Pleasant Temperatures and Good Meals

Did something today I haven't done since I don't know when. Drove home from work with the car windows open and the air conditioning off!  Temp was in the 70s; the car thermometer read 69 on the way to work this morning. And they're saying the overnight low will be in the 50s. We'll take it, and we had about a half an inch of rain all total this week.
It would be nice to believe the oppressive days of our summer are over.

Actually I wasn't coming home after work; I was meeting Evelyn for dinner at the Indian restaurant in West Chester. Oooo, it was so good, a favorite place we haven't been to for quite awhile. After that she headed for the grocery store and I went to a meeting at church.
Did some planning and handling of correspondence today. Had a nice touch-base phone call with Paul Williams.
Ate lunch at the Kroger's cafeteria over on Montgomery Road, so good and only $4.99.
Bob Willson wrote to say he and Sue and Anna would be in town tomorrow, and we invited them for dinner. We'll cook some chicken on the grill and enjoy catching up with them.

Cruising, Punctuating, and Thinking about Education

Mentioned our June 2013 cruise in the Christian Standard e-newsletter and on Facebook today, and received 8 requests for a brochure! Very encouraging. I'll do this again in a couple of days--different days of the week on Facebook, and different times of the day. It will be fun to see how much interest we can generate.
By the way, if you missed those invitations, see my earlier post today. You can ask for a brochure via FB, or write me at JuneCruise2013@gmail.com.
I spent most of the day highlighting names in the Directory of the Ministry for a promotional mailing for the new Christian Standard monthly. We'll send samples to maybe 500 church leaders across the country and encourage them to get subscriptions for themselves and their church. We'll see!
Once in awhile this "diary" morphs into something more than that, and so it will be today. I want to share a couple of links.
The first is from a blogger for Harvard Business Review. I encountered an excerpt of his piece on the op-ed page in today's Wall Street Journal:

"Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies . . . takes a mandatory grammar test. . . . Grammar is relevant for all companies. . . . Grammar signifies more than just a person's ability to remember high school English. I've found that people who make fewer mistakes on a grammar test also make fewer mistakes when they are doing something completely unrelated to writing--like stocking shelves or labeling parts."

See the whole post here.

The second appeared at CNN this morning. Evelyn shared the link on her Facebook page this morning, and I shared it later today. Here's a prominent educator setting the record straight about the quality of US education, teaching to the test, the impact of poverty, and the role of parents in their children's education. If you missed this earlier today, you'll want to check it out now.

Find this post here.

A Baby Is about to Be Born!

Well, it feels like we ought to have a party. We're submitting to the printer this afternoon our first monthly issue--all 64 pages of it plus its 4-page cover.
As I said yesterday, I'm pleased with the improved graphics and substantive content in the issue.

• Jay Link explains how we've misused the term "stewardship."
• Alan Ahlgrim recounts the difficult financial problems of Rocky Mountain Christian Church in Niwot, Colorado.
• Jim Bird and Frances Nash talk about the remarkable missions giving in the small churches they serve.
• Barry Cameron narrates his own family's challenging journey out of debt.
• Darrel Rowland and Kent Fillinger profile six churches whose ministry has grown as they've given money to causes outside themselves. 
• Justin Horey chronicles the unprecedented $50 million campus move happening now at Eastside Christian Church in Fullerton, California.
• Eleanor Daniel shares her testimony about how moving made her reconsider her own pattern as a consumer of "stuff."

All that and more relates to our cover theme:  "Show Me the Money!" And then we have a wonderful piece by Ben Cachiaras that I'm guessing will stimulate lots of responses: "Let Me Tell You How You Should Vote," and I wrote "NACC Diary" based on blog posts I had made from the convention plus lots of Tom Patrick's excellent photos. And the monthly columns are good too: Mike Mack, Robert Hull, LeRoy Lawson, Tim Harlow, Jim Estep.

Well, like I said, I'm very pleased with it. 

Now, if we can just attract some new subscribers, we'll really have accomplished something!

One Day in August

 Spent today putting the finishing touches on our first monthly issue, September. Actually, I'm pretty pleased with the way it's turning out. Finished reading the proof, and Jim Nieman made little changes we agreed on together. We met with our art director, Mark Haas, to evaluate every layout, every color, every type choice, and his suggestions for little improvements will really make a big difference. I wrote the "coming next month" copy and a draft for the editorial. I need to finish it first thing in the morning, because we send it to the printer tomorrow!
We do our weekly e-newsletter tomorrow, and I need to clean up my desk, catch up on some correspondence and phone calls, and get out assignments for our December issue.
Spoke with Geoff for awhile tonight; he and Lisa go on a weeklong vacation to Iceland Friday! Jennifer texted her mom and said she'd call tomorrow night.

Took these pictures of huge flower pots outside our 

office building during my 10-minute walk at lunchtime today.

Back to Reality--Almost

After nine working days out of the office, I jumped back in today. The full 68 pages of proof for our first monthly edition, September, was waiting on my desk, and I must say I'm pleased with it. Managing editor Jim Nieman and I tweaked some of the layouts and a little bit of copy; we're meeting with art director Mark Haas tomorrow to get his advice and input. I still need to read proof on 20+ pages, write the editorial, and decide on cover copy. All that will happen tomorrow, and Jim will upload the final issue Wednesday.

