May 25, 2008

Some of you may remember that sermon about the Chris-Craft boat last fall. Well, here are the two kayaks that are really more my style! I've taken the one-seater down and already have been out several times with it. The water termperature (around 50 degrees) is still too cold to go swimming....maybe when it gets to be 55 I'll attempt it?

Here you can see the tip of my kayak as I am taking a picture of the sunset. The hardest thing about a kayak is getting into it! So far I've never spilled myself into the lake, but I'm sure it's going to happen one of these days!

Here I caught the sun just a little bit later, with those beautiful pink reflections on the clouds.

The leaves are only now (May 22) starting to come out on the trees. Here's a primrose, with one little bloom peeking out.

The forsythia bushes have been blooming for the past two weeks now.

And today I came across several of these, hiking out in the woods. I've never been here at this time of year before...and so I have never seen these before…I have no idea what they are called.

Here's a picture of the lake taken halfway up the hill, where our sign is. You can see here how the trees have not yet begun to leaf out yet.

A full moon from a couple of nights ago.

And an almost full moon taken this morning. The moon is in the southern sky, and the sun was just about to rise in the east. I usually am up every morning sometime between 5:00 & 6:00 – sometimes earlier.

Here’s a picture of our cabin, taken from the lake.

The flags out front represent the different countries in our family: Guatemala, India, Sweden, Germany, Japan…there’s a US. Flag on the other side of the cabin.

And these are some of the books I've already read: "The Day of Battle," the second in a series of books about WW II (this one about the Italy campaign); "Relentless Pursuit" -- it's about the Teach for America program, a program which recruits college graduates to teach in some of the more challenging inner city schools (a kind of domestic, teaching Peace Corps; Jake is thinking about this so I bought the book, read it, and sent it off to him); “Breaking Ranks” is the memoir of Norman Podhoretz, detailing his transformation from a 1960’s radical into a neoconservative; “Forever” is the novel which Mike Burck gave me before I left, the story of a man who is able to live forever – as long as he doesn’t leave the island of Manhattan! (it covers his life from the mid-1770’s up until the downing of the twin towers of the World Trade Center; “A Broad Place” is the autobiography of Jurgen Moltmann, a German theologian (who is especially known for his theology of hope).

And these are the books I am in the process of reading (I always like to keep several books going at one time!). "The Mission of God" is a way of looking at the entire Bible through the theme of mission; "American Creation" is Joseph Ellis' newest book, detailing a dozen important events in the founding of our country, 1775--1803; "On Foot" is a history of walking (actually, as I discovered only as I began reading it, the author teaches at Southwestern Minnesota State College); and the black book is volume II/1 of Karl Barth's "Church Dogmatics" (back home I read about 8-10 pages every day; here I read more like 40-50).

May 19, 2008

On Friday, I finished up my last seminar at the Overseas Ministries Study Center…it was an amazing three weeks, a marvelous experience!

I spent Saturday in New York City before flying back to Minnesota on Sunday. I saw a play, "The Country Girl" -- with Morgan Freeman, Frances McDormand (she's the one who played the pregnant detective in "Fargo"), and Peter Gallagher. During the rest of the day I discovered myself going back to Central Park a couple of times....that must mean I'm ready to leave the city and head back to the country! The above is a picture of The Pond in Central Park.

Here's a waterfall in Central Park.

And a bagpiper who was playing in Central Park.

And a mallard swimming in the pond....

....and Sunday, when I'm back in Minnesota, here are two loons swimming on Hatch Lake!

This morning, with the sun shining (after rain here the last couple of days) and no wind, here's a beautiful reflecting picture from across the lake from our cabin.

On my walk in the woods this morning, here is another lake just about a half-mile away (you've heard that there are 10,000 lakes in Minnesota (actually the number is closer to 20,000, I think -- and in our Itasca County alone there are 1,000 lakes!

And here, deep in the woods, is still some snow left. They actually had another foot of snow one week after I left Minnesota...and then another dusting just this past Saturday. It’s been a very late spring here. I should report on my garden progress: peas, spinach, lettuce, and onions are up – but no sign of the potatoes yet!

Here's a picture of our own Hatch Lake....our cabin is on the end where most of the property is the Chippewa National Forest...from our cabin, in fact, you can't even see one of the other 13 cabins on the lake.

This is an old logging road on our property. This area was logged back in 1905--06. A couple of months ago I bought a metal detector....I've always wanted to see what I could find on this logging road. And.....

Here's a bunch of items I found yesterday: four nails...a screw-eye....the longer pieces I think are pins, that, what? -- joined the harness to the sledges loaded with logs? I have no idea what the two items on the left are. What I was really hoping to find, however, was a horseshoe....

...and I did! (Guess where it's hanging after I took this picture? Yup, you guessed it, over the door!

May 8, 2008

In this batch of photos, I will be sharing pictures from the two weekends in New York City: April 25—27 with Jake; May 2—4 with Pete.

Jake in Central Park. Having been to NYC 7 or 8 times in my life, this was the first time I really experienced Central Park....and what a beautiful park it is...especially this weekend the flowering trees were in full bloom.

