Unca Darrell

OCTOBER 3 / Time for a good work

 

GIVE a few bucks to the Sam Houston Council of the Boy Scouts of America.

It'll help the boys, and you'll feel ever so much more trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

Then hug your spouse and kids and do something fun.

SEPTEMBER 10 / A miracle in our family

ASHLEY Dove Montelongo, a gift of God, born September 9, 2009

AUGUST 15 / James Blake Hamilton

ON A TRIP to Moldova in March 1999, Jimmy Hamilton encountered children with frostbitten fingers. That was unacceptable to this gentle mountain man from westernmost Virginia.

With his wife Elaine and other dedicated volunteers, he returned to Moldova about forty times over the next decade, each time bringing health professionals, medicine, hugs and smiles, and the good news of God's love.

The Hamilton circuit covered three state orphanages, one adult institution, and two Moldovan villages.  

He did this because of his faith in Jesus Christ.

"I tell you the truth," Jesus once said, "whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."

For Jimmy Hamilton, "the least of these" were the orphans of Moldova. For Jimmy Hamilton, faith was accompanied by action.

JUNE 25 / David Edgar Hancock (March 26, 1970 - June 25, 2000)

IN 1999 -- a lifetime ago, it now seems -- four Kingwood High School students, young women, started robbing convenience stores. They called themselves the "Queens of Armed Robbery."

JUNE 11 / "The beautiful people we have known in this life"

BECAUSE everyone needs a rural hometown, I lend you mine. From Garrison in the News, May 28, 2009:

Obituary, "Jimmy Carrell Simms."

Funeral service for Jimmy Carrell Simms, 57, of Garrison was held at 10:30 a.m. Monday, May 25, 2009 at First Methodist Church, Garrison with Rev. Jean Ferraro officiating.

JUNE 10 / Forty-two years, as if yesterday

MY SWEET Diana and I have  been blessed with forty-two years of marriage. Last year's celebratory post is eternally true.

JUNE 9 / Supply and demand at work in China's marriage market

IF DEMOGRAPHY is destiny, it is the destiny of young men in China to be very, very lonely. The one-child policy plus gender-specific abortion -- a curiously neutral label for scraping little girls out of wombs -- equals China with a reported surplus of 32 million men under the age of 30. 

MAY 20 / Next time, read the transcript

Editorial, "Plea for dialogue," Houston Chronicle, May 20, 2009:

[President Obama] recounted a letter he had received after winning the Democratic presidential nomination from a doctor who described himself as a pro-life Christian.

APRIL 22 / More Garrison in the News

FROM Garrison in the News, March 26, 2009:

• Every week GITN features a page-one picture of Lexie Nichols, a beautiful preschooler who has endured and prevailed -- week by week -- over cancer. This week she is pictured smiling broadly in a flower-girl dress. "Proverbs 15:13 reads, 'A happy heart makes the face cheerful.'" (Cutline)

MARCH 26 / A birthday

DAVID Edgar Hancock was born on March 26, 1970. Here  is something I wrote about him nine years ago.