Reality was suspended for two hours this evening, though, as we watched last week's and this week's episodes of The Closer. We took Dan and Cindi Cooper to dinner to thank them for cutting the grass while we were out of town, and then we adjourned to their place for our weekly fix.
Boy, these were two dramatic episodes--full of surprises! Next week is the series finale. Will we plan to gather and watch it then? Of course!

My Top Seven Brazil Memories

It wasn't a perfect trip. In fact, much about it was difficult. But here I want to record seven positive parts of our trip to Brazil that I'll always remember.

We ate lunch one day with David Bayless (center),
 his wife, Carolyn, and James Moreland--
all longtime missionaries in Brazil.

1. I've already written, twice, about the very best part: the people. So many of the Brazilians we met were outgoing, friendly, helpful, smiling--especially the Christians who hosted us at the church where the World Convention met. Likewise, the folks in our tour group couldn't have been better--not a whiner or complainer among them. And at the World Convention, we also met friends from the U.S. and around the world in happy times of fellowship reminiscent of those we always enjoy at the NACC.

The worship team encouraged singing at the
evening main sessions.

2. The worship. The services lasted three hours, too long for our taste, and it was sometimes difficult to listen to preaching via translation. But the singing was wonderful, and it was an inspiring experience to hear the hall full of Brazilians lifting their voices in Portugese with worship songs we sang at the same time in English.

3. The food. We didn't eat one bad meal! Occasionally we had some trouble choosing from a menu written exclusively in Portugese, but the food was universally tasty, and the servings were usually huge. Two meals stand out, our visit to the Brazilian steakhouse, Parcao, where uniformed waiters continuously circle the tables with every kind of roasted meat you can imagine: chicken, sausage, lamb, ostrich, ribs, filet mignon, top sirloin, roast beef, and more. The evening before we had eaten at a pizza buffet. The waiters are constantly on the move there, too, offering thin crust pizzas with every combination of toppings you can imagine, including dessert pizzas topped with ice cream and hot fudge sauce.

On the last day of our trip, we ate our farewell lunch at an Ipanema restaurant on the spot where "The Girl from Ipanema" was written. The restaurant displayed a copy of the song on a poster.
4. Brasilia. We saw the corridor where the nation's government is housed: majestic buildings illuminated beautifully, including the national cathedral.

The Brazilian National Cathedral 

5. Beautiful ocean and beaches. The ocean reminded me of the luminous greens and blues I remember from the Caribbean. The sky was beautiful, as was the weather throughout our stay: sunshine and warm, but not hot, afternoons followed by evenings refreshed by cool breezes.

6. The Christ statue. Actually, the train ride up to the statue was as enjoyable as being at the top, at the base of the statue, because when we got there, the statue was enveloped in foggy clouds that obscured our view of the city below. But the whole experience was still one to remember.

Tourists jostled to enter the train cars that would take them
up the mountain to see The Christ statue.

7. Sugarloaf Mountain. We rode two different cable cars to the top of Sugarloaf and enjoyed late afternoon, sunset, and evening all in the space of about 90 minutes. No clouds obscured our views here, and seeing the city below us was wonderful.

The People Are the Best Part, Part 2

I'm writing this as Evelyn and I relax in front of the Olympics, one week and one day into the games. We were in Brazil when the games opened in London last week. We recorded the opening ceremonies. I wonder when we'll have four hours to watch 'em!
We landed at CVG yesterday (Friday) morning about 11:30 on a 90-minute flight from Charlotte. We left there about 10:00 after landing before 7:00 a.m. on a flight that had left Rio after 10:30 Thursday night (9:30 Cincinnati time). We saw some beautiful and interesting sights in Brazil, especially in Rio. More about that in a later post. But I'm thinking this evening about the people who joined us on our tour. Many of them commented about the gracious, compatible, easygoing flexibility of all the folks in our tour group. We took lots of pictures of scenery, but I want to show the people. Even without their pictures, they are what I'll remember most about this trip. But I want to include their pictures here too.

Jan and Carolyn DeWitt posed with our Brazilian tour guide and host, Rafael Soares, and Evelyn in Brasilia. The DeWitts are from Johnson City, Tennessee, where Jan serves as an emergency room physician.

Evelyn posed later in the week with two others from Johnson City: Bob Wetzel (left) and Bruce Shields, both active in ministry and teaching after retiring from their work at Emmanuel Christian Seminary.

Jim and Ivy Price are from Irmo, South Carolina, retirees who have traveled all over the world. I didn't get a picture of them together, I'm sorry to say, but I snapped this picture of Ivy taking a picture.

Rick Reisinger is president of the Disciples of Christ Church Extension Fund. He and his wife, Denise, were welcome additions to our group.

Earl and Gretchen Watson had a challenging time during our tour, because Gretchen slipped and fell Saturday night, damaging her knee so that she couldn't stand. They were great troopers and missed very little of our tour as everyone in the group helped push and lift the various wheelchairs we secured during the week to keep them with us.

Julia Keith serves on the World Convention staff. She and her daughter, Johanna, joined us for the second week of our tour, and we were really glad to have their help lowering the median age of our group members!
Finally, one of my favorite pictures of Evelyn and me. She hates to fly, but I'm sure glad she decided to fly with me on this trip we'll never forget. (That's Sugarloaf Mountain in the background. Evelyn rode the cable cars to the top, too, in spite of how thin those cables look from a distance.)