Widows and orphans were very vulnerable in Biblical times. Unless their extended family was particularly gracious and caring, the loss of a nuclear family’s male breadwinner could leave his wife and his children with no way to pay for their day-to-day living expenses, housing and food. In order to make sure they would not be […]
It’s playoff time! And the Dodgers are in it! Growing up less than fifteen miles from New York City, I was very aware of Major League baseball, particularly the Yankees. The Dodgers and the Giants were also in NY then, and all three teams’ home games were televised. For the most part, I watched Yankee […]
I have several old books in my office that I’ve never looked at closely. Someone (Orlan Paulson, Clinton Goodwin?) thought I might like them, and I just stuck them on my shelf. Every once in a while, I’ll take one down and say, “I wonder what this is?” That’s how I discovered an old volume […]
Today I spent an hour and a half in a dentist’s chair. He kept saying “Sorry,” but I didn’t believe it. He didn’t appear to be suffering. During the final stages of my treatment, a somewhat comforting thought came to me: “Well, this is probably the last time I’ll have to go through a heavy-duty […]
I was only half-listening to a TV commercial the other day when I recognized the background music as the familiar Spice Girls song from 1996, which begins: Yo, I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want; So tell me what you want, what you really really want… I wanna, wanna, wanna, wanna […]
Maybe you just heard about this movie when you watched the 2014 Oscar Awards presentations on TV. It’s a very insightful look at the life of Dr. Stephen Hawking, who has probably the greatest scientific mind of our time, limited within a body that has been ravaged by the disease ALS. More specifically, it’s about […]
As I wrote last week, the Apostle Paul spent two years in a prison in Caesarea, on the Mediterranean coast of Palestine, before being transferred to another two years of house arrest in Rome. It was while sailing from Caesarea to Rome that Paul experienced one of the most dangerous adventures of his life. In […]
Last Sunday, Pastor Connie began a preaching series in which we will study the Apostle Paul’s wonderful Letter to the Philippians, which is part of the New Testament in our Bible. There are so many encouraging gems in this short message sent by Paul to the believers who were part of that church that it’s […]
Sister Suzanne from Lebanon is spending more than six weeks with the ABC family to improve her conversational English. Various people have hosted her and helped her experience LA by taking her to a Dodgers game, Disneyland, Olvera Street, Huntington Gardens, etc. In the process, we have all been blessed by her warm personality, her […]
“I’m not an early bird or a night owl. I’m some form of permanently exhausted pigeon.” Most of our lives are not very dramatic. There may be high points we look forward to, and they tend to fly by pretty quickly. And there are sure to be some low periods, which are very hard to […]