American Missionary Fellowship

This past Sunday I spoke at Bayside Woodland Church near Sacramento, California. It’s about eight hours’ drive from our home, and RobAnne and I decided to drive together. We were going to meet the music pastor of the church, who’s a good friend, and we wanted to take him and his wife out to dinner. That meant that RobAnne and I spent sixteen hours in the car together.

Do you know what happened? When all was said and done – and it was a long, fatiguing drive – conversation took place. Conversation takes work, time, and effort to put away the distractions. When you’re in a car for sixteen hours with your wife, there aren’t many other distractions.

It’s Memorial Day weekend, and the Indianapolis 500 is taking place in Indianapolis, as it does every Memorial Day weekend. There are some things in every person’s history, in his past, that bring back great memories, and the Indianapolis 500 is one of those for me.

Remember the story in the Old Testament when the Children of Israel were crossing the Jordan, and God instructed the people to build a pile of rocks? When their children asked them what those rocks were for, they would be able to tell them the great miracles that God did – how God led them and took care of them and directed them and promised them. The rocks symbolized that God is faithful.

Every year there is a competition at Westmont College, where my daughter goes to school and where RobAnne and I went. The competition involves eight-minute musical skits put on by each dorm. The skits are judged, and the winner is given bragging rights for the year. It takes place at the Santa Barbara Bowl, which holds a couple thousand people, and it’s full – full of people enjoying college students being college students, having good clean, fun.

RobAnne is my wife.  We’ve been married for thirty-five years. There’s a lot I know about RobAnne. When you live with someone for that long, you know her inside and out. You know when she’s happy and sad; you know when she’s fulfilled. Well, in less than a week, our national staff meeting takes place, and I have seen RobAnne working in her passion.