Here's a garden on the upper east side of Central Park.

This is for all of you Seinfeld fans....Jake wanted to have his picture taken in front of this restaurant that is used for a backdrop on the Seinfeld TV show...it's in Morningside Heights, near Columbia University.

And now we're in lower Manhattan, in the financial section, Jake with the famous bull.

When Jake & I were there, it was the weekend of the NFL draft, taking place at Radio City Music Hall in Rockefeller Center. We stopped by on Saturday morning, but the line for getting in extended a couple of blocks and we decided to pass.

On that Sunday afternoon I worshiped with the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (taking this picture before worship started, as people were coming in). The black and white print dresses were a common pattern for the women, so I am guessing that is a common pattern for the women of Ghana.

This now is the second weekend in NYC when Pete flew in. This is Pete in front of the Belvedere Castle in Central Park.

Isn't this a great shot? Four young Hasidic Jews watching a baseball game in Central Park. But if you've read Chaim Potok's novel, "The Chosen," you'll remember it begins with a baseball game between an Hasidic yeshiva (school) and a Gentile school.

Pete on the Brooklyn Bridge. That weekend was a particularly cloudy weekend (for example, the top of the Empire State Building was covered in clouds).

Pete and I saw "The Phantom of the Opera" at a Saturday matinee.

Pete is a part of the comedy improv troupe at Smoky Hill High School, so on both Friday and Saturday nights, we were at a comedy club on Broadway. Here Pete is a part of a group called up on stage. They were told to freeze themselves into a scene (while the lights were off); when the lights came on, the two comics (in the background on the far right) then commented on the scene as if it were a PBS documentary.

After I left Pete at LaGuardia Airport at the end of Sunday, I went to the Cloisters, a medieval Museum in the far north of Manhattan (Washington Heights, near the George Washington Bridge, in Fort Tyron Park -- an absolutely beautiful park). The museum was built by John D. Rockefeller, in the style of an European medieval monastery....and incorporates actual parts of medieval buildings into its construction. This is a shot of the monastery garden/courtyard.

One of the Korean members of our Overseas Ministries Study Center worships at a Korean Church in New Haven with a fellow Korean who also happens to be the Director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra. The Orchestra was playing at Carnegie Hal and we were able to get free tickets. A marvelous concert -- all Prokofiev. We had seats down on the main floor (much better than the seats Pete and I had for "Phantom" -- way up high in the theater!)....and this is a view of the balconies above and behind us.

May 2, 2008

George Kavoor is the principal of Trinity College, Bristol, England, and chaplain to the Queen of England. A native of India (in fact, from Bangalore, where Jacob was born!), his background is the ancient Syrian Orthodox Church of India, which traces its roots all the way back to Thomas, the disciple of Jesus. George taught our seminar the very frist week, April 21-25: "Models of Leadership in Mission."

One evening George led us all in preparing an Indian meal. Here you also see Divina, wife of an Anglican bishop from Tanzania. The food was abolutely great!

Last night (Wednesday, April 30), a smaller group of us shared a meal together, and I took a bunch of pictures of my fellow classmates. This is Robert Pindzie, a Lutheran from Cameroon. Born in a Muslim family, he became a Christian at the age of 14. He later worked toward a Ph.D. at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN -- and, in fact, will be at Mt. Carmel Bible Camp in Minnesota (near Alexandria) later in the summer. We are going to try to see if I can drive down there some weekend and bring him and his wife to the cabin for a few days.

This is Jose Barbosa dos Santos, the youngest of us all in the class. He is a Brazilian missionary serving in Bolivia. He made much of the food this evening -- including a great lemon pie (a simple recipe that he wrote out for me).

This is Paul Smith, with whom I am rooming. Paul is a missionary to the poor in Los Angeles, CA, working for a group called Inner Change. He is a Harvard grad (with doctoral work at Cal Tech) who responded to God's call to live and work among the poor. Has absolutely great stories to tell!.....many of which you will be hearing from me in future sermons!

This is Shan Sone, a Baptist from Myanmar (formerly Burma). He does his missionary work among the hill tribes of Myanmar, where his church adds about 30 converts a year.

This is Dr. Caleb Oladipo from Nigeria who teaches now at Baptist Theological Semnary at Richmond, Virginia.

This is Bishop Marco Badeleya and his wife, Divina. He is now an assistant bishop in the western part of Tanzania, in a region which is preparing to become an independent Anglican diocese.

This is Francis Jung, a Korean pastor who has worked as a missionary among the Muslims both in Albania and Kosovo.

And this is some of the fod we enjoyed last night....all of it absolutely great!

This is my Old Testament professor from the University of Iowa (now retired), Ken Kuntz, who happened to be at Yale attending an alumni board meeting...so we had a chance to get together and spend Tuesday evening catching up on each other's lives. My time here at the Overseas Ministries Study Center is now about two-thirds finished. Last weekend Jake and I had a great weekend exploring New York City; tomorrow I will meet Pete at LaGuardia Airport and we will do our New York thing. Next week I will send pictures from those two weekends. Heard there was more snow in Minnesota...what do you suppose that's doing with my garden there!?!