We went moose hunting on the Yukon River in the wilderness of Alaska this past week. We went with our daughter Shelly, her husband Philip, and their 5 kids, our grandkids, the oldest being 8. Philip was our hunting guide, being experienced in that he has hunted  this area with his Dad and family for years and has killed a number of moose over the years. We didn’t bag a moose, but I had a wonderful time. There is something very bonding when you are in the wilderness camping together. One of the kids was chopping limbs in two so that we could put them in the little stove we had in the wall tent and one of the others tripped going out of the wall tent door and fell right in the path of the descending axe and got a whack on the back of the head, which resulted in a two inch cut that went to the scull. We had a first aid kit so using a hunting knife Philip shaved the hair around the wound and put a couple of butterfly bandages, disinfectant, and then gauze and tape around the head, and the procedure was over and regular camp life returned to normal.  Everyone was involved in some way in the procedure, cutting tape, offering advice, comforting a little boy, and praying. It is a great time to teach character to kids during these events.  Even  though I didn’t see a moose or bear or wolf, I did see lots of beaver, muskrats, ducks, geese, swans, and lots of different birds. But the high light of the weeks camping was spending amazing time with my grandkids getting to know them a lot., I saw some huge grizzly bear tracks everyday in the mud next to the river, and it appeared like he was walking along behind me as his tracks were over mine from the day before. That made things exciting. It was a hugely successful hunting trip, one that I Will remember all of my life. Next year I will kill a moose, maybe!

This will be my last blog for a week because in the morning we are driving North from Fairbanks about 4 hours putting Philips Jet Sled in the Yukon River and going up the river about an hour and camping on the river for one week where we will be hunting for moose. It will take two trips because we have five kids and five adults plus tents and gear and food for a week. It is going to be a lot of fun camping with my five grandkids, and Patty , Seth, Philip, and Shelly. We have 4 moose tags, and two grizzly bear tags, and with the moose tags we can shoot a black bear, caribou,  or wolf instead if we see one before the moose. If we get at least one moose it will take 3 trips out or more. We are bringing 130 gallons of gasoline in plastic barrels so we will have enough to make all the shuttles with the sled. We are also bringing a 16 foot canoe to paddle up the sloughs that run off of the river where the moose like to feed. I enjoy hunting trips like this more for the adventure than for the potential meat to eat, though moose meat is some of the best. I especially like having a great adventure with family, there isn’t much that is more bonding and creating of great memories. We did a lot of hunting and fishing trips with camping as we raised our kids, and in fact declared it to be our best tool for raising tough kids who could manage life well when they became adults because everything that can go wrong, goes wrong when you are camping and then we would teach them how to manage it and solve problems without going crazy. It is funny, when the kids were young we did all the fixing and problem solving and planning, and now they do and take care of us. I get my male, Macho,  hunter, fisher, camper pride hurt periodically as they take charge, but I guess that is the way it is supposed to be.

we landed in Fairbanks this morning at 8 am and we have been just hanging around with Shelly, Philip,and 5 grandkids today. They all came down to Jefferson a year ago and in the last year it is amazing how fast the grandkids have grown. It is fun to see them all, but I get a bit melancholy thinking how little I get to see them and how much they do grow between visits. Time does march on and everybody grows up and older, and everybody changes.  I often wonder and think about eternity. What will I look like? There is a picture on our wall at home of me when I was 20 years old, in great shape, with lots of hair, and pretty good looking, at least Patty says that. I wouldn’t mind looking like that for eternity. If I do will I change? What about babies that die, and really old people? Over the years I have met a lot of people that I have no memory of now. Will I remember them in eternity? How many people will I know? Will I make new friends? Will we play poker? So many questions and so few answers, but I will know one of these days. But one thing I do know is that in this life we are supposed to grow. Kids grow up physically and we are supposed to grow up in character. Everything God orchestrates in our life is supposed to produce growth in us. It appears to be very important to God that we grow, He works at it relentlessly in our lives. The admonition of the Bible is “press on to maturity”. God does His part, and we need to do ours. So I  will press on to maturity.

