Church around the small world

Today, Dr. Kim Hind and Dr. Tim Scott headed for Ecuador to help take care of the medical needs of the Awa. Dr. Scott has been doing mission work like this for years and has a good relationship with missionaries in different areas of the world.

Why do I call it a small world?

Dr. Scott started out as my doctor, but I only visited him once when we first moved to Lexington. About ten years later, he and the pastor of new church plant and their wives visited Tatesbrook as they were waiting on the Lord to provide a church sponsor for their plant.

Today, I still rarely visit Dr. Scott at his practice, but we pray together nearly every Monday night. He and I share many common desires. We both love Michael Card. We both love to serve. We both came from rural communities. We both care for the weak. The biggest difference I see is his wisdom vs my self confidence and his peaceful nature versus my disturbing nature.

Kim Bell visited Tatesbrook as a medical student who knew the remarkable Dr. Eric Bandy, who attended a youth group led by Mike Brady as teenager. When Eric headed to UK, he attended Tatesbrook and brought a few of his fellow college students.

As we grew to love the very special Kim Bell and her friend Angela, we prayed for her boyfriend who lived back in New Mexico. Kim loved him, but she did not want to further a relationship with a man that was not equally committed to Jesus Christ.

It was with great joy that Kim told us one day that her boyfriend had committed himself to Christ and asked her to marry him. A group of eight people headed down to Albuquerque for the wedding. ( a good section of the "Old Mules" of Tatesbrook )

Returning to Lexington, Dr. Kim and Matt Hind settled into a home in a nearby town that split the commute between work and church. Over the years, Matt has served in many roles and has found his calling as our youth pastor.

Matt is one of my greatest friends (outside of my family) today. I know that I can count on him for anything. He is one of the few people that can convince me to exercise when I think that my old body needs to rest. Matt and Kim both love to mountain bike. In fact, Kim's brother started me on mountain biking on the day of Matt and Kim's wedding. ( lots of stories there, but I'll save that for another time )

I trust Matt and Kim with my children, they are doing a wonderful job.

As I write this, in this small world, Dr. Tim and Dr. Kim are together serving the Lord at the equator near the edge of a different mountain range and you can read about their experiences on their blog: Ecuador Mission Trip (Kim & Tim)

My life as an engineering geek...

Last week, Adam and I had the opportunity to meet Rich Moore in Versailles while he was in Danville, Ky for business. Rich played defensive tackle in front of me our senior year (1984) for NorthWood High School. Spending a few hours with Rich last week brought back a lot of memories.

Rich's father, Clyde, was President of Crown International, a company founded by Clyde's father Clarence, a Christian missionary to Quito, Ecuador. Clyde was a deacon at the Wakarusa Missionary Church and we always had the best sound equipment. My brother-in-law was one of the volunteer sound technicians that operated the massive sound board. I occasionally sang in choirs, quartets and duets and always wanted to get my hands on the sound equipment, but never did.

During high school, I developed an interest in programming as a freshman, then later an interest in electronics. I was almost certain that I would attend Purdue University to get an Electrical Engineer degree and return to Elkhart and work at Crown on audio equipment. There were a couple of significant events that drew me in that direction.

1) I went to a Larry Norman concert at the Notre Dame Convention Center with Clyde and Rich. Clyde took us up by the power amplifiers and showed us that most of the serious concerts were powered by Crown.

2) A day here and there with Rich in his mother's music studio. My family had a Wollensak reel to reel player that recorded significant events. Rich's family had a wall mounted rack of all sorts of equipment. The perks of having a room full of electronics was a big draw.

Once I arrived at Purdue, I needed a job or two, so I started working at Lafayette Instrument Company and worked on several of the companies' first embedded products that are no longer available. There were several little projects ( Vertical Jump Height Detector, Skin Calipers, Flicker Fusion Device, others using a 68HC11 ) but the project that I worked on the whole 2 years that I was there was the embedded thermal polygraph. The first and only of its kind. Some of the prototypes were demo'ed at a convention and our salesman promised the end of messy, swinging ink pens and ink bottles in the future.

