Mission / Travel

I’d like to teach the world…

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There are different kinds of people in the world.

There are Coke people. These are cool people, up on all the latest fashion, beloved by friends and enemies alike, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. These are people you want to marry your daughter, be your boss, and watch on “Jeopardy.” These are happy people.

There are Pepsi people. These are insecure people, people who prefer imitation leather instead of the real thing, and are constantly challenging Coke people to a taste test. These are people you want to cut off on the freeway, live next door to your evil boss, and see tackled on “COPS”.

Mission / Travel

What an awful church!

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I went to an awful church today.

They didn’t have Starbucks coffee. They didn’t have any coffee. Good grief, they didn’t have any snacks at all. It’s like they didn’t even care to satisfy our morning cravings.

They didn’t have a sign on their building; it didn’t seem to be important that people know where they are. Come to think of it, they really didn’t even have a building, just a room in what looked like a strip center. No decorations, no cross, no baptistry, nothing.

And no chairs, so we had to sit on the floor. On the floor! Are you kidding me?

Mission / Travel

A Perfect Day

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What is a perfect day? It is different things for different people, I suspect.

For some, it’s playing a round at Augusta. With Tiger. (If I played golf, it would be Jack for me, which tells you I’m not as young as I look.)

For others, it would be watching Josh Hamilton hit a walk-off grand slam in the seventh game of the World Series at the Ballpark in Arlington. (They have to get past the Tigers, first.)

For still others, it would be… well, maybe something like yesterday.

The day began early — we were all awake by five, although some didn’t actually make it out of bed for another hour-and-a-half.

Family

Ten Years After

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She did not discover until she was an adult that her father had won the battle over how to spell her name; she had been spelling it wrong her entire life. (Actually, he supposedly had lost the battle, but since he was the one that filled out the birth certificate…)

Her nickname, although common today, was given to her accidentally by a grandchild who couldn’t pronounce “Grammy.”

She only ever cared for one man, whom she met at 15, married at 18 on the day they both graduated from high school, and was hopelessly in love with until he passed away the year after their 50th anniversary.

Mission / Travel

Hi, I’m Batman!

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(This post was written in Cambodia, but for a variety of reasons it’s taken a while to get it posted.)

A couple of friends of mine have had a mostly civil back-and-forth for several years about which is the greater superhero, Batman or Superman. (I have geek friends, this surprises you?) I am firmly in the Batman camp, having grown up during the 60’s TV show (speaking of camp). I also find it more impressive that a normal human can turn himself into a superhero rather than being born with superpowers – I mean, really, how hard is it to be a superhero when you’re born being able to stop bullets?

Mission / Travel

Day 9 in Three Acts

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If you’re also a reader of the 121 Mission blog, you might feel like you have déjà vu…

Act 1 — Angkor

The day begins as three tuk-tuks roll down the road in the dead of night. Well, 4:30am, which is pretty much the same thing. Several of us were headed to Angkor Wat for sunrise pictures. Angkor is the largest of the temples in a huge complex built in the twelfth century. It was originally a Hindu temple, but is now Buddhist, and is considered the largest single religious monument in the world. It is also the main tourist draw of Cambodia, if not Southeast Asia (over one million visitors a year come to see it).