Patty, Seth and I are sitting in the Anchorage airport for a six hour layover waiting for our flight to Fairbanks where our daughter Shelly, her husband and five children live, and it is now 2:45 am with 4 more hours to go.  I have traveled a lot on airplanes in the last 20 years, and have sat a lot of hours in airports watching people. The larger, international airports have people from all over the world walking down the same hall together with people talking different languages, with different dress, and different skin color and features. Airports have their own, unique culture and certain words are the key  ones describing that culture. Except at 2:45 am the main word is “Schedule”, everyone is headed to a gate with a deadline or miss their flight. It is not uncommon to see people running frantically all the while looking at their watch and rechecking the departure time on their ticket. Another major word is “Security” as standing in lines waiting to get “scanned” for bombs or whatever is a major part of the airport experience,  and regular loudspeaker announcements about not leaving your luggage unattended so a terrorist doesn’t plant a bomb in it while you are not looking. My IPad had a big, bright yellow warning announcement that some security lines at the Anchorage airport were taking 4 hours to get through because of some “information” that bad guys were coming through the airport headed someplace to do some bad things. With the “schedule” word, the “security” word, and then you add the “stranger” word, in that everybody is in a sea of humanity and they don’t know anybody and all these strangers are walking together, sitting together, standing in line together and only occasionally does anybody talk to anybody else. An airport is like a hay baler where dried grass gets shoved, squeezed, and compacted together, but with people, and as you watch you realize that you are watching a condensed view of our world and life. So the result of those three  key words is “frantic”, “worry”, “fear”, “loneliness”, “stress”, and on the list goes. Rather than getting sucked into the world of the “airport” I can choose to pray for people as they walk by, I can ask God for an opening to talk and possibly share, I can read my Bible, I can smile a lot and maybe even sing “Jesus loves me”.

when I was 20 and farming my brother, and brother-in-law, and I formed a three man tug-of-war team and competed against other teams at the Klickatat County Fair in Trout Lake, Washington. It was a single elimination  competition, and there were 16 teams so in order to be the champion “Puller” we had to “Pull” four times. The rope was quite long so the distance that we had to pull the other team to get them across the line was about 20 feet, and most of the teams were tough, so  it took a long time, almost 20 minutes on the championship pull. Pulling on a rope with every once of strength you have for upwards of 20 minutes four times was encredibly exhausting, but we won. The prize was a six pack of warm Nesbitts Orange Soda, but of course the glory of being the toughest guys in Trout Lake was worth it all. The key to winning was digging in and holding our ground until the other team got tired. We didn’t do any jerking, and lunging like the other teams, we just dug holes with our heals and hung on, and then when we felt them letting up we went back one foot hole and then another until we won. Life feels a lot like that tug-of-war, just a constant struggle. In the book of Ephesians in the New Testament in the Bible it says that our struggle in life is really not against people it’s against the devil and his demons who are pulling the strings behind the scenes. We can’t see them so we don’t think about them, but they are as real as the “signals” that come into our cell phones. They are very real, very powerful, very clever, and very evil. The key to winning is to not grow weary or discouraged, to run the race with endurance, to develop relationships with others who are “pulling” and encourage one another to not give up, and to keep your eye on the prize of the crown of life that the Lord will give to those who finish well,

i don’t like movies that don’t have a happy ending. That is exactly why I did like the new Ben Hur movie. There are all kinds of sad and bad things that happen to everyone involved but in the end all the good people are happy. Pilate isn’t happy, but I am OK with that. In the Bible the end of the story of my life is written, and I believe with total faith that is true. One of two endings are  possible for my happy ending. The first is that I die from a yet unknown reason with the grace of God surrounding it meaning that it is no big deal, and I step into the presence of the Lord and all the beauty and joy of heaven. The second is that I am still alive when Jesus comes to get me and I get a new body and off I go to live with Him forever. That event will be quite a bit more exciting than sky diving I am sure, as I fly through the sky with my Christ like body.  Positive anticipation of a future event gives energy, joy, enthusiasm, and has a way of covering the sadness of bad events.  I never worry any more about anything.  I don’t fret about health, money, weather, elections, nothing.  The reason is that I have set my mind on the things above rather than on the things of this life and this place. It really does work. I like happy  endings, and mine is about as good and happy as it gets so I think I will spend my thinking time on the ending of my life not today.

Jesus said He was the good shepherd and that  He laid his life down for the sheep. He also said that Pastors are shepherds to and that they need to work hard at being good and wise shepherds. Most of my shepherding role as a pastor is spent in working at rounding up drifting sheep. It is not a particularly enjoyable job, rounding up drifting sheep, primarily because drifting sheep don’t want to be rounded up, and many don’t really think that they have drifted.

1 Thessalonians 2:11-12  just as you know how we were exhorting and encouraging and imploring each one of you as a father would his own children, so that you would walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.