Alas, the feeding of thin thermal paper was more difficult than anyone expected so the product was never marketed beyond a 10 minute demo from time to time. I enjoyed learning about the physiology of a liar and measuring things in chart form.

The traditional polygraph came as a 4 pen or 5 pen or 6 pen model. The digital embedded (Rockwell 6502 processor) version that I worked on offered up to 8 expansion slots and you could adjust the baseline height and amplitude of the signal anywhere on the chart. I even developed a font generator and a remote (via serial cable) operator panel that allow the interviewer to silently mark the charts when Response or Control questions were asked and Yes or No answers were given.

If you look on the company website, you will see the embedded digital technology never made it. The dime-a-dozen Windows computer programs took over in 1995. Host based polygraphs are now the poor man's version of the original mechanical device that professionals still use today.

In my senior year at Purdue, I still had thoughts of returning to Crown, but my interviews with Delco Electronics and IBM offered differences that I hadn't considered before. After much prayer and council, I decided to work on embedded controllers in printers for IBM in Charlotte, NC. There, I was sure I would be able to be paired with enough mechanical engineering resource to feed paper, even if it had to have holes on each side to keep it feeding straight.

To this day, 20 years later, I am still absorbed by a passion to mark paper... whatever the technology.

Church at the Park

We probably have not sacrificed as much as the folks wearing black and white sitting in 90 degree heat last week in Indiana, but we certainly had fun today. After the worship service and teaching this morning, we all packed our lunches to Shilito park for a picnic. We played corn hole, hillbilly golf and football. Dr. Scott even brought horse shoes so we could play the same games as the Amish, but I didn't see anyone dig them out.

Church at Home - literally

All of us Eby's and Etsinger's woke up late after cleaning up after the wedding reception, but we woke to a church meeting across the street. Our church back in Lexington likes to think of itself as a home church, but these Mennonites put us to shame meeting in 90 degree heat with all of their children present.

Peter and Stephanie's Wedding

It was a great wedding, and I know this will be a great marriage. Why?

Reason #1:
Understanding of Marriage. Peter and Stephanie helped to prepare the message that was read at the ceremony and based it on John 17. Tying together the fact that we are to be one with the Father as Jesus was one with the Father. Tying in the fact that unity is important in the church and in marriage. They also served communion to the Christian witnesses ( a church full of them )

Reason #2:
Family Heritage. Before the wedding there were many family pictures taken. Big families from each of their grandparents. Each of their grandparents started out just as Peter and Stephanie did yesterday.

Reason #3:
Family modeled before them. Family is about living together and forebearing each other. It is about life. This list of tips from Bethany to Stephanie that was read at the reception indicates that Stephanie's family understands that the little things are important and we are to enjoy each others uniqueness.
1) Get up when the alarm clock rings
2) Check expiration dates on perishable food items
3) Shave your legs occasionally and shower often

Reason #4:
God bound them together forever.

Reason #5:
A sense of humor. They chose a retirement community dance hall as the location for their wedding reception.

Reason #6:
Love. They enjoy being together whether they are the center of attention or whether there is no one else around.

Carmen Graduates from Middle School

We were so proud of Carmen today. She has really grown up quickly. She and her mother went shopping all weekend for an outfit to wear and I never saw it before the ceremony. While Robin, Matt, Jackie and I were waiting for her to come down the stairs, she walked right by without me recognizing her.

We took this picture after the long, warm ceremony that graduated 224 eighth graders.


It seems like only yesterday that she and her friends posed for this picture as they graduated from Elementary School, but it was three full years ago. I am told that the four years of High School will go by even faster. I'm grateful for the friends Carmen has chosen at her schools.

Along with her two elemenary friends from the neighborhood, Carmen has also found new friends on the school volleyball team, club volleball, Beta Club and One Way. The visionary leader of One Way gets lots of appreciation from Carmen. Adam is also establishing friends at the same club.

We know as she heads into High School that the friendships she has made in Elementary School and volleyball will help keep her focused on the straight and narrow road, and she really needs an rigid life. Flexibility is not really one of her strengths.

