Heroes of the Faith

This morning just after dawn our sixteen year old daughter, Amanda, took off for a thirty-day mission trip. She and a friend from school, Charles, are on their way to AIM's camp for five days, followed by 3-1/2 weeks ministering to natives up the Amazon River!

Amanda and Charles are going to have some incredible experiences that few today can share. They will get to be true servants to people who live in a completely different culture. Their faith in God will grow deeper as they see God work through them, around them, and in them.

True Confessions
I must confess that at first some of my focus was on how fun it'll be to be alone with my wonderful bride! We had six years alone before Amanda, our only child, and grew a terrific friendship. But as the time drew close to Amanda's leaving, I found myself already missing her. She's a terrific person with a magnetic personality. I can't wait for her return!

Click here for reports from The Jungle!

Why Does Everyone Blame the Other Guy?

Have you noticed that too? So often when you talk to someone about technical support, they blame the other guy! It's almost as prevalent rule of life as Murphy's Law!

• I took my Mac in to the Apple "Genius" Bar because of a hardware problem. The lead genius said it must be software. It wasn't.
• A client of ours called their CMS provider, who blamed their woes on the network configuration. It wasn't.

We hear those kind of stories all the time, and it gets tiring. I'm waiting for my car dealer to blame my squeaking brakes on the high cost of gas prices...

Speaking of high gas prices, why is it the politicians can't seem to understand that we're in this situation because their system doesn't allow us to drill our own oil or build refineries? They're blaming it on OPEC, SUVs, and our wasteful lifestyles. While we are wasteful, isn't this crisis artificial since we have enough oil of our own to last us, I heard, for a hundred years or more? Doesn't that place the blame at the politicians' feet for this and also the fact that we're sending so much of our money overseas?

Oh well... it's never our fault, right?