The Field is the World (Matt. 13:38)

Our church hosted Vacation Bible School the week before last, as I'm sure many of our friends' churches did. Cindy volunteered to head up the "craft time" and, perhaps in the process of her preparation, (including applying iron-on transfers to 100 t-shirts), has developed some back and arm pain. Cindy has a back condition called " Scheuermann's Disease ," so she's very susceptible to back injuries. We ask that you pray God will relieve her pain. Luke enjoyed himself at Vacation Bible School--a little too much! He tripped while running in the gymnasium, and fell, hitting his head above his right eye. The injury required four stitches, which he endured with silent courage. What a brave little man! Emily invites all her neighborhood friends to church. She was a disappointed that her friend Alex couldn't go to VBS with us, but her grandmother allowed her to go with us to last Sunday evening's service. She was pretty excited--it was her first time...

Some of you may be aware of our latest prayer request: Emily's vision. She was diagnosed last month by an optometrist with "Latent Hyperopia," which is, basically farsightedness. The problem is, she has likely had this condition for some time...and during the early years of development, if vision doesn't work too well, the brain tends to shut down input from the bad eye. That's what's happening in Emily's case. The optometrist recommended something called "vision therapy" which is a program of treatment based on, we have discovered in subsequent research, questionable science. This week, we got an appointment with a pediatric ophthalmologist in Orlando who prescribed glasses for her and has informed her that, although she's 20/20 in her right eye, 20/30 in glasses will be the best she can hope for. In his opinion, having just turned 7 last month, she's beyond the point at which patching the good eye and forcing the brain to interpret vis...

Last night, Cindy and I participated in Campus Crusade's first "Virtual Homegroup," a chat based on CCCI President Steve Douglass' small-group study, "Essentials of Spiritual Growth and Multiplication." It was pretty exciting to see how God worked. All the participants were people who had come through our Ministry Response Center, so at one time or another, they had responded to one of our Gospel presentations online. Our study was on assurance of salvation, and we began with the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19, his genuine repentance, Jesus' statement that salvation had come to him...it was great, because we had at least two in the group who didn't feel assured of their salvation before we began...yet, based on an in-depth study of repentance and receiving Jesus identified that they had done that. Based on that, we could share the Bible's assurance of salvation, and it was very freeing to them. Another participant was able to testify of her spirit...

I have to confess, I have been in this camp. A few short months ago, my idea of an appropriate response to this book and movie was, "Hey. It's fiction, OK?" The latest results at our JesusandDaVinci.com prove how wrong I have been in my dismissal. This is a novel which has sold some 50 million copies, more than any work of fiction in history. The movie and the hype surrounding it will keep it in the public's attention span for some time to come. Something that big deserves more attention than that. At the heart of the controversy is something at the very heart of my calling--communicating Christ to the world. As the public's notoriously short attention span is once again captivated by the person of Jesus, we have an opportunity to share the well-documented truth about him and dispel the poorly-researched tangle of conspiracy theory garbage that the book disingenuously promotes. For some, this will finally register the watershed issue of Jesus' uniqueness and ...

Today we joined Faith Baptist Church of Kissimmee . We've been here for some months without declaring a home church, and it's good to be able to finally make a decision. We haven't missed a Sunday--we've just been observing many area churches carefully to find the right one for us. Our extended time of "deputation," or finding ministry partners, has given us a unique perspective. We've met wonderful, committed christians from many different ethnic and social backgrounds, many different walks of life and many different types of churches. We've also seen and heard some striking examples of what to avoid. It all went into a two-page checklist of questions I posed to our new Pastors. Even after promising myself I would have these meetings, they were still difficult, even uncomfortable, at times...I don't want to ever convey the impression that I feel like I have all areas of my life in order, that I have no struggles! But still, I think one of the many...

Last week and this weekend, I spent precious development time trying to rid myself of unwanted software on my coumputer called " Virtumonde ." Believe it or not, I'm pretty new to viruses and that kind of thing, coming from a background of developing on the Macintosh platform and using the Windows platforms to deliver product on. Well, this was a nasty wake up call to what Windows users have to deal with all the time. Virtumonde is called "Adware" and it's something that has sneaked on to your computer either by being installed along with some kind of trial software, or getting past your computer's defenses on the network. Its job is to watch what you do at all times with your computer, then occasionally pop up advertisements. In my case, most of the time, these advertisements were for anti-virus software. But they kept popping up an installation window for the software and beginning the installation even when I clicked, "no" for "do you w...

We've had time to get a good start here in Florida. All the normal things, like getting the cars registered, getting drivers' licenses, finding all the services, (fun things like that), have been done weeks ago. We switched mobile telephone providers, but kept the same numbers. So glad you can do that now. I've been getting settled back into programming after having been away for more than a year. It was a little frightening at first, how rusty I felt--but it's pretty much all come back to me now. I'm working on a big project--the "Who Is He?" mini-cd . It has 39 language versions of a very complete presentation about who Jesus is, what the Bible predicted about Him, detailed material from Josh McDowall's "Tough Questions, Honest Answers," "A Ready Defense," and Bill Bright's "Jesus and the Intellectual." It also has our "Growing In Christ" automated discipleship site locally on the CD-ROM. My job is to inte...

Well, those of you who received our Christmas letter know about our recent home purchase in Florida. Cindy's family in Aiken, SC helped us make the move down on January 12, staying a few days afterwards to help us get settled. We unpacked some things from boxes that had not been opened since our move from Yorba Linda to Diamond Bar in 2001. We bought some furniture, since we gave away a good deal of ours before leaving California. Luke received his very first "big-boy" bed, a twin-over-full bunk. (So we will have lots of room for those who want to visit.) Cindy's mom, Donna, actually stayed three weeks with us, through February 4. Her and I recently returned to Aiken, where I am following up on a few pledges and making appointments with prospective ministry partners. There's not very much left to raise, but there is a little. Just as when I visited California last year, visiting Aiken after being away for a while is almost surreal. It makes me think of all the won...