Our blog isn't exactly a "Captain's Log" is it? OR "Wow, time flies even when you AREN'T having fun at our age!"

My, my, my - It's been since Hawaii in November that I've written a blog post.  I'll bet you're all glad I'm not your mailman (postman for our UK influenced friends).

So, what's been happening.

We went to Red Bay in the early part of December.  There actually wasn't too much to fix on the Trekker this year when our year-end Maintenance Session came up.  Obviously we had already been there in July for our driver's side hydraulic slide not being able to come back in.  So, we only had to stay about 10 days to get the list taken care of this time.  We also found that if you come in December, there aren't near as many people there to get repairs.  I guess being between Thanksgiving and Christmas is kind of a rig repair "Sweet Spot."

Following our yearly trek to Red Bay we headed to Durham, North Carolina for Christmas with our kids.  Well 5 out of 7 of them anyway.  Getting our family together can be challenging since we have 7 kids spread from Toronto, Canada to Florida to Tucson, Arizona and numerous locations in between.  So Christmas is a time to get as many of them together as possible.  The last time we had our whole family together was for my mother's 80th birthday in September of 2009.  So, even getting together with most of the family was great.  Seeing grandkids is always a highlight of any family visit.  They are all growing up.  The corollary to that statement is that WE are growing O-L-D.  Our oldest grandkids are now 9 and our youngest is closing in on 4 pretty quickly now.

After Christmas with the kids and grandkids it was back to Mission, Texas where we had decided that our "Experiment in Downsizing" was a pretty abject failure.  So, we purchased a new home.  This one has 4 bedrooms, though one is my office and one is going to be Irene's crafting room.  The extra space gave us a good sized closet to store all of Irene's VBS material in also.  Plus, this one has both an RV Port for the trekker AND a garage for the Ford Expedition we now us as our Tow Vehicle.

Being home this year was all about trying to get Irene's health issues addressed.  Since we were on the road following her heart attack, she hadn't actually gotten in any structured Cardiac Rehab.  So, while we were there she got about 1/2 of those rehab appointments taken care of.  Not wanting to turn this blog post into WebMD, we will just say that she's had appointments with 4 different specialists as well as our Primary Care Physician in the last six weeks.  I was feeling so ignored I went and got a shot in my eyeball just to get some attention! LOL.  She's making some progress for which we are very thankful and want to thank all of you that have been praying for her recovery.

In February we made a swing west from Mission to visit to see the western part of our family.  We have a son that lives in Tucson, Arizona with his family and another one that lives in Odessa, Texas with his family.  These were the 2 of our kids that couldn't make it to Durham for Christmas so we had to go see these grandkids too.

As I sit here now typing this posting we are in Cape Town, South Africa on what has been for me a virtually yearly mission trip since 1984.  Irene's been here about 15 or so times over that 34 year period.  At the end of this post I'll going to put the schedule of our stay here.  We will be here 7 weeks.  Much of the last 2 will be doing some "sightseeing in Namibia's Caprivi Strip.  We are also going to go to Livingstone, Zambia to see Victoria Falls which are near the headwaters of the Zambezi River.

On the map of Namibia above you can see the arm that extends to the east, south of 

Angola and Zambia and North of Botswana.  That is the "Caprivi Strip."

We arrived on the 7th of March and will return to the US on the 24th of April.  During our mission trip in South Africa and Namibia Irene or I will teach (or I will preach) at 5 different churches and the Cape Bible School.  Below is the schedule for our Mission Trip:

