Glen Davis

After I posted last night’s entry I was filled with even more memories of the holidays.

• Home cooking. Home Cajun cooking.
• Eating at the Steamboat for our anniversary. Tasty beyond belief.
• Teaching my nephew Rick why you should never lose at Tic-Tac-Toe. Also, reducing niece Rebecca to whining because I wouldn’t “go easy on her” while demonstrating my mad Tic-Tac-Toe skillz to a suitably impressed Rick.
• Reading Soldier, Ask Not as an adult and realizing the hero is someone other than I thought it was when I first read it as a kid.
• Being a missionary table host for the students from FSU Chi Alpha when the assigned discussion topic was sexual purity. There was so much boisterous laughter at our table that we got a dirty look from one table and a snide comment from another, “Do you see how that table is laughing over there? They don’t take sex seriously.” To which my reply was, “I find humor in everything I value greatly–laughter is one way of delighting in something precious. Besides, if you can’t laugh at something as ridiculous as sex you are seriously humor-challenged.” In the other table’s defense, however, we were having a disruptively good time.
• Finding out that many of my former RUi students really enjoyed my sessions and remembered them in surprising detail.
• Seeing how many Chi Alphas are spreading into the elite schools. One couple I helped disciple is heading to establish a ministry at Cornell and I met another chap heading to Brown (his brilliant support-raising motto: “What can you do for Brown?”). Of America’s extremely prestigious schools, that makes staff-supported chapters at Stanford, Georgetown, MIT, Brown, Yale and Cornell. We’re making major progress on that front.
• Chatting with Gene Breitenbach about the recent intelligent design court case (he’s a huge fan of the way the case was decided).
• Realizing how stark the imbalance is between Chi Alpha Xanga users and the more enlightened Chi Alpha WordPress crowd. I may have to post an article on that someday (but only if I want to endure a good-natured web fight, especially since my wife is a Xangan).
• Dana screaming “Home!” with delight when we stepped back through the door of our apartment.

As always, we spent Christmas in Lousiana. In addition, I got to spend around 14 hours in a car driving from Lafayette, LA to Louisville, KY for The World Missions Summit. Nearly 4,000 college students from Chi Alpha groups across America gathered to consider their role in God’s global plan. And then I got to spend 14 hours driving back again.
Some highlights from the trip:

• Getting loot for Christmas, including Munchkin.
• Having Dana decide that daddy was her favorite for a little while.
• Watching my parents finally get broadband internet service. Also, fixing computers for both my parents and my in-laws.
• Discovering that Steve Barke has a snore that would cause a dead person to search for ear plugs. Also, purchasing ear plugs.
• Listening to J. Rufus Fears talk about Winston Churchill for 12 hours. I’ve long admired Churchill based on what little I knew about him–now that I know more I’m astounded. He was among the greatest of all time.
• Hanging out with Greg for 14 hours in a car.
• Discovering that there are whole stretches of road in the South which only receive country and/or rap stations.
• Chatting with Lindsey and Nicholette about their upcoming moves to join us. They’re both such great people–Paula and I can’t wait for them to be here!
• Meeting Will Phillips. He was every bit as entertaining in person as I had hoped he would be. For some reason he thinks he out-geeks me. Someday I may have to disabuse him of that notion (I contribute to Wikipedia, for crying out loud).
• Seeing my old bud Randy Jumper again. We were classmates at AGTS and have kept in touch digitally since. Nice to have a face-to-face again.
• Discovering that Stanford frosh John Sillcox can focus out of each eye separately. Freaky.
• Way cool worship in the morning. In an odd turn of events, the morning services were consistently 5 to 7 times better than the evening services.
• Seeing over 650 students make a one-year committment to missions with the option for a lifetime extension. Woohoo! And they weren’t just signing up for the easy places, either. A lot of closed countries are in for a big surprise.
• Watching the amazing level of panache with which the Ascent (a Chi Alpha staff event) was pulled off. Knowing that Belkas Lehmann and I had planned the whole thing made it extra-special.
• Getting a free copy of Full Gospel, Fractured Minds. I’m enjoying it so far, and I’ll post a review when I’m done. Big thanks to Jerry Gibson for hooking me up.
• Randomly walking around Louisville at dark looking for food (which I finally discovered at a gas station).
• Finally watching The Magnificent Seven.
• Watching The Fantastic Four and finally realizing that they’re the four elements.
• Having Dana behave on both flights.