Our return to places of ministry in East Java with our daughter, Lori, and her family concluded with a few days of vacation on Bali, a popular tourist attraction and exotic island to the east. With Jember, our place of assignment, only two hours from the eastern tip of Java, our children remember two or […]

Our daughter reminded us that one our outings when we lived in East Java was accompanying visitors to a scenic volcano lake on nearby Mount Idjen. At the time she was too small to make the strenuous trek up the mountainside and would be left with helpers at a guesthouse on the coffee plantation on […]

(Although we are back home in Mississippi, reports and photos from our family trip to Indonesia will continue for a few more posts.) Lori could not wait to hit the streets once we arrived in Jember, East Java. Although modern shopping malls now dot the town, our hotel was just a block from the unchanged […]

Our service in Indonesia years ago ended with a two-year assignment in Surabaya before we left for a regional leadership role and served out our overseas tenure in Bangkok and Singapore. But our reminiscing with Lori and her family began as they arrived here from Central Asia. After negotiating a perplexing array of new thoroughfares […]

Knowing we were returning for a visit to Indonesia, friends still serving here persuaded me to agree to leading a 4-day seminar for students at the Baptist seminary in Semarang on spiritual warfare. After having study guides and a power point presentation translated into Indonesian, I was able to study and review the presentation but […]

Okay, so our roots are firmly embedded back home in Mississippi, but the roots of our missionary life will always be in Indonesia where we spent the first 14 years of fulfilling a calling that continues after more than 40 years. Flying in for a three-week visit back to places of ministry and connecting with […]

We shared in our last post of how we were surviving the cold days of winter and actually enjoying the leisure of getting things done in doors. However, with the recent snowfall (pictured in our backyard) it is time to head for the tropics. The snow was beautiful, and lasted only a few hours, but […]

I have always equivocated on what is my favorite season of the year. It’s usually a toss-up between spring and autumn depending on which season I’m in. The budding trees and flowering shrubs responding to warming temperatures after a gray, dismal winter stimulates a renewal of life. But the colorful leaves of fall and nippy […]

Colorful decorations and the music of the season fill the days with a joyful spirit; Christmas pageants and special programs remind us that we celebrate God becoming man to redeem us from sin and give us an eternal hope–don’t miss the current “Rankin Connecting” on “Emmanuel: God with Us!” But one of our greatest blessings […]

My Mississippi buddies raise their eyebrows when I mention that my hobby is yard work. They are incredulous when I explain that I don’t fish, hunt or play golf; my recreation and enjoyment comes from spending time in the yard and seeing the vision of landscaping materialize. I am finding at my age I dare […]