Her strengths are in competition. You can't always win, but Carmen hates to lose. She desires to do her best and puts a great deal of pressure on herself to succeed. She doesn't like B's and has avoided them since a horrifying B in handwriting during the 4th grade. Several of her friends were also awarded with a plaque for getting straight A's all through middle school. I hope they all stick to their pursuits of scholastic excellence. The world needs more folks that are not afraid to work hard.

Honors for Becca

Today, Jackie worked hard preparing for Becca's honor program at 1:00 PM. May is a difficult time for all of us Eby's with honors programs, graduations, two birthdays, Mother's day. All of it involves or depends on Mom.

But this small blog entry is about Becca!

I caught Becca before the honors program in the parking lot enjoying a break outside on a nice spring day during the last week of school.

She worked hard this year and deserved recognition from her teachers and parents. She enjoyed the 4th grade and is looking forward to her final year in Elementary School.

She received her award from her teacher, Mrs. Roberts and stood smiling until the rest of the honor students from her class joined her for the picture below.

Happy Birthday to Becca

We celebrated Becca's birthday this month. We had the first celebration Friday night where she opened a few of the smaller gifts and cards that she received from grandparents and also some of the clothes that her mother wanted her to wear to school on her birthday.

Tonight, Becca had Emily come over to celebrate her birthday with her. They didn't wait to long to start watching the movie that Emily got for her. Mom, Carmen, Adam and I ate the birthday cake in the kitchen without the birthday girl.

One of her other presents this year was a girly mountain bike so that she can ride with the rest of the family. She saw right through the bribery and told me that receiving this gift was not a guarantee that she was going to go riding every time someone in the family jumps on a bike.

More Pirates baseball

Last Wednesday, the Pirates faced the American League Leading Yankees for a difficult game. The Yankees came out hitting and the Pirates gave up two runs early. Late in the game Stefan came up with a double that knocked in a couple of runs for the lead and an extra run of padding.

Philip also had a key RBI in the second half of the game with a fly to left field. His pitching was also a big key to the comeback in the final inning. Check out Philip's face on this throw!

Like all SouthEastern Baseball games, there is a great atmosphere of both community and competition. This game was special to Adam because Sam plays for the Yankees. Sam and Adam have been together for a long time in our neighborhood. Last year, Sam hit a triple in the Yankees win. This year, Adam got walked and stood with Sam at first base during a pitcher change.

Sam didn't get a triple in this year's game, but I did get a picture of Sam hitting a foul ball that helps to explain some of the physics involved with the game of baseball.




All in all, an excellent evening at the ball park. I'll include one last picture of Adam catching with his eyes closed.

Was Jesus qualified to lead?

I'm enjoying the book "Lead like Jesus" by Ken Blanchard and Phil Hodges. I wanted to share one of the lists that has made the largest impression on me so far. Throughout my service as a friend, deacon, small group leader and manager, I have come across people that have questioned Jesus' ability to be human.

Usually, the questions are in regard to how His temptation and sinless life is different than our own temptations and ability to stand under them. This list is pretty convincing that His human methods of leadership and tackling difficult problems were the best methods this world has ever experienced. Those that doubt His temptation was the same will probably claim that healing the sick and giving sight to the blind was an unfair advantage, but that doesn't discount His effectiveness as the greatest world leader to ever walk the earth.

Here's the list of leadership challenges that you can evaluate for yourself. Did Jesus rise to these challenges?

• Working with or living and caring for imperfect people
• Taking time to train, develop, and delegate
• Under constant scrutiny and testing of commitment and integrity
• Required to handle rejection, criticism, and opposition
• Facing fierce competition and conflicting demands from friends and foes
• Tempted by instant gratification, recognition, and misuse of power
• Facing serious personnel issues, including turnover and betrayal
• Required to communicate in a multicultural environment
• The need to challenge the status quo and hierarchy to bring about change
• The need to call attention to poor leadership at great personal risk
• The need to put career or relationships on the line to serve a higher purpose

Well, What do you think?

