Responding to Failure

How we respond to failure is a choice, a very hard one. It is particularly hard when it is not our norm, when it shows up, as failure always does. Interestingly, for some it takes longer than others for it to both show up and be dealt with. My recent reading has...

The Toughest Challenges

The toughest challenges are the ones that you can not control, like the weather. Now that coffee farming in Laos, a business for missions, is part of my reality, I’m faced with this tough truth. I was thinking back to our years in Oregon. It rained all the time....

Future Meaning

We usually want to start the New Year filled with hope. The start of the New Year is one of those times, those moments, that can be pivotal. Pivotal in the sense that we give ourselves the mental and emotional space to reflect, review, and re-position. Now is the time...

Life is but a Thread

I’m in Pakse, Laos. Perhaps you have never heard of it? Perhaps you heard of it recently when a Lao Airline plane crashed into the Mekong River killing a 44 people aboard. There are two flights a day from Vientiane, the Capital, to Pakse. Pakse is the coffee...

What does it take to get our attention?

How much pain do we have to endure before we connect with what is true? I’ve noticed that we humans have a way of ignoring what is true until something happens. Something happens that really gets our attention. As a matter of fact, that attention getting is...