On ventures where we cannot see the end…

While watching a news report earlier this week about the crisis with Central American children at our southern border, my wife and I became choked up at the sight of a 7-year-old Honduran girl, missing her two front teeth, who was asked by the NBC reporter where she was trying to go in America. She reached for her plastic bag of possessions – all that she had in the world – and then panicked while frantically searching for the slip of paper with the address where her mother was staying. She was braving this incredible and dangerous journey in an effort to escape fear and violence and be reunited with her mother in North Carolina. I can’t even imagine what pressures that family must be under to be divided like that and to force parents and children to make decisions leading to such terrifying unknowns in their lives.

From the Shores of Lake Carlos

Beth, Solveig, and I were fortunate to be up at Luther Crest for the first half of this week, and on the way home we talked at length about how wonderful it is to see the counselors and staff, all young Christian adults, so enthusiastic about sharing and modeling their faith. We always come away feeling that the greater church is in terrific young hands! Beth wanted to be a guest blogger this week to highlight the ministry of Luther Crest Bible Camp. Here’s a little parental disclaimer: We have two sons working at this camp this summer, but that doesn’t keep us from trumpeting the amazing ministry that this camp is doing. ~ Pastor Josh

The assistant camp director announced to the packed dining room, “And next we have counselor Tater Tot with her angler fish hairstyle, mismatched socks, and patriotic shorts! We are catching American fever here at Luther Crest.”

Smooth sailing

The summer I was 16, I lived with a host family in Spain as an American Field Service exchange student. Simon & Garfunkel’s “Bridge Over Troubled Water” was a gigantic hit that year. I had taken that album and Jose Feliciano’s “Come On, Baby, Light My Fire” (in vinyl LPs, of course) as gifts for my Spanish host sister. Carmen liked them, but I was the one who played them all the time. (To manage my homesickness, I think.) “Bridge” remains one of my favorite spiritual songs. After all these years, I find it enormously uplifting, and I wonder why I have never heard it – or sung it – in church.