone came away with a big smile.

So we got I got online and got a great deal on the Residence Inn and on Labor day, we hopped in our car and drove on down to Houston. On the way down, while driving by the prison facility in Huntsville, TX, we ran into a HUGE and I mean HUGE and important man in Texas history. We stopped into the HUGE statue of Sam Houston. Going there was a wonderful opportunity to talk about Texas history and the type of man that Sam Houston was. (He was an incredible general)

After leaving old Sam, we drove through the city which bears his name. Looking at Google maps on my iPhone, there seemed few routes that did not have Red, which denotes BAD traffic to get to our next destination, Galveston. We took a round about route… only to find that the places that were supposed to be stopped up were indeed clear… Thanks Google…

We were able to go to Galveston by early afternoon and our plan was to go to the beach. None of our kids ever swam in the ocean before. We passed the really crowded beaches around the Galveston Strand and drove a little further up the island to Galveston Island State Park. It was wonderful there. The water was not too rough and was very warm (thanks gulf), the sand was very fine and soft, the beach only gradually sloped into the sea. Honestly, it was a better “beginner” beach than anything that we grew up with in the LA area. The kids had a blast! They swam, they built sand castles, they ran, they dodged waves. One especially fun activity was digging up live sea shells and then watching them dig themselves back into the sand when the water came up. It was great… the wonder in their eyes… I was never a beach guy… sand gets everywhere. But this day was especially nice. After a filling meal at Olive Garden (the incredible sea food restaurants in Galveston were incredibly full this night…), we drove up near NASA to spend the night (and lots of showering off the sand) with everyone extremely tired but very happy to be together.

After visiting University Baptist Church, a partner church in our ISI Houston ministry, we went to NASA space center. All the images from Tom Hank’s video From the Earth to the Moon about the Apollo program came alive as we toured the Apollo mission control, etc. The kids really enjoyed all the videos, interactive displays, etc. The highlight of the day was the chance to touch an actual moon rock.

After a long day of exploring the outer reaches, we went below the sea as aquanauts as we had dinner at the Aquarium restaurant at the quaint (but super crowded that day) Kemah Boardwalk. We ate next to the sea but also next to several sharks, rays, morey eels and an especially large grouper in large blue tank as big as the restaurant. The kids had a lot of fun, often out of their seats looking at the wonders of the sea more than each other.

The next day, after a dose of late morning TV cartoon, we piled into the car and headed home. I remember on the last evening as the children slept, I was reflecting on how nice it was to be able to get away from computer, phone, and all the stresses of the typical week and just spend time together. It really was a huge blessing in so many ways. In some ways, it is during these vacations that we see the progress that our kids make: physically as well as as a person. It was fun seeing how much they have grown but also how much they (and we) need to grow.

Anyway, they eventually went to Africa with Wycliffe Bible Translators as Sean (and Jessica) felt a strong calling toward that special continent. But due to some health problems they ended up back… first in California, then in Texas. By that time, Lisa and I had already moved to Texas ourselves and we felt they needed some hugs and some friendship in this new place and so we tried to get together at least once a month for dinner. It was fun and we got to watch a lot of movies, eat exotic stuff, enjoy cats, compare notes about missionary life. Eventually, as they settled, we slowly lost touch. Fast forward to three years ago and Jessica got breast cancer. We lived on different sides of the metroplex and we never seemed to have enough time to just call them.

Then last week, we got a call. Sean called us, “Jessica was in the hospital and was just about to go home for hospice care.” We jumped in our car and went to go see her. Even in the midst of her suffering and difficulty, she still was the same optimistic Jessica. Her brother, Jasper, an officer in the US Navy was there and was gently and faithfully helping her. They must have had a special family judging by the products.

She passed away on Saturday. I heard about it from some Wycliffe missionaries who were at the Big Howdy party. In the midst of the celebration, I felt like something tugging at me. So today was her memorial service. It was nice. Person after person shared about her and how she lived. It was nice… Then Sean shared… A lot of it was about the times we knew them when they first met. It reminded me… we all did have something really special back when we were young in serving students back in Orange County… Now we miss Jessica. No question she is laughing it up with the Lord, Jesus now but still, our group is missing something without Jess around. I also know Sean enough to know how much he loved her… That is going to be so hard. Please pray!