Happy Mother's Day

The kids got up early this morning to fix Jackie breakfast. One of the girls had the idea to do this, and Adam is our cook.

Adam had to pack up his drum set late last night after a grocery store run for bacon, flowers, grapefruit, grapes, bananas and those last minute cards. Immediately after serving the breakfast to his mother, he jumped in the shower to get ready for worship practice.

Becca pressed us to keep at the task on Saturday night since we were all considering just going to bed after a long day of volleyball and tearing down forts
Carmen probably made the biggest sacrifice. She got up early to pour the coffee. She also honored her mother by adjusting some of her Sunday morning rituals that are dependent on her mother, by moving the location to our bedroom instead of the Carmen's bedroom. She patiently waited until her Mother was half through her breakfast before she asked for help.

Me, well, I just watched it all happen and helped where I could. I am thankful for such wonderful kids. My wife truly is a great mother judging from the results.

The fort must go...

We got a call from the ombudsman on Friday asking us to give him a call back.

Without a hint of what was wrong we were suspecting someone did not like Buster barking at cats during the night. Since Buster is out all day long and usually alert when walkers stroll along the sidewalk, he becomes a target from time to time, whether he makes any noise or not.

Well... it could have also been that our grass was too long. I've been working a lot and keeping up with the kids activities and the lawn is growing fast. So, after Carmen's volleyball tournament in Louisville today, I headed immediately to the lawn mover despite the light rain.

Or... it could be that the fort is a violation of the neighborhood code.

Jackie called the omsbudsman while I was mowing and he asked if she had a fort in her backyard. Her response, "Well, sortof" eluded to the fact that it was made of material that had been thrown out in the neighborhood over the last four years, then collected by Adam and stapled, glued, nailed, duct taped, tied or wrapped to the fort.

Jackie took this picture of Adam on his way back from destroying the fort with a rubber mallet and Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks on wet grass. It was entertaining for me to watch this while I was mowing the yard in the rain.

Sunday afternoon by the fire

It is very rare for us to have a day off, but it happened today. Adam and I got to church around 8:15 to set up sound just like normal but things were different today. Worship practice went smoothly and children's church was a light hearted group discussion instead of a teaching. Instead of rushing to a meeting or a ball game, we just headed home after church.

After grilling burgers in the chilly spring air, we decided to start a fire in the fireplace in order to burn up the wood that we had moved to the deck last fall. The rest of the afternoon was naps and reading until 5:30 youth group.

Jackie took a nap and I got started on the book that I have been wanting to read for a long time. I bought two books last year at the same time and forced myself to read the lessor of the two so that I would read them both. The first one was "360 Degree Leader" by John Maxell which discusses the challenges of leading from the middle of an organization, the second one is Lead Like Jesus which is self explanatory.

Both books will be very useful to me, they both have lists of things I need to improve. Engineers love to know what they need to fix, and we love lists.

Grandpa would be 108 today

My Grandpa, Charles Victor Eby, was born on May 1, 1898. His parents erased part of the 8 on his birth certificate so that he could work on the farm an extra year. I loved spending time with my Grandpa, he was a lot of fun. He had fun working. He and his brother, Ellis, got into trouble from time to time having fun. Stuff like floating wash tubs down the creek and stealing pies from window sills reminds me of my brother Keith and my son, Adam Charles.

Before I could talk I would stand at the picture window of our house and watch the tractors and farm equipment roll by. My first word was "combine" and "tractor" was one of the next words to follow.

In 1915, Grandpa drove horses between his father's farms and waved at a younger girl along the way. On August 25, 1917 he married her and raised a family of three moving from farm to farm around Wakarusa.


I was able to attend their 50th wedding anniversary at Eby's Pines in 1967 and Jackie and Keith were able to attend their 70th wedding anniversary at Miller's Merry Manor in 1987.

My Grandma and Grandpa had a great life together.

Spring Up

Adam asked me why I had the mower adjusted so high while I was mowing this weekend.

