Band of Cobelligerents: Denny, Mark (SBC), George, and Mike (Salvation Army). These are the four who manned our Canteen truck. Denny and Mark are from Dallas, TX; George and Mike are from Ohio. It was a real pleasure working with these guys. The filth and stench outside the Convention Center was unbelievable. Terrence and his family came through the line at our Canteen truck. Terrence was able to hold on to his job after losing his home and all his belongings in the hurricane. Now he, his wife Raquel, and his three children (Caitlyn, 11yrs; Corey, 11yrs; and Cayla, 7yrs.) have made Terrence’s bus their new home. USS Harry Truman…
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Scenes from New Orleans
These are two signs I found on a building on St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans. The sign on the left is the initial warning to looters that the owner left. The sign on the right is the update on his status as of September 4. Evacuees being unloaded from a military personell truck near our Mobile Canteen unit.
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Going to New Orleans
Dear Readers, I won’t be blogging for the next few days because I’m going to New Orleans. I’m leading a group of students from the Criswell College to a staging area in Baton Rouge where we will link up with Southern Baptist Convention Disaster Relief. We will man a Salvation Army Mobile Canteen and will be responsible for distributing 300,000 meals per day in New Orleans. The last several days, I’ve been blogging a lot about the political side of the Hurrican Katrina tragedy because I think the news coverage has been reflexively condemning of federal authorities. I am happy to say that I think that that tide is turning.…
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Watching and Waiting With Apprehension and Prayers
My wife and I are watching the impending disaster as it creeps ever closer to the shores of our home state. We are apprehensive about our family and friends who live in and around the New Orleans area and who are preparing for the worst. One of my friends from high school just evacuated his family at 4pm this afternoon. They left Covington, LA to head back toward our hometown DeRidder, LA (which is in the southwest part of the state and out of the way of the storm). The westbound traffic on I-10 between New Orleans and DeRidder is crawling along very slowly. In some spots it is taking…
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What do college students do when they aren’t studying?
My Greek teacher Rev. James Lipscomb and I during one of our tutoring sessions at his home in Ruston, LA (circa 1994). “What do college students do when they aren’t studying?†According to the Wall Street Journal’s Naomi Riley’s review of two books about college life, college students are primarily engaged in idleness. No, they are not studying and going to class forty hours a week. They certainly are not becoming avid readers. Rather, they are in pursuit of the ideal represented in their ubiquitous watchword: “fun.†“Fun†includes among other things a great deal of binge drinking (often beginning on Thursday night and going through the weekend) and frequent…
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Understanding the Blogs
In his daily blog on OpinionJournal.com, James Taranto brings our attention to a useful little essay by Steven Den Beste. In the essay, Den Beste says that all blogs fall into one of two basic categories. He writes: “Blogs are as different as the people who write them, but you’ll find two fundamental themes, with each blog being somewhere on the axis of how much of each appears. For lack of better terms, I suppose you could refer to them as ‘editors’ and ‘writers’. “One form of blog is the ‘informal portal’. The general idea is to find cool stuff, link to it, and perhaps add a few words describing…
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Eulogy for My Uncle: Hoy Dickerson
My Uncle Hoy went home to be with the Lord last Thursday, April 7, 2005 (click here to read his obituary in the Dallas Morning News). It was very difficult for our family to say goodbye to him now, as we will greatly miss him. The following is the eulogy that I gave at his funeral service last Sunday. My prayer is that the hope of the resurrection will sustain all of us and help us to face life and death with courage. ___________________________EULOGY FOR HOY DICKERSON April 10, 2005 INTRODCTION What do you say on an occasion like this? It’s always best at a time like this to do…
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To My Students: A Word of Exhortation
My writing today is dedicated especially to my students at the Criswell College. I am happy to hear that so many have been stopping by to read what I have posted, so I have all of you in mind as I write today. There is a short essay by B. B. Warfield that I read when I first began my trek in theological education many years ago. What Warfield wrote in this essay radically changed the way that I had been thinking about the task that I had before me. He argues with passion and vigor that there should be no bifurcation between the “head†and the “heart†when one…
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My Mentor John Piper and Romans 12:1-2
John Piper discipled me in my car when I attended Dallas Theological Seminary. I used to listen to his sermons as I would commute to and from work and school. Throughout my career in seminary, the Lord used John Piper to shape my thinking about God and the scriptures more than any single teacher that I ever had. I know of no preacher who combines exegetical, theological, and devotional depth like Dr. Piper. His ministry, which is called “Desiring God,†makes all of his sermons (manuscripts and audio) available for free at http://www.desiringgod.org/. I am teaching on Romans 12:1-2 in a Sunday morning bible study at my church. As is…