Update # 4; Can Tho: July 4, 2026 (Sunday)

 

Update # 3; Can Tho: July 4, 2026 (Saturday)

 

Update # 2; Can Tho: July 3, 2026 (Friday)

 

Update # 1; Can Tho: July 3, 2026 (Thursday)

The Arrangement

 

The Arrangement

In our WCS basketball camps, we always try to talk about other things in the teaching process besides basketball. Leadership is one topic. The following is from 6-21-06.

The game is Team Competitive and it is one of the contests we use at our basketball camps. The rules are uncomplicated. Lines are formed at each elbow. (Elbow refers to the place where the free throw line and the lane intersect.) Each line has one basketball. The player at the front of each line shoots once, chases the ball, and returns it as quickly as possible to the next person in that same line. Games continue until one team has seven baskets and is sitting with the ball resting with the first person. Penalty points are deducted anytime a team member fails to mimic, or shoot an imaginary shot concurrently with the shooter. I am blessed with two great groups of girls this week. After lunch, my team is named the LONGHORNS. So far this week, the LONGHORNS have struggled. Several of the girls have the chance to be good shooters but we have not fared well when shooting versus other teams. It was announced thirty minutes into our session that we were going to have a camp wide Team Competitive shootout. Honestly, there was no reason to think the LONGHORNS would win any matches. Before we played our first round opponent, one of the girls asked me a question. Allyson inquired if they could line up in the order that would give them the best chance to win. You might think logically that would always be the way they approach a competition but it isn't. My answer was in the affirmative. As a result, the girls arranged themselves from one to nine, with one being the strongest shooter and nine being the weakest. It also meant the better shooters were likely to take more shots and the poorer shooters were likely to take fewer. Early in the week, I talked to the girls about finding ways to win. I mentioned lining up your best shooters first. (In a camp setting, I don't array the kids by skill level but I was thrilled they were listening.) There is also the risk someone will get their feelings hurt; no one wants to be last. After we finished, I made the point that if they did not want to be at the rear of the team, there was an option- improve. Guess what happened when the contests started? The LONGHORNS won elimination games versus three other squads and lost a close match to a boys' team in the finals before the entire camp. I really like these kids. They are good listeners and have shown much improvement this week. The biggest improvement came from Allyson. Some of the other girls might have been thinking it would help to align by ability. Allyson is the youngest girl on the team, a sixth grader, AND the only one brave enough to verbalize the obvious. When the opportunity presented itself, she took a position of leadership.

The hardest part of coaching girls is finding leaders. It is much easier to find skilled players than players who willingly fill leadership roles. My belief is that young ladies are so afraid of teammates' reactions to them that they will bury their talents rather than risk being criticized. But what I've found is that players will enthusiastically follow a good leader, someone who puts the well-being of the group ahead of their own interests. In the end, the best interest of the team is the best interest of the leader. Probably the finest leader I've ever coached was Karie Stewart, a marginal player at her peak but one who commanded the attention and respect of every other girl in the locker room. She would encourage, push, instruct, and take a stand if the situation demanded it. I wish you could bottle it but you can't, just like you can't force someone into the responsibility. Families, businesses, schools, and especially churches are dying for someone to step out and be extraordinary. Read any history book- read the Bible- and see that it isn't always pleasant to be out in front. But the rewards for the group can make it more than an acceptable risk to take. Ask Allyson. She has talent and she proved this afternoon that she's not afraid to set herself apart in a positive way. She has a chance.

Applicable quote of the day:
"Effective leadership is putting first things first."
Stephen Covey

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

The New Normal

 

The New Normal

I waited too long in life to get out of my shell in any number of ways. This is from August 2, 2013.

I’m typing this somewhere on the road between Abilene, Texas and Houston. I’m with my fellow teachers returning to Westbury Christian following a two day Texas Christian School Association inservice hosted by Abilene Christian University. I’m not sure where we are but we just passed the Hamilton County Courthouse if that provides any perspective. I've been home from Vietnam ninety-six hours and I’m sleeping well but I’m not back to normal. This morning, I was reading the Sports Illustrated website and looking at yesterday’s scores and I caught myself thinking, ‘What time is it in the US?’ It hit me that I’m back in the US. Then at breakfast in the motel, as I sat with Kenneth Okwuono, my trip roommate, I was enjoying a blueberry smoothie. Kenneth very kindly informed me I was drinking a cup of waffle batter. I did think it tasted on the doughy side.

