We are on the road again after a delightful two weeks at home getting our yard and garden at a maintenance level before the extreme summer heat sets in. We are enjoying strolling the corridors at the Southern Baptist Convention in Houston, seeing friends and former colleagues without any platform responsibilities. Later in the week we are looking forward to a missionary reunion of those who served in Indonesia at Shocco Springs in Alabama.

Meanwhile, we continue to be blessed with health, a full social calendar and ministry opportunities. It was a privilege to be the commencement speaker at Columbia International University in South Carolina and to be awarded an honorary doctorate degree. I have been on the board of CIU for 12 years and have seen remarkable growth and campus development in an academic environment that emphasizes victorious Christian living and a biblical worldview.

Almost 70% of the 280 graduates are headed for the mission field or church related ministries. I was startled when Donald S. McGavran was awarded a doctors degree; he is the grandson of the noted missiologist by the same name and currently serves in Indonesia! I have assumed responsibility for leading the Zwemer Center for Muslim Studies in the College of Intercultural Studies and will be spending two weeks on campus for our summer institute in July. Bobbye and I are pictured with Dr. Bill Jones, president, on the left and Dr. Jim Lanpher, provost, on the right.

One of our greatest blessings is not speaking and public ministry but mentoring and encouraging a broad cross-section of individuals as featured in our post a few weeks ago. One of those is Maurika Kinsey, a successful engineer with two degrees and a prominent position with a southwide company. Called to the ministry, Maurika has been on church staffs and engaged in church planting while studying at New Orleans Seminary. In May he received his M.Div. degree after nine years of online and extension classes.

Last Sunday it was a privilege to preach at his installation as bi-vocational pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in McComb, MS. His wife, Oona, is a lawyer who works for the state legislature and, along with their three precious children are involved in ministry together with a vision to revive this downtown church in a transition community.

While many would not consider a funeral a blessing, it is an opportunity to celebrate a life well-lived for those advanced in years. And it is a blessing for these occasions to bring together extended family who seldom see each other. Last week we gathered with many of Bobbye’s relatives to attend the funeral of one of her many cousins, Ruth Weeks, in Magnolia, MS. Having experienced the passing of parents, aunts and uncles, it puts mortality in perspective as we see peers of our own generation now passing on to eternal glory.