One of the things that my father taught me was that you need to raise the blades on the mower in the Spring, and then lower them in the Fall. ( Spring Up, Fall Down ) I later learned from my Purdue ( Agriculture School as well as an Engineering School ) Alumni Magazine that 72% of your lawn's Nitrogen needs can come from the clippings. I really try to convince my friends and neighbors that bagging grass is hard work and harmful to their lawn, but city folk just don't like to drag grass clippings into the house.



Another thing that I have been taught is that you never cut more than one third of your grass height off. As you can see from the picture, I've been working away from home and am rarely able to cut the grass and have completely violated this rule. You can also notice that this is the week that the Azalias are in bloom in Lexington. They don't last long here.

The Davinci Code

One of my favorite movies of all time is Apollo 13. It combines some truth with some drama, was produced well (Ron Howard) and had great talent (Tom Hanks) on the screen. For years and years while the kids were little it seemed that Jackie and I would choose to see a Tom Hanks film on our annual date.

1993 - Sleepless in Seattle
1994 - Forrest Gump
1995 - Apollo 13

1998 - You've got mail / Saving Private Ryan
2000 - Cast Away
2002 - Catch Me If You Can

Well, it's been a few years since Tom has done a movie with Ron Howard and this year ( next month, in fact ) , they will be together for the The Davinci Code and I'm excited about the works of art, the mystery and suspence, the quality of the film and the way that it will undoubtedly make my mind race. A friend at work recommended that I read this book a long time ago but I was going through several books by Lee Strobel at the time and chose not to take his recommendation.

Now that I see the general theme, I am extremely intrigued. When you look at the investment that Mel Gibson made to produce his life work in "The Passion" and know that many people were shocked and drawn to the life of Christ and His church, you can't help but wonder how many people will benefit from this intersection of Ron Howard and Tom Hanks.

I'm also beginning to believe that the church in America is starting to behave as Christ would in regard to this movie. Jesus Christ spent his time with sinners, poor and sick. He also rebuked the religious people of the day and abhorred the profit of men in association with His Bride and His Father's Name. In the last 30 years, there have been many Christian American organizations that would attack a film like "The Davinci Code" because of the fact that it mixes fiction with truth, but I haven't seen them attack yet.

I've been watching to see if some of those organizations would use this film as an opportunity to garner political or financial support and I haven't seen it yet. I have a friend that has been involved with an organization that is doing what I believe is the most intelligent thing to do, "Spreading truth to those with questions because of this move and therefore seeking truth"

Check it out: www.jesusanddavinci.com

Is Ron Howard a Christian? I don't know, I hope so.
Is Tom Hanks a Christian? I don't know, I hope so.

No matter what their motivation is, I expect this film to be exceptional. I nominate both of them for a "Roaring Lambs" award for converting this great book into a great movie that wets the world's appetite for Jesus.

More about "Roaring Lambs":
The Book ( by Bob Briner )
The CD ( Various Artists, who support Keith Green, Bob Briner )

Purdue Room Makeover Progress

Well, a few people have been asking about what Adam's room looks like after we converted it from "Kentucky Blue" to "Plywood and Purdue". It is still a work in progress but it Adam now has a lot more floor space after tucking the drums under the bed.

In the previous arrangement, the TV stand was in front of the window which was horrible for watching TV and looked really ugly from the street. Adam and I decided to put the TV up out of the way.

Jackie was initially pretty upset about how close Adam would be sleeping to the ceiling or maybe it was how far he was from the floor, but she's getting used to it now. The first thing she requested was a railing to keep him from falling out. I was hoping to stall long enough so that we could just cover up the 2x4's with some trim, but Adam has already moved the basketball goal up from the basement.

Take me out to the ball park

Today marked the last time that Adam will participate in the "Field of Dreams" ceremony as a Pirate. Most of the Pirates were thrilled to get their caps signed by as many members of the Lexington Legends as possible ( including Roger Clemens' son ). Adam is a little different, he had the bottom of his shoe signed by the Fazoli's Tomato.

