Campus Crusade Conference in Colorado

This is the year for Campus Crusade's U.S. Staff Conference at the Colorado State University Campus in Fort Collins.

The four of us flew to Denver on Friday the 15th and stayed with Pat's cousin Robert (wife Elaine, kids Ciannah, 9, and Matthew, 3) in Littleton. Had a pleasant time with them including going to the Swim and Tennis club Saturday. Surprisingly, they had a diving board, and I took a bunch of dives. I can still do a regular back dive, although it is somewhat scary diving backwards and not seeing your target. I also tried a front flip and got it right a couple times. A couple other times I mis-hit on the bouncy board and stumbled awkwardly into the water. One of those resulted in a rather painful side/inner-thigh flop. But hey, it was fun and I can still dive at my age.

It was fun to spend a day and a half with Robert and Elaine, whom I've only barely met.


We drove up to Ft. Collins for Student Venture Ministry Days, Sunday through Wednesday. I was on the program team, helping run PowerPoint and video. I had to get to most meetings early and do a bit of scrambling around. It's always great to see all of our SV mates from around the country.

We had Joe and Kathy Wasmond from Freedom in Christ ministries, helping us to deal with a lot of the crud we accumulate in our emotional/spiritual lives. It was really good. They gave us a book, "Living Free in Christ" by Neal Andersen (founder of FICM) which I hope we will go through as a family this fall.


Thursday was an off day, and we spent the afternoon on the beautiful Poudre River about 1/2 an hour away (pictured above). It was a very hot day, a good day to put our legs into the very cold river. We had some great family time and topped it off with treats from Dairy Queen.


The big conference started that evening. It's great to just attend the conference and soak everything in. The praise and worship is always top-notch, and we always hear great stories of what God is doing through Campus Crusade around the world. We had one lady Bible teacher whom we thought was just okay, but Joe Stowell, president of Moody Bible Institute, is teaching in the mornings Monday through Wednesday. He is really good; his message on the "Immoral Woman" from Luke 7 was incredibly good.

Alas, Pat is missing this because she flew back to Orlando Sunday with the kids, who started Band Camp on Monday. We checked out of our hotel Sunday and I moved in with our good friends the Jankowskis for the last four days. We have a good deal going - they house and feed me, and I, unencumbered by the need to take children here and there, get to the meetings early and save good seats for them.

Another thing Pat missed Monday was "The Rock and the Rabbi," a really cool musical. It's been showing in Orlando but we never went to see it there.

Pat asked Katie to call me to report that she scored a 4 ("well qualified") on her AP Euro exam. That's a 4 in Euro and a 5 in English. Pretty darn good if I may say so myself.


I'll be flying home Thursday the 28th and re-joining the family. I'll probably go out to band camp Friday and take some pictures. The guys who have been taking most of the band photos the last couple years have graduated, so we're a bit short on photographers now.

Folks' Fiftieth Fete

Okay, so I can't resist these alliterative titles. Sorry.

But Hank and Carole Lee actually did celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary on the actual date, Sunday, July 10. I flew out there Friday night and helped get ready for the party at sister Kathy's in Berkeley. Had about 75 friends and relatives, many of whom I was glad to see, some of whom I barely knew. But it was fun.

In some ways I hope Pat and I last 50 years, but at the same time I hope the Lord comes back before then . . .


Katie got her SAT scores - the first one with the new essay section. Drum roll, please:

English 750 (higher than my 700 in HS)
Math 640 (a bit lower than mine)
Writing 720

For a smashing total of 2110. Go Katie! Can't believe I've been blessed with such smart kids. She's happy she did so well because it means she probably won't have to take it ever again. Those scores are well beyond what she needs to get into Florida schools and qualify for the Bright Futures scholarship program (as long as she keeps her grades up). She basically should be getting a full ride at any state school here in Florida. Thank you Lord!

