A mostly uneventful day of travel, with Deb and I dropping Kyle off for his week with our beloved brothers and sisters at the Bronx Household of Faith. I envy him a little, but I find myself very thankful that God has me exactly where He has me today. It was good to be lifted above all the many details and see things from a different perspective. See the many yachts in the waters after we took off? (you may need to double-click on the picture to see it large enough--it was spectacular).

The pilot told us a bit later that "Now you can tell the folks back home that you went over Niagara Falls," But I was on the wrong side of the plane.

The terrain began to change, but the cloud structures were dazzling. Down

below began to look more and more like the Lancaster County (PA!) of my youth.

The corn was as high as an elep . . .

well, it really was, and lots of it. The airport at Cedar Rapids was pretty small with few being picked up.

Here is the banner the greeted me in the main hall where we have all our meetings. The hotel and convention center are in downtown Waterloo. I heard someone say, "I've never seen such wide streets with so few cars." The theme this year is close to the theme of the year I wrote, "A Love that Grows . . . " as the theme song for the conference held at Gordon College.

The opening message (about an hour and some) was by our conference minister, Steve Gammon. To my mind, this was one of the best I've heard him give, stirring. His principle points were:

Whenever God calls us---WE ANSWER & LISTEN.

When God commands us---WE GO & DO & SAY.

Whoever God calls us with---WE LOVE & JOIN.

He closed by reminding us of the morning the church he was pastoring sent him off to serve as a chaplain in the Navy. He resolved to respond to the call of the Navy and prepared for one of his elders to preach that morning, Steve himself wearing his uniform. The elder said, "We are a team." (The elder was, of course, thinking of the Red Sox.) Every team has it's star players, and Steve has been one of those. But he's not the team. We're all the team. I want to tell you today that I'm ready to get off the bench and take my bat and my glove to do my part. This is no time to be a spectator."