2018 South Africa/Namibia Mission Trip Schedule

March 5^th – April 24^th 2018

March 5th - Monday
5:40 PM – 7:15 PM	AA 5772	McAllen	DFW
10:15 PM	AA 78	DFW
March 6th - Tuesday
1:10 PM	AA78		London – Heathrow
6:10 PM	BA55	London - Heathrow
March 7th - Wednesday
7:15 AM	BA55		Johannesburg
10:35 AM – 12:45 PM	BA6409	Johannesburg	Cape Town
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM	Wednesday Night Study	Athlone	Adult Bible study
March 8th - Thursday	CBS (RJ)	Athlone	Young Adults
March 9th - Friday		Athlone	Youth
March 10th - Saturday		Athlone	Elders & Deacons
March 11th - Sunday	Morning Bible Study	Athlone
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Athlone
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Atlantis Sing a Long??
March 12th - Monday
March 13th - Tuesday	Men’s Class	Jones’ House	Book of Jude Overview
March 14th - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Gugulethu	Walk By Faith Not Sight
March 15th - Thursday
March 16th - Friday
March 17th - Saturday	CBS	CBS	Authority & Silence
March 18th - Sunday	Morning Bible Study	Bellville
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Bellville
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Gugulethu	Lesson from Mark
March 19th - Monday
March 20th - Tuesday
March 21st - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Gugulethu	Walking Wisely
March 22nd - Thursday	CBS	CBS	Understand Bible Alike
March 23rd - Friday		ATHLONE - REDUX
March 24th - Saturday
March 25th - Sunday	Morning Bible Study	Thicket Rd	Forgiveness
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Thicket Rd	Worse than Saul
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Thicket Rd	More than David
March 26th - Monday		Thicket Rd	You’ve left the church
March 27th - Tuesday		Thicket Rd	Brethren let you down
March 28th - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Thicket Rd	Be faithful till death
March 29th - Thursday
March 30th - Friday
March 31st - Saturday
April 1st - Sunday
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Gugulethu	Great Is Our God
April 2nd - Monday
April 3rd - Tuesday		Soup Kitchen &	Men’s Class
April 4th - Wednesday	Wednesday Night Study	Gugulethu	Keep Walking In Truth
April 5th - Thursday	Leave for Namibia	CBS (Malan)
April 6th - Friday	Arrive in Namibia
	Friday Night Classes	Keetmanshoop	Forgiveness In Christ
April 7th – Saturday	Saturday Night Classes	Keetmanshoop	Rohan Jones
April 8th – Sunday	Sunday Morning Study	Keetmanshoop	Restore Us Again
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Keetmanshoop	Brethren Let You Down
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Keetmanshoop	Faithful Until Death
April 9th – Monday	Leave for Windhoek	FLY or DRIVE (TBD)	Arrive in Windhoek
	Protea Hotel Fürstenhof	4 Dr. Frans Indongo St	Windhoek
April 10th – Tuesday	Protea Hotel Fürstenhof	4 Dr. Frans Indongo St	Windhoek
April 11th - Wednesday
9:35 AM – 11:05 AM	AN133	Windhoek Eros	Katima Mulilo
	Protea Zambezi Lodge	Ngoma Rd. Caprivi	Katima Mulilo
April 12th - Thursday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
April 13th - Friday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
April 14th - Saturday	Protea Zambezi Lodge	CBS (Malan)
April 15th - Sunday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
April 16th - Monday	Protea Zambezi Lodge
	AN134	Katima Mulilo	Windhoek Eros
	Etango Ranch Guest Farm	B6 – Opposite Airport	Windhoek
April 17th - Tuesday
5:30 AM – 8:10 AM	SAA73	Windhoek	Johannesburg
10:40 AM – 12:20 PM	SAA48	Johannesburg	Livingstone, Zambia
	Protea Livingstone	Mosi-O-Tunya Rd	Livingstone
April 18th - Wednesday	Protea Livingstone
April 19th – Thursday	Protea Livingstone	CBS (Malan)
1:00 PM – 2:40 PM	SAA49	Livingstone	Johannesburg
5:45 PM – 7:55 PM	SAA359	Johannesburg	Cape Town
April 20th – Friday
April 21st – Saturday
April 22nd – Sunday
	Sunday Morning Lesson	Gugulethu	Our God Is Awesome
	Sunday Evening Lesson	Gugulethu	Boasting In The Lord
April 23rd - Monday
5:00 PM – 7:00 PM	BA6422	Cape Town	Johannesburg
8:45 PM	BA54	Johannesburg
April 24th - Tuesday
6:55 AM	BA54		London
9:15 AM – 1:25 PM	AA51	London Heathrow	DFW
6:40 PM – 8:21 PM	AA1129	DFW	McAllen

o/` o/` Lot's of Curves You Bet, and Even More When You Get ... o/` o/` OR "I thought you meant the road to BENI Hana!!"

