10:49 PM Burl Cain, warden of Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana, spoke tonight at Word of Life. Angola is the nation’s largest maximum security prison, with over 5100 inmates serving an average sentence of 88 years. Burl Cain is a fervant, outspoken evangelical Christian who has served as warden at Angola since 1995. U…
8:03 AM “Missionary Carpet Golf” report: Our team (Harry Bollback, Randy Faulkner, Doug Bagg, and me) did pretty good, I think. We scored 30 for nine holes. I don’t know if we won because we left before the winners were announced. They have several holes where you have to hit the ball 25 yards down a long hallway covere…
8:39 PM My favorite sight of the day: Near the main entrance to the bookstore, someone arranged several of my books in a very prominent display. The sign underneath says, “Books by our speaker this week.” Above it there is a large cut-out of President Bush with a Word of Life sweatshirt draped over the cut-out. It looks…
4:38 PM We are safely ensconced in our room at Word of Life Inn, high in the Adirondack Mountains, in Schroon Lake, New York. Paul and Shirley Bubar picked us up at the Albany airport, took us to dinner, and on the way to the camp, regaled us with stories of their current venture—the restoration of the historic Wells …
10:36 AM Today’s entdry on the Crosswalk weblog is called Answering My Mail—Round 2. 10:08 AM Pretty tired this morning. We arrived home from Maranatha a few minutes before midnight. Marlene started the wash, we unpacked a bit, and then went to bed. We both got up early, I went over to the church to check on things, a…
5:26 PM We’re rushing around trying to get things packed and the car loaded before the final service at 7 PM tonight. Marlene and I took our final bike a few minutes ago. Now she’s packed and doing some knitting and I’m doing my weblog. We’re heading back to Oak Park as soon as the service is over. Looking back over the wee…
4:59 PM My only regret of the week is that Mike Ditka decided not to run for the Senate. Oh well. He would have put some life into an otherwise dreary campaign. I was ready to organize “Pastors for Ditka.” Maybe next time. We end with one quote from Ditka about gay marriage: What’s the matter with right and wrong? Talk …
10:54 PM Tonight Roger Krenzin of JAARS gave a stirring report on how airplanes and helicopters aid the work of Bible translation in Papua New Guinea. Roger is one of the finest missionary reps I’ve ever met. He would be the first to tell you that his real love is flying. His father was a missionary pilot for Wycliffe and R…
6:58 AM I am reprinting today’s Crosswalk weblog entry here for reasons that will be obvious: Saint Mike (I wrote this column in 1993 when Mike Ditka was fired as coach of the Chicago Bears. It seems appropriate to reprint it since Da Coach is thinking about running for the senate. There is even a website called Draft Ditka…
11:05 PM Wrapping up a good day at Maranatha … I rode my bike 20 miles today—a total of 50 in two days … We continue to meet people with various Calvary connections, including two couples who attended back in the 80s … One sign of a good conference: You lose track of the days. I kept thinking toda…