Skeleton Finals

Tonight I had the privilege of watching the second day of the skeleton races (the Finals) with my friend Matthew, a Christian chaplain from Australia, and Lindsay, one of the coordinators in our Multi-Faith Centre. We watched the women's and men's races with Adam Pengilly's fiancee, Ruth; her mum, Pat; and Chris, the man who will be the best man at their wedding this summer. We also saw Adam's parents and their friends. And, I bumped into a lot more Lake Placid friends. It was great.

The races were exciting. The crowd was huge. The cowbells were clanging. The air was crisp and clear. Congratulations to Amy Williams from Great Britain and Jon Montgomery from Canada for winning gold in skeleton! As you might imagine, it was pretty loud being in Canada with a Canadian-filled crowd when a Canadian man won the gold medal.

While we were walking and talking, Chris shared with me that he was born again in Washington, DC. It's always great to hear someone's story of how they came to faith in Christ.

Earlier in the day, Matthew and I had a great conversation in our Multi-Faith Centre with the imam who had come in for Friday prayer times. He asked us many questions, and we gave Bible-saturated answers filled with truth, faith, forgiveness, grace, authority, love and hope.

His biggest question related to how it was possible for us to follow the teachings of the prophets in the Bible since the Bible is clear that the prophets were not perfect people. The answer is that the very reason we CAN trust the Bible is because the Bible is clear that only Jesus was perfect. The Bible describes how God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things when they put their trust in Him.

We believe that the Bible is the TRUTH and can be trusted to present things absolutely truthfully. Therefore the Bible doesn't gloss over the sins of any individual. Only God is the hero of the Bible. We learn from the examples in the Bible (sometime we learn what to do, sometimes what not to do), and we follow the clear teachings of Scripture. God's Word can be trusted. It will give you the answers to every question you have in life and eternity!

There were a bit of other conversations throughout the day, of course, including two great Skype calls: one with my dad in GA and one to my family in NY. Although Grant had already departed for the Adirondack Baptist Association youth ski night at Titus Mountain in Malone, NY, I did get to talk to Kim, Andy & Emma Grace. I called them from one of the lobbies where a computer company has set up a couple dozen computers with video cams so the athletes can all call their families via Skype too. I turned my laptop around so my family could see me AND see the athletes calling back to Germany, Russia, etc while we were talking. Ah, the age of modern communication does have its blessings.

Have a blessed day. Saturday the bobsled races begin. All for GOD's glory.