Jan 31 2009
I recently received a nice reminder of something that perhaps I had just forgotten. I was squatting on the banks of the Zambezi River in the Western Province of Zambia when Senior Chief Inyambo Yeta of the Lozi Tribe was watching the sun rise over the river. It was breathtaking as ever. He looked at me and said, “I love you Americans. You’re self-sufficient, you’re strong, you’re proud, you’re independent and you can always get things done.”
Jan 29 2009
Life is a matter of perspective, isn’t it? I was recently in the Middle East visiting my wife, Dr. Mickie Mathis, who is undergoing cancer treatments in a city called Doha where she lives. She had an opportunity to address students at the local medical school. The medical students wanted to know how she dealt with receiving the bad news that she had cancer. She really surprised them.
Jan 25 2009
Can I be brutally honest with you? One of the things I don’t like about being human is that if we hear something over and over again, we get used to it. This applies to the sounds around us, to Scripture we hear each time we’re in church and to the people we know in our lives. If we are around those who nag or complain all the time we have a tendency to quit listening, don’t we.
Jan 24 2009
Do you recall reading in Exodus the stories of Pharaoh and Moses? On several occasions God used Moses and Aaron to pass on the message to Pharaoh, “Set my people free.” Several times Pharaoh replied defiantly, “No, no, no, I will not let God’s people go.” God sent forth countless plagues upon Pharaoh. The first was using Moses to turn the Nile River to blood.
Jan 23 2009
By the time you read this I will likely still be trying to recover from my recent trip to Tualabe, Honduras. I helped to unload a 40-foot container of medical equipment and supplies for our new clinic. When I finished all I could say was, “Does anybody know a good doctor!”
Jan 19 2009
The constant barrage of bad news makes me wonder which way our nation is going to go. There are so many devastating things happening in the United States and to our society that I question which direction are we going? Are we moving forward, backward, up or down? Whenever I ask this very same question in my own life I tend to remember World War II Gen. George Patton’s very simple formula. Gen. Patton is the one who said, “Forward, forward always forward.” He said we are to never go back, never give up and we are certainly never to surrender.
Jan 17 2009
You’ve heard the saying, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” Well I might add if something is broke, then obviously you fix it and get it going again. This can apply to our nation’s economy, our country and even our lives. My friends, Jerry and Sherry just got back from seeing my friend, Jo, who was in a terrible automobile accident.
Jan 15 2009
Taking away our language capabilities makes life rather interesting. I discovered this recently while spending time in the Middle East. I felt so lost. There was nothing but desert and no jungles. I do jungles, remember?
Jan 10 2009
Slowly but surely I am learning a major lesson and I guess I need to share it with you. Allow me to be honest with you. There are certain folks serving in particular governments in certain places in our world whom I simply cannot stand. I don’t like seeing people lose everything they’ve worked for all their lives and I don’t like watching our personal freedoms disappearing. I further don’t like dictators, folks who try to tell us what to do and I really don’t like people who impose upon us what we should believe. All of these things are simply not right.
Jan 04 2009
I recently finished traveling across the country and I witnessed it everywhere I went. From sea to shining sea people were talking about it, people were getting upset about it, people were rejoicing about it and people were beginning to pray about it. Do you know what I’m talking about?