If you are old enough to remember the 60s TV show "Petticoat Junction" then you might remember the theme song of the show that included the first part of the title to this blog posting.  The second 1/2 is a take off on the idea of going to somewhere named Hana (i.e. - Beni Hana the Japanese Teppan Yaki Steakhouses).

Hana, Maui is a small, isolated town at the far eastern end of the island.  Maui isn't a BIG island.  It's only 48 miles long and 26 miles wide at its widest part.  So the trip from our hotel in Kahului to Hana is a mere 51 miles.  When you ask how long the 51 miles will take during the daytime, my iPhone said 1 hour 31 minutes.  So you think "Ok, that means you average 33.6 miles per hour.  OK, GOT IT.  It ain't going to be a quick trip."  But let's just say that apparently an iPhone will never be permitted to be a judge in an Olympic Diving competition because apparently they have no understanding of the concept of "Degree of Difficulty."  In other words, there are EASY 51 mile roads where the road is straight with the occasional curve and you are only permitted to go 30 mph so it's going to take you about 1 1/2 hours and then there is the "Road to Hana."  The first 15 miles of the  "Hana Highway" is EASY - 45 mph and flat.  It's the last 35 miles that are virtually beyond belief: 

Below is a picture of part of the island of Maui showing Kahului (where we began our trek) on the left and Hana on the far right of the island. You travel on highways 36 and 360:

These last 35 miles of the "Hana Highway" have well over 600 turns (That's over 17 curves per mile) many of which were tight, hairpin curves.  PLUS It also has almost 60 bridges (most of which are one lane bridges) and all of which have a 10 ton weight limit. PLUS the fact that the road has no shoulders on either side.  On the "coastline" side there is either steep cliffs or guard rails virtually right on the edge of the paved road.  On the "island" side there is virtually always volcanic rock (that has been blasted away to make the road).  It's often so close that when our car was going around a corner, it brushed the foliage growing out of it. PLUS on about 15-20% of the road it is so narrow that there isn't even a center line, because it's only a one lane road with signs that say "YIELD to oncoming traffic."  Given all of that, the POSTED speed limit on the last 35 miles is 15 MILES PER HOUR.  (That was too fast in many instances.)

Below is a 3 minute + YouTube compilation video of some of the videos we took along the way on the "Hana Highway."

The road is so (in)famous that they sell T-shirts like the ones in the picture below:

Personally, I think they should be obligated to give them away!

Well, (in an homage to the movie Jaws 2 and its 'tagline') - "Just when you thought it was safe to get back on the Highway again!"  Two nights later (our last night on the island of Maui) we decided to go around the OTHER end of the island which Irene said had a road which she'd "driven on before" and it was "paved and was a LOT nicer"than the Hana Highway.  Soooo, off we went on highway 30 north out of Lahaina to Kapalua.

Once again practicing the subtle art of "Highway Deception" this road was great for the first 5 miles: paved and even 3 lanes wide with numerous nice bridges.  "PIECE OF CAKE" I'm thinking.  Then, it got worse and worse and WORSE.  To top it ALL off, it was nighttime.  At least on the highway to Hell, er I mean Hana, it was daylight while we were driving on it.  Below is a 1 minute video that Irene took of actually some of the NICER 1 lane road part of it.  At least this part was paved.