We also just found out that she scored a 5 (highest possible) on the AP English exam. Yippee! We're still waiting for the results of the AP European History test. We're fairly confident that she at least got a passing grade of 3, although we're hoping for 4 or 5 of course.


For Independence Day we had our friends the DeColas over. Their son Doug, 11, has been in treatment for a year for a brain tumor, so naturally Pat has become a friend and aid to the family (one of her main roles in life is helping cancer parents). We barbecued burgers and had a massive rubber band fight with Eric's two guns and the rest of us just shooting them the old-fashioned way. Was a lot of fun.


Only a couple days left before heading off for my Fifth cross-country flight since March. The whole bunch of us travel to Fort Collins, CO for bi-annual Campus Crusade Staff Conference. It is always a fantastic time. Pat and kids will actually come home early to go to band camp, which starts August 25. I'll go home four days later on the 28th.


Did I tell you I finished reading Heaven by Randy Alcorn? It was fantastic, and I highly recommend it. More on that later.

Into the West - 3 Times

The SV Executive Getaway at the Pines Lodge (near Vail, CO) was a great success, with significant money raised for Student Venture. Our small Development team worked really hard, took a lot of pictures, sang a lot of songs, and helped the guests have a memorable time.

The visit to 4 Eagle Ranch was especially good, as we added team activities - Cowboy Croquet and the Pack Burro Relay. The croquet was a relay race, set up so that people from each of the 6 teams converged on a single pole at the end. The result was pretty funny - a big blob of people knocking into each other. The Pack Burro Relay used the same 6 teams, and involved bridling and harnessing the animals, putting a pack saddle on, finding "gold nuggets" buried in a trough, putting the "gold" and other things (including exactly 49 sodas) in the saddlebags and then leading the burro around a course.

I had expected the burros to be stubborn and uncooperative; I was actually looking forward to taking pictures of people trying to tug and coax them along. But maybe it's mules that are famously stubborn, and I'm just too citified to know the difference.

I took portraits of each couple at the ranch, and ran to Wal-Mart to get them printed the next day. We put the 5x7's in a cardboard photo frame and presented them to the guests that evening. They were very impressed - some said that these were the best pictures that had ever been taken of them!

It was nice to leave them with a nice memento of the conference.

We typically end the conference with a slide show featuring many of the photos we took all weekend. Last year I stayed up 'til about 3:30 a.m. doing this in PowerPoint. Praise the Lord, I found an inexpensive slide show product called PictureToExe that let me build the show, synchronized with music, in less than 2 hours. Another advantage I had this time is that SV now owns a really nice digital SLR camera. Another staff guy and I took a lot of good pictures with it (including the portraits mentioned above), so we had plenty to choose from.

Sunday morning came - the end of the meeting, and I hit "Play" on the slide show. 120 photos came and went, and the people loved it. Whew!

Scott and I drove down the hill to Denver Sunday night after the conference. On the rental car shuttle, I started talking with George, our driver. He goes to a Catholic church but did not have a clear understanding of salvation by faith. I tried to explain to him that we are saved by grace, not by works. He told me that God must be working on him, because someone had been sharing with him just the day before. He showed me a little evangelistic card that had been left in his tip bucket. Very cool.


Eric just finished two 2-week sessions of summer school. This segment was Personal Fitness, which included running, basketball, volleyball, ping-pong and bowling (some were optional). Oh, and the weight room, where I found out he can bench press 120 pounds.

Eric is now also officially taller than Katie, which of course she's not real happy about, but what will you do. He's almost 15, and we expect the guys to be taller eventually. He and Katie still have not hit 5 feet yet, but it's only matter of time before Eric does, thereby passing up his mom.


The travel continues. On Friday, July 8 I head off to San Francisco by myself to go to my mom and dad's 50th anniversary party on July 10 (the actual day) at my sister Kathy's place in the Berkeley hills. I come back Monday, then we'll head off again the following Friday for Colorado for Campus Crusade's bi-annual Staff Conference. But more on that later.