Tuesday, February 8, 2005

10:42 PM End of a long day at the BI. I started by speaking to the staff at 8 AM. I shared from my heart about James 1:19 and some things the Lord has been showing me in my own life recently. Evidently the message had a big impact because Ric Garland told Larry Bollback this evening that the staff had been talking about my message all day. Then back to “Big Chief” for about an hour or so, then over to the Jack Wyrtzen Center where I taught Galatians for 3 hours. This year’s class seems studious and very attentive. The students are mostly in their late teens or early 20s. They come from many states and also from other countries where Word of Life has a ministry. I noticed a few students from Korea and Japan. Most days the students have classes for five hours—from 8 AM-1 PM. So they had already been in class for two hours before I got them. My major problem today was keeping my voice strong. I’m actually feeling better but my voice shows the effect of last week’s flu bug. Several students came up and introduced themselves, including someone whose older brother (a Moody student) attended Calvary last year. Once I finished teaching at 12:50 PM, I had lunch with Don Lough who oversees Word of Life’s international outreach in 47 countries. We talked about our recent trip to China and Word of Life’s plans to open a ministry there in the next few years. We both agreed that China and India are likely to become hugely important in terms of world evangelism in the next two decades. China remains very much on my heart and I find myself thinking about it every day and wondering what God wants to do and how our family may fit into those plans. Then back home for a brief nap. At 4:45 PM Larry and Cindi Bollback picked us up. Larry is the son of Harry Bollback, one of the co-founders of Word of Life. Larry currently heads up the institutional development aspect of Word of Life. We drove about twenty miles south to watch their daughter Jessie, a senior at Mountainside Christian School in Schroon Lake, play a basketball game against another Christian school. It was nip and tuck until the other team pulled away in the fourth quarter. We congratulated Jessie on saving her fouls until the last three minutes of the game when she used them with abandon. There were also some questions about one of the refs who last year was the head coach of the team we were playing. Oh well. What are you going to do? The game was a blast and I would have yelled more but I had to save my voice. Jessie joined us for a post-game meal at the Log Jam Restaurant in Lake George. We sat in front of the fireplace and told stories. Larry talked about their years serving as missionaries in Portugal, and I shared some of the stories surrounding the day when I preached on same-sex marriage last September and the gay activists showed up at church. Cindi already knew the stories, she said, because she reads my weblog. The Word of Life guys are on the move. Don Lough and Larry Bollback hit the road tomorrow. Don is going to Poland and Hungary, Larry to Florida, then to Portugal. Mike Calhoun arrives in town tomorrow. On the weather front, we’ve had a cold rain all day that left everything very slippery. They say we may have a major snowstorm (a “Nor’easter”) tomorrow night on into Thursday morning. That will definitely provide plenty of snow for the hundreds of campers who arrive on Friday for Snow Camp this weekend. Meanwhile Marlene has finished her second book and seems to be enjoying herself greatly. We’re not 100% healthy yet, but we’re moving in the right direction.