Tuesday Morning Scattershooting

Various, mostly unrelated notes from hither and yon …

Speaking of Wheaton, Eric Rubio had a great freshman year there.

Several people have called or written to ask about Josh and Leah who teach English in Nanchang, China. After the devastating earthquake yesterday, we heard from them and they are okay. Nanchang is about 725 miles from the earthquake. That seems like a long way, but people much farther away (Shanghai, Beijing, Hanoi, Bangkok) felt the tremors.

Josh has been keeping a China blog called A Thousand Words. Check out his entry about a trip he and Leah took last week to visit a small Chinese farming village. You won’t believe what they ate–or tried to eat. I don’t think I would have handled the scorpions as well as they did.

Speaking of the earthquake, we received a sweet note this morning from Catrina, one of the college students Leah has been working with in Nanchang. We met her in February. When she heard that we had had an earthquake in Tupelo (just a minor rumble compared to what happened yesterday in China), she wrote a note. Here is how it begins:

I heard josh said that there also have earthquake in America, and in where you live…we girls worry about you and all your family member. Is anything ok now? . . . Tell us if you all okay!

How sweet to be remembered by friends on the other side of the world. If Catrina would change that “you all” to “y’all,” she would feel right at home in Tupelo.

A friend asked if the World Clock that records the rate of births and deaths changed its rate because of the earthquake yesterday. The answer is no because the rate remains constant over time. It’s like gambling against “the house” in Las Vegas. You may win in the short run, but eventually the odds catch up with you. The house always wins. Even so, the short-term death rate goes up and down, but in the end, “it is appointed unto man once to die” (Hebrews 9:27). The statistics on death have not changed since the beginning of time. One out of one person dies.

On Wednesday, May 14, at 1:30 PM CDT the Bible Broadcasting Network will be airing the second session (called “Arrows From Heaven”) that Marlene and I gave at the Couples Conference at Word of Life last October. Click on the link to listen to the broadcast.