Monday, June 30, 2003

1:27 PM Had lunch today with Roy Patterson and Bruce Everhart of WMBI. They came to Oak Park and we had a fine time walking down Lake Street and talking together about Frank Lloyd Wright and Ernest Hemingway and how Calvary has made the commitment not to relocate but to stay in the village where we have had a ministry presence for 88 years.

1:22 PM Great news. The First Fruits offering yesterday was $164,768 so far. That represents five times the usual Sunday offering. Note the “so far.” We received a handful of offering envelopes in today’s mail that have not yet been included in the total. Plus we also received several pieces of jewelry in the offering that will need to be appraised and sold eventually. That total has not been included either. We will continue to update the total for the next several days as more envelopes come in the mail. The current total represents more than 10% of the loan amount—which is a tremendous start and a magnificent response to the moving of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of our congregation. Let’s give thanks to God for his goodness to us.

9:42 AM Just finished a 20-mile bike ride down East into Berwyn, then east past Austin, then crisscrossing the north-south streets between Roosevelt Road and Cermak Road. Then down Laramie past Cicero Bible Church (Calvary was founded with help from the leaders of Cicero Bible Church in 1915) then west on a residential street (24th, I think) past Morton East High School, back to East, then north into Oak Park, past the high school, meandering past Division to Greenfield, then west into River Forest, then south and east past Concordia, back to Chicago Avenue, then south past the new Tasty Dog, across Lake Street and back home. That brings me to exactly 1700 miles for the year.