WAYNE, MICHIGAN

When I was 8 years old I was playing with matches (I got more spankings for that than anything else) and accidently set the back of this building on fire.

I'm glad they were able to put it out before it did much damage.

You can guess I got a "warm reception" when my parents found out.

ISRAEL, THE GARDEN TOMB

Jean at the Garden Tomb. It's empty!

THERE'S THAT ACCORDION

Dave, Jean, Davy, and Danny ministering in the Philippines.

THE FRED OHLERKING FAMILY

My intended audience for this photo is the Ohlerking family present and future. I don't want it to get lost in a box somewhere again.

Left to right: Fred, Leona, Darwin, Don, David, Damon

ETHIOPIA, FOOD FOR REFUGEES

One of the fleet of trucks we used to carry food to the starving Ethiopians.

Later we learned that government troops were coming in behind us and taking the food away to feed the army.

Worse, they were separating Christian familes and and hauling them to the south psrt of the country to become slaves for the Jesus-haters there.

I had felt like we were doing a good thing by feeding thousands of hungry people at a time. Then I discovered that we were being used to set a trap for them.

At that time the famine and war in Mozambique and the refugee camps in Zimbabwe were largely being ignored by the media so we shifted our emphasis to southern Africa.

When you must choose who you can keep alive, you are also chosing who you will let die.

Not an easy decision.

ZAIRE (D.R. CONGO) ETUI JUNGLE

We had taken video of this pygmy chief and played it back for him to see in the camera view finder.

Moments later he became very agitated. He thought we had captured his soul in that little box. His warriors gathered around with their tiny bows and poison arrows.

I had picked up some little bars of perfumed soap at the Nairobi, Kenya hotel a few nights before. I offered them to him as a peace gift.

He debated a bit and then took them and the crowd left.

Phew!

Later I mused about this chief "selling his soul" for some pretty smelling soap. Pretty cheap.

Both a sermon and a personal reminder about selling our souls.

ZIMBABWE, CHAMBUTA REFUGEE SCHOOL

Happy day!

Close to 500 students celebrate getting their own notebook and pencil.

One child wrote us a thank you letter. "Thank you for the paper and pencil. There are 50 in my class and they had only one pencil for the whole class. Some of us never got to use it. Now we each have our own."