Random Thoughts

-- A couple days ago I was in my car listening to talk radio and someone mentioned a spreadsheet in a discussion on sports betting. I immediately felt a craving to open up Excel and build a fun spreadsheet using lots of cell formulas. Does that make me a nerd or what?

-- Naomi and I have been going to birthing classes for a few weeks now. Interesting stuff. The most whacked out part of it though: they have a plush baby doll (plastic head, but the rest is squishy), a plush pelvis (for stuffing the plush baby through) and a plush placenta with umbilical cord that velcros to the plush baby's belly (I'm not making this up). All you parents out there are going, "Yeah, so what's the big deal about that?" while the non-parents are probably as astonished and slightly grossed out as I am.

-- We now have a crib living in the corner of my office. A box of diapers is in the closet. The stroller is downstairs next to the dining room table. And the boy himself is doing his best "Alien" impersonation -- it's a little weird to see Naomi's stomach contorting as the boy wiggles around. This is for real.

-- What a great time to be a Boston sports fan. The Red Sox won the World Series in convincing fashion. The Pats are, without a doubt now, the best team in the NFL (with a decent chance to be the first undefeated team since the '72 Dolphins). And the Celtics have the big three and have opened the season with a flourish. I'm enjoying it while it lasts (which could be for a while).

-- Tomorrow I'm headed up to Louisville, KY for the Global Missions Health Conference (GMHC), which is easily my most frustrating regular stop on the conference circuit. It's frustrating because we could be doing so much in combining medical missions with church planting, but we just haven't had the leadership and initiative to do much with it. So I'll meet a number of well-qualified people tomorrow and Friday, but probably won't have the capacity to place them on the field with us. It's just too labor-intensive and I don't have enough time to devote to it. I wish we had a well-placed, full-time person who could concentrate on mobilizing medical-oriented church planters from the U.S. for PIONEERS teams around the world. On the plus side though, I get to spend quality time with Rod Froseth, who at Urbana was sporting the best mullet I've seen since about 1989. I don't know if I like him because of his modern mullet masterpiece or in spite of it.

-- Serious question to chew on: How many excellent missionaries never make it to the field because they are excellent evangelists/leaders/administrators/entrepreneurs, but horrible fund-raisers? How many good people are we losing because we require all our field people to be good at whatever they're going to do on the field AND good at raising funds? I shudder when I think about it.

-- It's really hard to type when your cat is lying across your forearms ... and licking one of them. How much is she going to freak out when we bring home baby?

Off to bed with me now...