Okay, Thanksgiving and the parades, football and overeating are finished for most of us. Now we’re in Christmas shlepping, I mean shopping, mode. And that leads to whining when the store is out of stock on the sale item you drove there especially for. Or sarcasm when the salesperson is less than interested in helping …

I’m not much of a photographer. I took some photos with my phone when I was at the Ghost Ranch in New Mexico last year. Les made fun of me because most of them have my finger in them, as you can see in the photo at the right where it looks like a giant …

Several weeks ago Ashlee’s Sunday school class took on the Heifer Read to Feed program. As part of the program, which raises money to buy animals for families in need, the kids were to read books and ask for donations for each book read. Heifer provided a suggested list of books that would help kids …

A few weeks ago we attended a missions conference where one of the speakers was Kurt Graff. Kurt and his wife Nancy spent years in Russia and Central Asia starting churches. Now they are working with an organization that encourages young people to invest their lives in countries within the 1040 window. (If you want …

How often do I make excuses for why I can’t do something for the world? I am easily overwhelmed by the immensity of the problems. Really, what kind of difference can I make anyway? Take the Haitian earthquake and the new cholera epidemic, for instance. I don’t have any medical skills, and I don’t do …