So, here's a question for all of our devout readers: Who is it that decides to put their business out in the middle of ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE, Maui, Hawaii.  We were on this road which, by this time, has disintegrated to become a pot hole ridden 1 lane DIRT road --  We are about to drive over a bridge that had a 5 ton weight limit (but we wondered if that was correct) -- and BOOM! right there over the bridge someone has a restaurant.  Bizarre.  Apparently they don't believe in the first 3 cardinal rules of retail business "Location, Location, Location."

The one upside to this trip was we got the most beautiful picture of the full moon I've ever seen.  It is below:

Have a blessed day.

46, 47, 48, 49. 50! or The Yin and Yang of the USA

As followers of our blog know, we have gone to Alaska the last 2 years on sojourns - in 2016 to Homer and in 2017 to Soldotna.  We've written numerous blog posts on our travels there - the mountains; the animals; the roads, etc.  Here's links to some of them if you'd like to read them nostalgically:

Denali Flyover

Our Sojourn in Homer, AK

Our Trip to Seward, AK

Alaska was the 49th state.  It became a state on January 3, 1959.  This must have made for an interesting flag for almost 9 months - it would have had 7 rows of 7 stars = 49 stars, I suppose.  

As we write this Irene and I are in Maui, Hawaii - the 50th state.  It became a state August 29th, 1959.  

Despite all the obvious differences - the weather; the people; the size, etc., there is one possibly not so obvious similarity (without thinking about it first).  Both of the states have been shaped by volcanic activity.  As you may remember from the previous post "One Hood Beats Three Sisters and a Jefferson" I really am into volcanoes.  So I was impressed to know that in the case of Alaska there are over 130 volcanoes.  Most of them are along the "Pacific Rim of Fire" shown in the picture below:

The Pacific Ocean and the "Ring of Fire"

As you look at this picture above, right underneath of the "of" in "Ring of Fire" you'll see 2 "Volcano Triangles".  These are on the Hawaiian Islands.  Each of the largest of the Hawaiian Islands (the ones we think of when we think of Hawaii) are all of volcanic origin.  FYI, the state of Hawaii is MUCH more than most of us realize.  Below is a picture of the entire Hawaiian Chain:

The Entire Hawaiian Archipelago.  The Hawaii we "know" is the green islands on the bottom right side of the picture.  The rest of the state of Hawaii is in the circle from the center right to the upper left of the picture.

The Hawaiian Chain is over what is called a "Hot Spot" in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.  A hot spot is a thin region in the mantle of the earth.  This allows molten lava to leak and begin to build a mound at the floor of the ocean.  Eventually that mound begins to appear ABOVE sea level, at which time it is called an island.  (Another hot spot - in the North Atlantic - is responsible for the island of Iceland).  As the Pacific tectonic plate moves the hot spot remains in the same location and continues to bubble mounds at the same spot BUT now where these mounds are at when they reach sea level is NOT at the same place because the tectonic plate itself has moved.  

We spent our first week on "the Big Island."  While on the island, we went up to Kilauea, an active Volcano on the southwest side of the island.  

Below is a picture and a video we took of the Kilauea Crater.  It can be best seen at night since none of the lava in the chamber appears above the caldera rim.  It's like a pot of boiling hot rock. What is seen in our picture and video below is the "glow" of the lava in the caldera in night sky.

Below: A picture of the Kilauea Volcano when it is actually erupting.  This picture is from its 1983 eruption:

We also took an helicopter flight over the Pu'u o'o crater that has been continuously active since January 3, 1983 (34 years and counting).  In that time it has added 45 SQUARE MILES of new land to the island.  Some of the lava flows are over 80 deep.  It was both mind-blowing and awe-inspiring to see.  Below are some pictures of the crater and lave flows:

Above: 2 Pictures of the Caldera of the Pu'u o'o Crater,  The dark gray on top is essentially the same thing as the scum that forms on tomato soup when you make it with milk! LOL  It is lava that, since it is contacting the air above the caldera is cooled enough to begin to harden.  This volcano has been in one long, continuous period of activity since January of 1983.

