Another Small Adventure

     We just returned from Cedar Point, the largest amusement park in the world.  Sixteen roller coasters.  It’s one of our most favorite places. 

     I just finished my spring speaking schedule and we have four weeks off before starting our eight camp summer tour.  So, we decided to spin, loop, twist and ride the rides.  Our beautiful 5 year old, Mareah, is now an incredible 48 inches tall, which allows her to ride 12 of the 16 coasters at Cedar Point and she gleefully rode them all.  I’m a little deaf in my right ear at the moment from all the screaming.  My other 2 gorgeous girls, my wife Carol and Kelly our 8 year old, were just as excited because they got to ride, for the first time, the world’s tallest, fastest coaster, the Top Thrill Dragster.  420 feet high, 120 miles per hour in four seconds.  Crazy?  A little.  Unforgettable?  Absolutely.  Stephen and Andrew favor the Raptor, which goes upside down 6 times.   Josh, our 12 year old, loves Millennium Force, which has 6,595 feet of track (which is well over a mile).  Me?  I’m still stuck on the Gemini, which was the world’s fastest coaster at 60 miles per hour when I rode it for the first time in 1978.  Now it looks like the baby coaster in the park.

   We were all dressed in blue so we’d be easy to spot.  We had the time of our lives.  Another small adventure.

In four weeks I get to do one of my other favorite things in life, speak to teenagers on our summer tour.   Every year our family agrees it’s some of our favorite memories.  The kids love it because every camp has some new thrill to experience.  Carol loves it because it’s a time for her to relax and read and you already know why I love it.  I get to look into the eyes of students who, for many of them, get to encounter a loving God for the first time in their lives.  This has been the best year of ministry I have ever experienced since doing this for the last 18 years.  It’s all centered around the heart that God has given me for these kids and that look in their eyes when they discover that Jesus Christ is the One they’ve been searching for in their cracked and torn up lives.  Hope for the broken hearted.  Faith for the blind.  Love for the lost children who are finding their way home.  What an amazing thing, God’s grace.

Thank you for going with us the way you do and allowing us to be a part of this amazing ministry of God’s.  Your support keeps us going.  You mean so much to me.

     Say a few prayers for us as we set out on this summer’s journey.  This wonderful escapade. 

Another small adventure.