Cancer Relay for Life

Peggy and I walked the Cancer Relay for Life at Hillcrest High in Springfield on Friday night. Peggy has not been doing too well since this last round of chemo but the Lord helped her to be a part of this event. Both of us got to walk the Survivors lap. Lots of people ... and some rain. Peggy did great. Had a terrific team from Convoy of Hope headed by Judi Murphy, who did a lot of work to make this happen. Thanks Judi.

Here are a few photos from my set on Flickr. Here is the slideshow.


Survivors on our team (right to left): Leanne Bachman, Doug Corbett, Peggy & me.


Luminaries were lit after dark.


The team.

"Relay For Life® is the American Cancer Society's signature event that brings more than 3.5 million people from 4,900 communities across the country together each year to celebrate the lives of those who have battled cancer, remember loved ones lost, and fight back against a disease that takes too much."

More From Oregon

Steelheaders weren't having any luck in steady drizzle.


One of Oregon's many covered bridges.


With second parents Mel and Dorothy Zecher in Florence.

Les Connell & Gideons in Nigeria

My friend Les Connell from Oregon is a very active Gideon, a ministry that distributes Bibles. Last November Les was in Nigeria for 2 weeks.



Les says: "The first photo here is of a Nigerian student who after I addressed an assembly of 1800, came to me and asked how she could find Jesus. I had the honor of leading her to Him. She leaned her little head on my chest as another Gideon snapped this photo."

Restoring Vintage Photos

One of my current projects is scanning Peggy's Mom and Dad's old photos and restoring some that have lost their color. This is a great old photo of our niece Heidi, family friend Louise Moore (now deceased), and Peggy's mom in an airport. The first shot is what the actual photo looks like now. The second shot is after basic color restoration and cropping. The third one has some additional colorizing.

Morocco Street Market

A short but illustrative clip of a stroll through a Morocco street market. From our cruise last year. Look for glimpses of Peggy and our good friend, Sherryl Ford.

Earl & Janet Creps Move to Berkeley

Our good friends Earl and Janet Creps are finally on their way to Berkeley, CA, to plant a church there. We visited in our home the night before they departed. Here is a gripping interview recorded during that visit.

Michael H. Shows Us How to Relax

Here is Mike H. in California the last time we were there. We just had to make the sad decision to not go to Italy this year, but we will be with Mike and Sheri at the beginning of our Sept. California trip.

A look back at ...

Sheri Hillenga at the American River at Sutter's Mill




Michael Gives Peggy a Haircut

Jim and Sherryl Ford

Our friends Jim and Sherryl Ford, with Peggy, at the beginning of our trip in Barcelona. Shown in the restaurant of our first hotel, the Prestige Congress, an unusual, minimalist/modernist deco hotel.

Pix and info of our trip have not been forthcoming due to our persistent illnesses from the trip. I have not yet been back to work ... and I'm worrying about just what's going on there in all this time without me. Peg and I are both showing good progress today, however far from well. But we are not coughing every 3.8 seconds as yesterday. Wondering how Jim and Sherryl are. Sherryl was still fighting the illness when we separated in Spain. Jim's had apparently run its course.

Trip Part 2

Sat. 10-27-07 (past midnight starting the day)

Our Amsterdam-Barcelona flight was even worse. A large group of drunken Spaniards made the 2-hour flight very distasteful for all the other passengers. They were loud and raucous and we couldn’t hear anything. One woman’s high, loud piercing laugh just reverberated through the plane. They didn’t get caught passing their whiskey bottle around till near the end of the flight. But they were even more sauced then and wouldn’t do anything the flight attendants told them to.

This was probably my worse alcohol-affected flight since my flight to Uzbekistan when a rather large drunken Russian stole my missionary buddy Mark Hausfeld’s seat next to me, proceeded to imbibe every bottle of vodka on the plane, and fell asleep on my shoulder. I can still see Mark laughing as he looked back at my predicament. (By this time the Russian was snoring in my ear.)

Getting our luggage in Barcelona and getting to the hotel (Prestige Congress) were further harrowing experiences that left all my patience drained.

It was good to sit down with our friends who we’ll be with, Jim and Sherryl Ford, in the restaurant.

Peg’s already asleep and soon I will be, too.

She’s online, I’m not for some reason. Will post when can but probably not on ship. I’m downloading photos but will wait to add them.

Mark Thallander, Peggy's Amazing Friend

Peggy, her mom and I went to King's Way United Methodist Church today for a concert by Peggy's childhood friend, Mark Thallander. Mark is a world-class organist who lost his left arm in a car accident. He taught himself to play with one hand and two feet. His life and his music are inspiring. It was great to get to visit with him briefly. The sanctuary was full and he was inundated by people after the program. His CD table was extremely busy.

Mark, it is a blessing to know you. May God continue to give you strength and use you to touch many lives.

Welcome, friends

This blog is a place where I share mostly the "off-duty" portions of my life, which are not enough. I have been blogging under a pseudonym for a while (to learn the ropes), and, of course, I have a ton of ministry material on the 'Net. But here I will blog as my off-duty self. I know, it's hard to believe that a writer would choose to do more writing in his off-duty time, but there are just lots of things that interest me. I have privately journaled, but not kept it up, so this will cause me to do so, with regard to some of the more mundane, though I hope interesting, portions of my life.

This is primarily for friends and relatives and I will only be sharing its existence privately, to a few at a time. But if, after this has been up for a while, you like what you see, feel free to tell any of your friends about it.

This Saturday is not really an off-duty day. It is being spent as many such days are, working on an outside book project. I have completed my edit at this stage and Peggy is doing hers. We have worked together on a number of books. This one is about India, a country I will visit on assignment in a couple of months.

Please post a response or email me. I am hoping this will be a way to keep better touch with important people in our lives ... and also a way to make new friends.

Blessings!