These verses written by the Apostle Paul as a pastor are life defining verses for me.,  when I phone someone and ask how they are doing and that I have missed seeing them, I often get a response that is hinting at “I am a big boy, and I don’t need you bugging me”.

I write many hand written notes, type emails, and thumb type text messages in the  hundreds,  to people in our church “exhorting, encouraging, and imploring” them to live godly lives. As I do this I pray diligently that God will work in their heart while I am “bugging”, I try to come across as humble, not as someone who has arrived and has it all together and I constantly remind myself that I am battling the devil, not people.

life is made up of chapters like a book, and each chapter is a set of new experiences, responsibilities, and adjustments. Probably the biggest chapter change was when I got married, almost everything changed. Most of the time you can see it coming and anticipate the changes. Sometimes you don’t like the new chapter and it takes awhile to adjust to it and accept it. Today is a major chapter change in my life. Pastor Mike Dedera, my associate pastor at JBC is going to take over the preaching responsibilities on Saturday night at 7 pm and Sunday morning at 9 am and 11:30’am.  The main worship service preaching has been my baby for 40 years, and I am pretty sure it is going to be a major adjustment for me.  I am going to start a teaching class at 8 am on Sunday morning, and will go through Revelation, Daniel, and other prophetic books during that time. I will also start a teaching time on Wednesday night during AWANA. I will teach three “Men’s Leadership” classes and one for High School kids during the week.  I will also be in charge of the “Small Group” ministry and will start and lead a number of them.  There is a bunch of other things that I will be doing, and I will probably work harder than I have been. The main reason I am making this adjustment is because my voice is wearing out, and the small classroom settings will be much easier on my voice and my energy level. Also it is time for Mike to step into this role. He has  been very faithful, has studied hard, gone to seminary and gotten his Masters degree, and he has been a super teachable student with me. It is time, and he will do awesome.

when my Dad had liver cancer and dying I went up and stayed with him and Mom as much as I could in the last 2 months of his life. From his bed you could see down their quarter mile long driveway, and see when someone was driving up their driveway. When he saw someone coming he would get out of bed, get dressed, and go sit in the living room and chat with his visitor until they left and then go back to bed. The whole process was very tiring and I and Mom both tried to talk him into staying in bed while people visited him, but he refused. I wrote in my journal, “it seems that the last thing to die in a person is their dignity”. It seems like their desire to be treated with dignity goes up exponentially with age and frailness, but our tendency is to treat them as a child as they become more needy of help. Patty and I went up to stay with my Mom and help take care of her while she recuperates from her hip surgery. She tends to violate the rules set for her on what she can do and not do in her stage of recovery, and my observation is that she does not like getting bossed around or talked down to by medical people or by family, not even a little bit. My conclusion for myself in my treatment of her is that her sense of dignity is worth more than her phisical health, and that she will not be around much longer so I need to be very careful how I talk to and treat her no matter how much she might try my patience. Mom is a bit of a burden right now, and has caused some strain in family relationships as we figure out how to take care of her, but if anybody has earned the right to be treated with utmost respect at this stage in her life, my Mom has.

Yesterday was our 47th year being married. We raised 8 kids and have 22 grandkids and have been 40 years pastoring at JBC. I can’t think of two people that were more different in every area of life than we were when we got married, and there were some rough years at the beginning, but now I can’t Imagine anybody having a better marriage than ours. As I think about where we are and what is it that has been a factor in the unity and love that presently exists I can think of at least 47 but I will mention just a couple for now. One biggie is our ability to laugh at the things that we say and do to each other that are not, we’ll let me put it this way, are not very sensitive, instead of getting hurt or mad. Most of the things that couples say and do that create conflict are really funny if you take the time to think and look for the humor. It is amazing the power of a little laugh or giggle to diffuse a hurtful, irritating situation. Then instead of being grumpy and mad you are happy, that is what laughter does, and it often is no more than a choice of how you are going to react. Another major key for us is that we love each other and enjoy one another very much, but we aren’t over board on being dependent on our spouse so that we can’t function without them. Patty has the freedom to go visit family, help my Mom, develope her own ministry without me being upset about her not taking care of all my needs, and I can go to Africa on a mission trip for several weeks, go on a bicycle trip, and go fishing in Alaska without Patty feeling neglected. A third thing is that we understand and meet key needs in each other. One of the major needs of a woman is security, and I work hard at being a man who operates on the basis of commitments made and convictions of what is right and wrong rather than feelings or circumstances. A man’ s greatest need is to be respected, and Patty treats me as a man who is strong, smart, has everything under control, and is the worlds greatest fisherman even if I am not.