This is one of the cliffs where the lava from the Pu'u o'o crater falls into the sea.  Just left of the center of the picture you can see a red/orange column of molten lava dropping into the ocean.  A close up of the same picture showing the lava fountain is below.

On its path from the caldera to the sea the lava goes through "lava tubes."  These are literally tunnels through the lava beds caused by the lava cooling on the surface (like in the caldera pictures), but becoming cold enough to become rock.  This allows the lava underneath to stay hot enough to continue to be a liquid on its path to the sea.  The temperature of the lava is from 1300 - 2200 degrees Fahrenheit. (700 - 1200 degrees Celsius for all you wacky metric freaks out there).

These are unburned trees laying on the top of a long-cooled lava flow.  Interestingly, the lava cools fast enough on the surface that, while the trunk of the tree BENEATH the lava burnt, the tree ABOVE the lava flow did not.  So, it just falls over unburned because its roots and trunk are gone - burned in the molten lava that was beneath the surface at one time.  These are still just laying there from an eruption that occurred 10-20 years ago.

You can see the paved road that USED to go along the southern side of the Big Island (from the bottom right hand corner at about a  30 degree angle).   It was covered by 4 FEET of lava in the mid 1980s.  When Irene and I first went to the Island in about 1984 - 1986 or so, this had just happened.  There was still steam rising from parts of the cooling rock.

Above: Two pictures of the miles and miles and miles of cooled lava rock.  The lava on the Hawaiian Islands is essentially basalt.  That's why it is dark gray to almost black.

Below: A representational map of the lava flows from the Pu'u o'o volcano since it began erupting in 1983:

Hey, YOU! Listen to what I'm telling you OR How to make 30 Minutes become 2 1/2 hours without really trying

One of the "Instructionals" that some sojourners do is called the "Listening Lab."  The idea of a Listening Lab is to teach people how to have better listening skills.  In the book of James, chapter 1:19, James writes: "Let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak."   There's an adage "I know you think you know what I said, but I'm not sure you heard what I think I'm saying."  In this adage is the idea that communication is oftentimes hindered by the speaker trying to communicate something to the hearer, BUT the hearer not understanding what it is that the person speaking is actually trying to communicate.  This is because I verbalize what I mean in ways effected by MY culture and MY upbringing using MY vocabulary using MY understanding of the meanings of the words I am using.  You, however, hear me through the interpretive filter of YOUR culture and YOUR upbringing through YOUR vocabulary using YOUR understanding of the meanings of the words I'm saying as YOU understand them.

A good illustration of this is in George Bernard Shaw's statement that the British and Americans are: "Two peoples separated by a common language."

Let's look at a car from the British and American point of view:

BRITAIN          AMERICA

bonnet               hood
boot                   trunk
silencer             muffler
windscreen       windshield
accumulator     battery
cubby box        glove compartment

You get the point.  If you are speaking to someone from Britain about your car, they might not understand some of what you think should be perfectly clear to anyone that speaks "English."

Anyway,  the listening lab is designed to teach people different skills to understand what someone is ACTUALLY saying.  Words, Tone, Body Language - these all go into truly understanding what someone is saying when they speak.  There are 10 different ways that your spouse, or parent, might say your name and they all mean something different just from the TONE of their voice.

Irene and I were trained LAST YEAR (2016) at the Camp Bee Workshop in Marshall, TX how to teach the Listening Lab.  In August of this year we helped to teach our first Listening Lab with Rick and Gail Northen at the Grayville church of Christ in Grayville, Illinois.

AUGUST 21st, 2017

Three days before the Listening Lab began was the Solar Eclipse.  The  "Totality Track" was only about 25 miles south of Grayville.  So, Irene and I decided to go down to watch the sun be totally eclipsed.  Two things were absolutely amazing.