As I snapped a picture just before the National Anthem, I noticed that Adam's feet were nearly as big as the Legends' catcher and that through the years, his height, hair and general appearance have changed relative to the Legends' catcher. His height is approaching theirs, and his hair is approaching the girls' length.

After talking with Jeff's dad before the game about pictures making time stand still, I decided to go back a few years of Pirate baseball. There were a lot of pictures that really will help us have some compassion on the a few of the 9 year old teams that we are playing this year.

In this 2003 picture of the pirates, you can see Daniel Preston in the back row. Daniel plays for the Braves this year and led off the 10 inning grueling game that tested the 2006 Pirates team. Daniel pitched very well and went through the top of our batting order quickly, not allowing a single hit. Chandler Morgan relieved Daniel in the third inning and pitched very well for the next six innings. Chandler started fall ball with the Pirates in 2002, so it was good to see him playing well.

Now, we're really going to go back a ways here to the 2002 Giants where Dan Hyatt (on the far left) was the assistant coach and you can see him watching Adam ( #2 ) run out with the Legend's catcher for Adam's first "Field of Dreams". I've always been a football player and fan, but I sure have enjoyed watching Adam grow up in the SouthEastern Lexington Baseball program.

Easter Dinner at Mattern's

Easter in Indiana at the Mattern's brought back some great memories for me.

The first memory was of Grandpa Bud barbequeing pork chops nearly every Sunday afternoon in the summer.

I can remember going over to Jackie's house and thinking that there wasn't any better way to fill my stomach than to eat one of Bud's pork chops. I've spent 25 years trying to recreate them and fail to do so.

Well, Bud has met his match on Sunday. Maybe its because I've lived in the big city of Lexington too long, maybe its because Bill knows meat because he has worked in a meat shop all his life, but Bill put out a spread of ham, ribs and prime rib that was fabulous.

The second memory was of Easter afternoon activities at my Grandma and Grandpa Eby's after everyone had filled themselves and taken naps. Sometimes we went mushroom hunting. Sometimes we went flying in Uncle Gene or Cousin Craig's Cessnas but it was always something exciting.

This year, Becca got to experience one of those exciting activities with her Cousin Dustin. Dustin bought a old John Deere last year and restored it. His father-in-law also found an old seed spreader that when equiped with a couple bails of hay, served very well for a Sunday afternoon ride for Heather, Becca and Maria. Uncle Bill even threw Louie on the wagon before it took off.

Family Pictures

One of my favorite activities at Grandma's house is studying the two dimensional snapshots that make time stand still during various stages of the Etsinger family life. As Bud and Ruby approach 80 years of age, they sure do have a lot of frozen in time memories.

What is even more enjoyable is the time that I can sit in their back room and listen to them recount those memories. I am always amazed at how sharp their memories are of those joyous, sad, funny and difficult times in their lives. I struggle to remember those things more than a year.


This weekend Ruby reminded me of how instrumental she was in convincing Jackie to like me over 25 years ago. I've heard the story before, but this weekend, I told Adam how instrumental his Grandma Ruby was in convincing me to like Jackie. She may not have known she was doing it, but she was. You see, I was convinced that Jackie would turn out to be like her mother. A mother that loved her God, loved her husband, loved her children through thick and through thin. She loved with time and she loved with sacrifice and she loved with hard work. Who could turn down a deal like that?

Well, there was one other thing. Ruby always dressed Jackie simply and wanted to make sure her daughter was always working on the farm. I got to watch my sweetheart grow up hard at work and I knew her as a friend before I noticed that she was nearly as beautiful on the outside as she was on the inside.

I wish I had a picture of her in her workclothes coming in from the pig barn.

Easter Egg Hunt at Etsinger's

We got to go to sunrise service at Union Center Church of the Brethren (Jackie's home church) this last Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa Etsinger.
After hearing a Romans 6 Sermon from Pastor Ruth, Jackie continued her religious dedication to an Easter Tradition for the kids (Egg Hunt).
The whole family enjoyed watching Becca gather eggs. Adam was coerced to gather eggs as well.

