Serve by Design

I have been a space enthusiast for as long as I can remember. When I consider the actual numbers, I have been watching launches since May 1961, when Alan Shepard and the Mercury capsule lifted off powered by a Saturn V rocket for that first American suborbital mission from the Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral, Florida. I was barely ten years old, but I was thrilled to join millions of others, from my generation, in following the space program through radio and television coverage. When I moved to Sharpstown, Texas, in southwest Houston to pastor in 1984, I lived in the same suburban community where the seven original Mercury astronauts were given starter homes back in their day. Our kids went to Ed White Elementary, the neighborhood school, that honored the memory of Edward Higgins White, born in San Antonio, who lost his life along with two fellow astronauts, Gus Grissom and Roger Chaffee. The terrible accident happened in 1967 when a fire broke out in the cabin during a pre-launch te...

The Easter Bunny may have to substitute certain candies for the beloved KitKat bar during this season. According to reports from the   Nestlé   home office in Vevey, Switzerland, there has been a mysterious and perplexing heist in recent days that may disappoint many kids expecting to see copious bars of their chocolate-covered wafer in their Easter baskets come Sunday morning! Credit: gettyimages.com Newsweek reported that a whopping 26,455 pounds of KitKat deliciousness was stolen. That was a staggering 12 tons in weight equal to two grown elephants! Wowzers! That’s some serious chocolate! How does a thief fence that much stolen product? Ha! Are there that many hungry kids with that much cash? You can imagine how the late-night talk show hosts are capitalizing on this unfortunate event during their monologues! Our grands are past the days of suspenseful in-house searches for their Easter baskets and for surprise-filled eggs during the afternoon hunts outside! However, they...

When I was a boy, I went out summer evenings into the bottom ground of the Kaskaskia River hunting for raccoons with my dad and our next-door neighbor, Jim. Dad and Jim loved this sport and exercised their dogs in and out of season. The challenge for the dogs was to pick up and follow the coon scent all the way to the tree. Occasionally, and much to the displeasure of their owners, these highly trained canines would fall prey to other scents and be drawn away! "I smell something!" For years, I have known how hunting dogs have this heightened sense of smell, but I was surprised to recently learn that the African giant pouched rat also has the same ability! This species of large rodents is being used in some seventy-eight countries throughout the world where individuals have been victimized by landmines. Statistics show these dangerous unexploded ordnances kill or maim fifteen to twenty-thousand civilians each year! Research engineers, who work to study and train these specia...

I am sure that my eyes used to “glaze over” a little when older adults in our church began talking about their illnesses, doctor appointments and exploratory procedures. Now that I am one of those Medicare card-carrying seniors, I have joined the ranks of my peers who delight in droning on with numerous war stories! We had another procedure this week that required general anesthesia. By now we know the regimen because of experiences with past colonoscopies! The drill at the clinic surgery center has become all too familiar! Image credit: depositphotos.com This time it was an endoscopy. The first for either one of us. Monique has had a persistent cough for months now and our endocrinologist decided to clinically scope her “food pipe” as he referred to it. Technology has advanced to the point that the scope is equipped to take a biopsy, stretch or dilate any narrowed areas, and it is also fitted with a camera to document everything discovered with numerous pictures. All of this is quite ...

  70th Birthday Rib-Fest with Dad! I went home to Vandalia the day before my 70th birthday. It had been more than a year since I had last been with my Dad. While we were faithfully keeping up with each other during our weekly Sunday evening phone calls, there is nothing to be compared with "laying eyes on a loved one" in person!  During the days of the 2020 Pandemic, we had been trying to stay in our place to model for our loved ones and to some extent, protect them as we all were managing very different responses. Now that I have received two doses of vaccine, I am feeling a lot more comfortable in reconnecting with my extended family near and far.  Dad and I went over to Effingham to eat baby-back ribs at Fridays. We have been doing this for years during our mutual birthdays and have logged several special memories from these experiences. Based upon those previous years, we were fixated on one particular entrée, the dry and perfectly crusted, delectable fall-off-of-the...

In these past weeks leading up to the Masters golf tournament, I have been watching some Sunday afternoon televised play. I tell Monique that I'm trying to familiarize myself with those elite competitors who will likely face off at Augusta National, the much anticipated spring classic scheduled during April 8-11. In all honesty, though, my motivation is to justify why my golf game has never risen above "duffer status!" When I see the professionals struggle as they have at the recent Players at Sawgrass in Florida or the Dell Match Play tournament in Austin, I still feel that there is hope for me! Credit: clipart-library.com You see, my golf game is characterized more as using the whole course...water, rough and sand! I have "rinsed more balls" than I can count in trying to get over a body of water. I have spent more time in the tall grass, across the cart paths and in the course landscaping areas than on the fairways or greens. I yell "Fore!" and then ...