1. Yes, it kept getting less and less light as the total eclipse approached.  "Well, DUH, Jim!"  But that isn't the amazing part.  It was still absolutely daytime and without special glasses or heavy welding glass or a "viewing box" you could NOT tell the the moon was eclipsing the sun.  It was more like the battery in a flashlight dying.  The light was getting less intense but there was still light.  I can see why thousands of years ago eclipses scared people.  The sun was still there, but WHY is it getting less and less radiant.

Here is the sun when about 95% eclipsed.  It was still plenty bright outside.  I'm having to take the picture through my "Eclipse Glasses" or I would destroy the CCD in the camera and turn the camera into an expensive paperweight.

This is the sidewalk under some trees.  The sunlight shining through the leaves shows up as Crescent because you see the moon blocking out the rest of the sun.  Here the sun is about 98% eclipsed,  Notice on the left where the sun is NOT going through leaves how bright it still is.  It is still very bright outside.

2.  Suddenly, and I mean B-O-O-M suddenly as the moon totally eclipsed the sun it was literally dark enough that you could see the bright stars in the sky.  Someone had turned out the sun.  Where we were the total eclipse lasted about 2 minutes.

In the picture above you see the moon covering the sun.  The "halo" is the corona of the sun's light shining AROUND the moon.  I took this picture through the eclipse glasses that we had purchased to watch the eclipse.

So, I got to check an item off of my "bucket list."  The one that I still haven't seen is a tornado.  I want to see a tornado out in a farmers field some day where it comes down for 5 seconds so I can see it and then goes up into the clouds again so no one gets hurt and nothing gets destroyed.

As I mentioned the eclipse totality zone was 25 miles south of Grayville, IL.  It took all of 30 minutes to get there but it took 2 1/2 hours for us to cover the same 25 miles coming back to the Trekker AFTER the eclipse due to the volume of traffic.

As I write this Irene and I are in Hawaii on the island of Oahu.  We just landed about 5 1/2 hours ago.  It's bedtime here.

There is a friend that sticks closer than a brother - Proverbs 18:24b

(editorial note: Check "Our Sojourns" tab on JITrekking.com for our 2018 Sojourning Schedule)

Irene and I with the Pruitt Family - 

(l to r)  Amy, Jim, Irene, Vicky, Richard, Becky

From September 1975 until July 1977 I attended White's Ferry Road School of Preaching (WFRSoP).  At the time WFRSoP was an elite school in the brotherhood and schools of preaching across the brotherhood were pumping out preachers at an amazing clip.  The brotherhood was coming to the close of its most evangelistic period in its history.

The class I was in at school was the largest class that would ever attend WFRSoP.  There were 35 in our class and that didn't include the 3 or 4 in the School of Personal Evangelism that attended many of our classes with us.

We were a motley crew:  2 or 3 were in their 40s; a couple had already served 20 years in the military.  We had at least one that had already served a nickel in a state penitentiary for drug issues.  We had several who had decided at a mid-point in their lives to go into the ministry.  

I had just been discharged from the military as a conscientious objector having become a Christian in Minot, North Dakota while in the Air Force and believing (and still do) that Jesus meant what he said in Luke 6:27-36:

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

So, I believe that belonging to an organization (the military) whose sole purpose is to kill people and break things is inconsistent with faith in God who "loves all men and desires for them to come to repentance."

But that's another theological discussion for a different blog posting I suppose because what THIS post is about is Richard (and Vicky) Pruitt.

Richard was in my class and came to school having left his job with 3 small children in tow - Amy was 6 or 7, Becky was 4 or 5 and "little Ricky" was not quite 3.  They lived in Alabama near (or in) Birmingham before he started school.  He was a "good, old southern boy."  

