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Linda and I celebrated our 30th anniversary last Monday. We enjoy each other more today than even during our dating years. But our's would not make a good chick flick. We don't have a storybook romance. But I think our marriage can serve as an example for any couple. We aren't still married after 30 years because we picked the right person. Neither one of us really knew who or what we were getting. And while e-harmony will tell you that you are better off finding someone with

Erica and I went to a very good church last Sunday. It was a vibrant campus in Antigua of a large and growing evangelical church in Guatemala City. We enjoyed the service. It was alive and reaching a lot of people. It reminded me of The Bridge in so many ways, except I couldn’t understand most of what was being said. :-) The church held its services in a hotel that had been a Catholic Church complex in the 16th century. The ruins were turned into a museum for the general publ

It's our second week in Guatemala and I just had my seventh Spanish class. The classes are intense one-on-one tutoring and if I don’t learn vocabulary and word endings between classes, I’ll get little out of them. So Erica and I both spend an additional four to six hours studying in the afternoons and evenings. It’s quite a challenge.As we were walking and reviewing yesterday, we were practicing putting sentences together and responding. Erica is way better than me, but I try

I’ve been thinking about water lately. Partly because it’s been raining every day here in Guatemala (we had no idea it was monsoon season before we left). But also for another big reason. In Cook county, we have the best water in the world. We really do. Even when we lived in Wisconsin we had to have a water softener to keep our pipes and appliances working properly. But you really don’t need one in Chicago (apologies to softener vendors). Some of you are into bottled water b

I was sitting in my room at around 6:30 this morning reviewing Spanish vocabulary when everything started to shake. The windows rattled, a picture toppled, and I heard a few shrieks outside above the low rumbling sound of the earth shifting. I had never experienced an earthquake before so I was startled. For Guatemala, it was a mild quake (registered 5.0) and not a big deal. It’s an almost weekly occurrence here. But for me, it made me feel insecure. Guatemala is one of the m

So the sabbatical has begun. I’ve started the summer off with a language immersion in Antigua, Guatemala. My daughter Erica is with me.Erica took Spanish in high school and though she has not used it since, an immersion like this brings it back. She’s doing remarkably well, conversing with our host family (they don’t speak English) and people all around town. I stand there and smile, occasionally nodding my head when she does so it's not obvious that I don’t have a clue. I do

The turmoil over Bowe Bergdahl and all that it entails has captured the news in recent days. At first, most of us were happy to hear of his apparent release. Then there came controversy about the negotiations and release of high level Taliban leaders in exchange. But the whole ordeal has exploded since other questions of Bowe’s apparent desertion and even the possibility that he deserted his company in order to aid their enemy.A lot of uncertainty remains regarding the circum

Maybe you are like me and you’d rather avoid conflict. I think that most of us hate it. Those of you who enjoy conflict––the rest of us try to avoid you. :-) And yet, dealing with conflict is necessary. Sometimes, avoiding it only sends problems underground to surface later with far more damage than if we would have dealt with the issue when it first surfaced. But is it always necessary to have those tough conversations when we disagree, are annoyed or offended, or see a prob

In my last post, I gave some reasons why it was important for our middle school and high school kids to be involved in church youth group and I promised some help with that in this post. So here goes. First, we have to remember that there are no guarantees when it comes to parenting. We will be responsible for the kind of parents we are, but our kids are responsible for their own choices and the adults they become. You can do everything right as a parent and your child still

Yup. I was that parent. My kids had to go to church. They also had to go to youth group.It had nothing to do with me being a pastor. It had everything to do with me being a Christian father wanting to pass on my values to my children, and having the humility to know I needed help with that.I suppose if I were a legalist, mean-spirited, or authoritarian, and didn’t have a close relationship with them, it might have backfired. But I’ve never understood why parents who would not

I know, we’ve barely had spring and now I’m talking about summer. But it’s coming and school will be out before you know it. To make the most of the warmer weather and the longer days, decide now how you are going to spend the summer and plan it. Here are a couple of suggestions. If you are going to vacation, schedule it now. Not just the dates, but what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? Have a family meeting to talk about it and that way you get to also enjoy t

Linda and I gave our kids a lot of leeway to make their own decisions. But there were some things, depending on their age, that we just told them they had to do. Other things they could ask our advice about, but we’d let them decide. But when it came to obedience, there was no need for advice. They just needed to do as we said. When they were little, bedtime was 8:30. Our kids never came to us at 8:30 and asked, “What do you think, Dad? Think I should go to bed or should I st