Grandma Ruby placed one quarter in some of 35 plastic eggs. There were also a few eggs filled with candy. Jackie and Carmen hid the eggs while I took Adam and Becca to Grandpa Sam's barn to check out Ben's pigs and the barn cats.

After the egg hunt, we packed up everyone (except for Carmen) and headed for Jackie's sisters house about three miles away.

It turns out that Carmen missed both cars that were heading in that direction while she napped on Grandma's couch.

Family Retreat, Ministering on the Hill

Rick Underhill introduced the idea of having a family retreat on the hill in a share time on Saturday evening.

His vision was to have twelve to fourteen families at various stages of life staying together on the hill. I think it is a great idea. Our own family experienced a great week with strangers of varying world views when we stayed at a guest ranch in Bandera, TX for our 2003 summer vacation. Jackie and I have never been on a family cruise, but I am sure that they offer the same variety of culture and people.

This weekend that Rick proposed would help reinforce God's way of rearing children with discipline, hard work, creativity, time and absolutes in scripture. Rick's main goal was to prove to his kids that he wasn't the only person in the world to think the way he does. Rick suggested several topics for study and we also agreed that there needed to be projects. Bob stated that driving nails is the best family activity on the hill in keeping the children busy and safe. I'm all for it.

On Sunday morning, Tony shared about the joy that he experienced watching his son play with three other boys all weekend. There were probably 50 men that hadn't a clue that this was really the first time that Matt had interacted socially with other boys. As Tony described the experiences of being away from home prior to this weekend, we all realized what a mighty work that Lord had done through a few Godly families and their young boys this weekend. There were very few fathers with a dry eye there this morning.

James Davis would be proud of the activity that was provide for those four young boys while the men were meeting. A family from Texas brought four marshmellow guns made of small diameter PVC that propelled what must have been several bags of colored marshmellows over the course of the weekend.

An American Hero

After a weekend devoted to men in history that were poor leaders and great leaders, we got to hear from an American Hero that added a personal perspective to a significant part of world history.

Bob's father was drafted in 1943 and learned Morse Code just in time to be trained as a voice radio operator at Normandy on June 6th, 1944 when he participated in the D-Day invasion and never stopped fearing his next breath would be his last until he was relieved on December 29th. During that time, he carried a body bag for himself and was trained never to help a fallen soldier (that was the medics' job bringing up the rear) and never to fear the sound of the bullets. The bullets approaching him didn't make a sound.

He learned the job of the voice radio operator through a series of mistakes and was trained remotely by other operators. It was interesting to learn earlier that Ham radio was the lure that pulled Bob to Vanderbilt's electrical engineering program. Hearing this story from Bob's hero explained a lot to me about why Bob has always called his father his hero.

He told us that he has relived the invasion in his mind every June 6th since that day. He recounted a few mistakes in direction from his leadership, a few misunderstandings of the French that saw his troops as heroes as they chased the Germans out of France. One French farmer cursed at the Germans for killing a cow that the American troop had unintentially hit. Another time the civilian people in Paris followed his troop for three days after being freed. In order to move forward without the people, the American army had to scare the French back toward Paris.

Just like his son, Bob's father viewed his earthly experiences as secondary to what he learned when he returned to Kentucky and learned the principle of the cross. Although he came to know the Lord at the age of 14, he didn't find his own identity until he well past the age of 30 or 40. It was encouraging for me to hear him "narrow down" and lump together the decade that I have just completed as if that was insignificant in the vapor we call life.

Thanks to Bob (and my pastor/teacher, Mike), it was fairly simple for me to gain the profound perspective of who I am in Christ in my early 20's.

Who knows what would have happened if thousands of men had not given their lives in World War II for our freedom to study the scriptures in our homes today. In no way do I want to dishonor their sacrifice, but it is trivial compared to the cross that enabled the sacrifice, service, obedience, good fight and sense of wonder within us.

It was the creativity of the largely uneducated Allied troops that overcame the poor direction of Germany's leadership and limitations of the German resources that ended that war.