Richard struggled with WFRSoP academically speaking.  You know how Forest Gump's momma used to say "Life is like a box of Chocolates, you just never know what you're gonna get!"  Well, I'm pretty sure Richard's momma used to tell him "Richard, you're about a dumb as a box of chocolates!" lol But they always said in school "If you're putting forth 100% effort, you will NOT fail a class."  Richard, studied, read and wrote those papers for every class.  He struggled with memory work.  I never saw his "report cards" but I'm pretty sure they were "Mercy Bs" and "Grace Cs" down the line.

Richard always had a funny saying; a quick witted line to make a point or explain his struggle.  He was self-effacing in the most hilarious way. He was a joy to be around and the best of classmates and friends.

I was quite on the opposite end of the spectrum when it came to the academics of school.  While others spent hours and hours pouring over and writing and rewriting their research papers - I read some books while writing down cogent points and wrote mine while watching Monday Night Football.  I got ONE C+ while I was in school.  Every other class was an A with a rare B showing up on my "report card." 

But, two "life changing events" happened to me while I was in the School of Preaching:

1.  7 months after school started my sons, Joshua and Joel were born while I was in the school of preaching.  Vicky was there to helped the boy's mom any time she could be, knowing she was struggling with depression:  Giving her advice;  Watching the boys to give her some down time.  

2. During the 2nd year I was diagnosed with having a Malignant Melanoma on my upper left chest necessitating an excisional surgery, skin grafting from my leg and removal of all the lymph glands under my left arm.

Following my surgery, Richard was the first school mate at my bedside when they rolled me into my room from the recovery room.  "Is there anything I can do for you, Jim," he asked.  "I'm kinda hungry.  How about a mushroom pizza from Round Table Pizza, brother."  Off he went and within 1/2 hour I had that "nectar from God" - a mushroom pizza sliding into my empty belly.  It was marvelous. (My Surgeon was traumatized when he found out I'd eaten ANYTHING much less a whole small pizza so soon after surgery. "Are you hungry Mr. Gordon?" "No, I just ate a pizza about an hour ago." "YOU DID WHAT????)

When he graduated from school, Richard and a team of about 3 or 4 other classmates moved to Argentina to preach the gospel.  He did an amazing work.  The team started one or more new churches.  He was there for 7 or 8 years.

Flash forward 10 years after school.  It's 1987 and Irene, the kids and I are traveling through Huntsville, AL and find out that Richard, Vicky and the kids are living there.  We stopped and Richard, Vicky, Becky and Ricky (Amy was already at Harding College) met Irene and this new passel of kids we had.  They made us all feel so special.  Vicky made us spaghetti for lunch.  Becky taught the kids a card game called "nerts."  Richard told me they were just about to move to Smithville, TX.  The congregation there had hired him to be their minister.

Why the nostalgic look back through time.  Flash forward another 30 years to this week. We found out earlier this year that Richard, Vicky and the Girls all live in Longview, TX.  That's only 20 miles from Camp Bee where we sojourners have our Yearly Workshop where we select the Sojourns we want to be part of the NEXT year. So, we made contact and met them this past Tuesday night for the evening.

Other than being older, "fluffier," saggier and more forgetful - the years just melted away.  What a lovely evening.  We went to Papacita's for dinner.  We saw a grown up Amy (whom I hadn't seen since she was 8 or 9).  She's now a social worker at a hospice.  Becky is now married and we met her husband Chris and her son Caleb.  Both Becky and Chris are teachers.  She's a ..... Spanish teacher (thanks Argentina) and Chris is a middle school PE teacher (I think).  Caleb is 13 or 14.  Richard and Vicky live in a "mother-in-law" wing of Chris and Becky's house.  Richard is one of the elders at the Alpine Church of Christ in Longview, Texas.

Thank God for His wonderful grace of putting people in your life that can be your example of becoming like Christ.  Richard is one of mine:  Loving Husband, Faithful servant of God who has squeezed every bit of talent and ability God gave him out upon the altar of God to say "Thank you Father for saving me in your Son, Jesus the Christ."

(editorial note: Check "Our Sojourns" tab on JITrekking.com for our 2018 Sojourning Schedule)