My timing of the last five missions I've taken, all to China and Vietnam, coincides with the beginning of inservice which is much earlier than when my teaching career began. The school has been gracious and has let me miss some days of inservice when needed. When you buy international tickets, you really deal with availability, even making reservations four months in advance as I usually do. I could get back earlier but it would make my trip shorter. I can't go in June because of basketball camps and every other summer we have a 4th of July Chesshir family reunion. I don't leave myself recovery time but it's OK- I need to return to the part of my life that's most familiar.

In the presidential campaign of 1920, Warren G. Harding ran for the White House with the slogan a return to normalcy. The US was only two years removed from World War I and even then, folks were longing for the good old days. Part of me when I come home wants the comfort of my routine, the part of my life where I feel at ease. But I found myself thinking as I was riding down the back roads of Vietnam on the back of a scooter that my life was somewhat boring before I went on my first mission trip to Honduras in 1998. It was a wonderful life but there was something missing and I didn't yet know it. Here, I'm not even speaking of the spiritual aspect of the trips which is the reason for their existence. I just found out that there is so much of the world I never dreamed of growing up in small town Nebraska and that walking down the streets and alleys of these exotic places would change my perspective and make me a better teacher. Honestly, I need to be kicked at times to stretch myself and it took a big boot for me. Each year, I have my students memorize Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10:
"For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Maybe for most of my life I missed the opportunity of those good works by making sure I didn't stray too far from home. Over the years, I've come to redefine the word normal. Definitions in our language can be fluid. So, too, can be the boundaries of our lives.

Applicable quote of the day:
“I didn't want normal until I didn't have it anymore”
Maggie Stiefvater

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1

The Price Of Ben Franklin

 

The Price Of Ben Franklin

Coincidentally, I am meeting with Ann Stone several hours from now as I prepare for this year's mission to Vietnam, # 14! This entry is from June 27, 2018.
I met yesterday morning with Ann Stone who is our church accountant. All the money that comes in to help my mission trip to Vietnam goes through Ann for both tax reasons and transparency. We have a number of things to work through this week on both hers and my end. In my initial missions to Honduras and Haiti, I was with groups so there was no money to spend but that has changed since I began venturing out on my own, and by my own I certainly do not mean without the Lord! Changing money in other countries is not always easy. I remember my first trip to Honduras seeing these men with big stacks of money willing to turn our dollars into their lempera! For several years in Vietnam, we dealt with ATM machines which is sometimes a roll of the dice and often time consuming. We've improved our methods in recent trips but that a still leaves changing the cash I carry into dong, the currency of Vietnam. Hai, the preacher, usually takes me to a pawn shop instead of a bank because the rates are slightly better. Last summer, while at the pawn shop, the girl at the register was very apologetic when I went to convert a $100 bill. She explained that since the bill was older, she could not give me full credit for it. I really at the time had no other options so I took it gratefully. It cost me about one dollar in the exchange versus the full price I would have received with a new bill. I have so much to learn!!

Since the Lord expects stewardship out of His children, I thought the least I could do this summer would be to take all my US currency in fresh, crisp hundreds. Yesterday afternoon, I dropped into my local Chase bank and requested a chat with the customer service folks. A wonderful young lady who has helped me before took on my request. She told me that new hundred dollar bills are very rare and the banks usually only get them around Christmas time, in her opinion, for gift envelopes. But she didn't leave it at that. Picking up the phone, she called five or six other Chase locations and with one exception, they had no new hundreds. Since I still had to make a decision on how much I wanted to take in cash and get the check printed from Ann, I wasn't able to take advantage of that one exception. I'm going in to Chase tomorrow to get my old, worn out hundred dollar bills but I did learn two valuable lessons. One is that I don't know much about currency and two, stay with a business that goes the extra mile for their customers.

You may have seen that illustration in church where the preacher crumples up a twenty dollar bill, stomps on it, and asks, "Who wants it?" Of course, everybody does because we understand its value is not connected to its appearance. But we know that's not the way everything in the world works. Like the pawn shop in Vietnam, and I'm not criticizing their policy, higher worth in society is placed on things that look new and flawless. Fortunately, that's not God's standard. Our value is not weighed on the scale of physical perfection. We are made in God's image, even if we aren't Brad Pitt or Miss Universe. The best known Bible verse, John 3:16, doesn't say God so loved the lovely or the brilliant or the rich or the talented. In that scripture quoted in every Sunday school class, Jesus Christ says, "For God so loved the world......" And we realize the exchange rate for the world- the death of the Father's only son. That rate won't rise and fall due to inflation or the Federal Reserve or the price of a barrel of oil. It's set for eternity and praise God that it is.


Applicable quote of the day:

“You’re not a one hundred dollar bill- not everyone is going to like you.”
Meg Cabot

God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1