IICS, the organization Big D and I work for ( www.iics.com) has its annual conference every July. It’s a time of great fellowship, amazing speakers and it’s a time when IICS profs come home from the field and share their stories—stories of how God has moved on the lives of their students, colleagues and neighbors. I love this time of year, although it can be pretty hectic. We also do the orientation for all new IICS professors who are heading out to teach at overseas universities this fall. In fact, Big D and I move to the hotel today ’cause the orientation starts first thing tomorrow (Sunday) morning! We have 17 orientees this year. Pretty exciting. We thank God for each and every one of them and their obedience to follow God into the distant classroom.

Hey! If you live in the Kansas City area, you should try to attend this conference. We call it the IICS Vision Conference and it starts July 16 (Thursday) and runs through July 18 (Saturday). We have some fantastic speakers this year: Elaine Storkey, who is my all-time favorite. She’s British you know, and quite smart, but so very down-to-earth. I just love her. And we have Walt Kaiser for all the brainiacs and Dean Trulear for those concerned with social justice. Wow. It’s gonna be a great conference. AND, yes folks there’s more…IICS has a big banquet on Friday night (July 17) that anyone can come to. The banquet is the highlight of the year for us. God is moving around the world doing great and mighty things and the reason we don’t hear much about it is because we live in America. (Sorry, but it’s true). Lots of incredible testimonies are shared at the dinner. It’s always a faith-builder for me. Call the office if you’re interested: 913.962.4422. Tell Lisa you want to sign up for either the conference or the dinner or BOTH. Fun times.

So, I probably won’t be able to post anything this next week. Hope folks will take time to look at some of the earlier posts like “The War Less Travelled.” Hello people! No one ever reads that one. It’s in three parts. Or, how about “Dandelions are Weeds?” (The title of my next book, “The Adventures of a Dandelion Gatherer”). Hardly anyone read that one either and it’s one of my favorites. OR, “You Can’t Judge a Priest by His Cover.” Leave me a message and let me know what you think. Have a great week. And, oh yeah…Peace.