I have been anticipating and looking forward to the opening of the Interstate 11 section at Boulder City. My drive south is frequent and the new section was claimed to reduce drive time significantly. This past Saturday, as I drove south to Kingman, this new section was open. I passed the usual turn and followed the fresh black-top and the bright striping. The new Interstate bends into the desert and past the Veterans’ Memorial Park as it makes its way toward the O’Callaghan-Tillman Bridge over the Colorado.

When you want to do something new in life, you have to adjust your focus. I really didn’t like what he had to say to me, mostly because it meant I would have to be different. I had a terrific professional coach and we were talking about the reality that in this day and age people were making choices that kept them from growing in faith. Sundays are no longer saved for church.

Two of the mementos that we have from our years in Alaska are reproduction totem poles that are about twenty-seven inches tall. They are the Easter Totem Pole and the Christmas Totem Pole. The original full-size totem poles were carved by a very talented retired United Methodist pastor in the Alaska Conference. I believe that I bought one of the reproduction totem poles, and that the other one was given to us when we moved away from serving in the Alaska Conference. They have a hole on the back of them so that they can hang from a nail. These two totem poles have hung in our houses for a very long time.

The Deaf and Hard of Hearing Ministries Committee of Global Ministries held its annual meeting in Las Vegas on July 25, 2018. The committee represents the varieties of its constituency: persons who are culturally Deaf, hard of hearing persons, late-deafened, Deafblind, and sign language interpreters.

It’s back-to-school time and children and churches are gearing up. Church newsletters I’ve been reading have been advertising backpack drives or blessing of the backpack celebrations. Children and teachers are going back to school and life will soon be moving into a “normal” rhythm. The programming year of our local churches is either beginning this month or preparing to begin early next month. As I look forward to this time,