Dear YWAM Family, In this last edition of eTouch I would like to share a bit of Peter’s life with you. Most of you will know by now that Peter has gone home to be with Jesus. He went home peacefully surrounded by family as well as Dr. Bruce and Barbara Thompson. The celebration …
February 2019 “Hello again to our faithful readers of eTouch . . . Please forgive us for missing the January edition—all our staff have been going through various and sundry health issues, but we trust we will soon be back ‘on stream,’ in this our 31st year of publishing first of all InTouch (which had …
November 2018 A note to our precious family . . . Due to several health issues, we’ve have been forced to suspend publication of eTouch since September. All being well we plan to resume monthly editions in January. Your eTouch Team. Pride & Stupidity Seven Miles Up was a dark and smoky night; dark, because …
September 2018 Embracing Today’s Culture “. . . I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin. But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin, or are greedy, or cheat people, or worship idols. You would have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that …
August 2018 The Scandinavian Scandal Not many years ago, on a missions base in a Nordic nation (which shall remain nameless, except to say that its name begins with the letter ‘N’ and they always win the most medals at the Winter Olympics) . . . my hidden hypocrisy came home to roost. I had …
July 2018 A Visiting Storyteller For July What follows is funny and profound. You will laugh and you will learn not to take yourself too seriously. Enjoy! Repeat Performance By Jamie Buckingham Well, it finally happened. I was on the platform during the early service that Sunday morning. Although I was not scheduled to preach, …
June 2018 Dad’s Day It’s easy for a man (or a boy) to become a father. At the very minimum it takes a dose of lust—plus cooperation (or not), from a woman or girl. Back in the day, the first kiss was almost sacred. Not today. To be a dad, a man needs to have …
May 2018 The Bitter-Sweet Ministry of Saint Margaret Saint Margaret was my Mother, though I only came to think of her as a saint sometime after she passed into heaven. If only I had appreciated her when she was here! For the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking a lot about my Mum; and …
April 2018 Happiness, Contentment & Joy These conditions are a rare threesome, and we all need them in order to enjoy a truly fulfilling life . . . Physically, we must have, food, shelter and the companionship of others. Emotionally, we need to love—and to be loved by others. Spiritually, we need relationship with God …
March 2018 Family Day What a wonderful idea! To recognize the importance of God’s plan for a man, a woman and their children; and furthermore, extending the ‘family concept’ to neighborhoods, cities, nations—and indeed to the world—The Family of Man. And the family that is the church. I’m writing this on the very day that …
February 2018 The Life of Faith Most believers seem to think that what is meant to really, really live by faith, one must forego a regular means of income and trust that God will put food on the table. Baloney. (Salary or not—that’s just a small part of the life of faith.) All true …
January 2018 Double-Dipping Double-dipping is generally considered to be unethical—if not outright illegal. It can be the act of receiving compensation from two departments of the same employer. Way back in my younger days, I double-dipped. But I wasn’t doing anything illegal. One Sunday night when I was 12, a preacher scared the hell out …
Christmas 2017 The Christmas Paradox I’ll never forget that Christmas. During the lecture phase of our first YWAM school, our family of six had lived in a smelly old olive-drab army tent for three months, high up on the side of a mountain in Kona, Hawaii. For our local outreach we moved into a more …
November 2017 Some Reflections on The Ministry of Women Some simple thoughts from a fairly uncomplicated— and hopefully unprejudiced—man-mind . . . Of my family of six, my Mother and my sister Ruth, were the closest ones to my heart. My Dad, my brothers and I, showed little or no warmth or affection toward one …
October 2017 Once Was a Stripper Finding Your Place In my early search for significance, while meandering along in my hunt for happiness, I trudged along a few false trails. I wish I’d had some good instruction back when I was a teenager; it might have helped me find my way—teaching from Romans 12:1-8, for …
September 2017 What’s Your ‘Use-By’ Date . . . and other reasons not to do something worthwhile and fruitful when you reach a certain ‘lofty’ age: Are you ‘Best-Before’ age 65? Is your Expiration Date clearly stamped somewhere on your body? What is your Shelf-Life? (That’s the day you get taken down and thrown in …
August 2017 Shack’nTrump The times, they are a-changin’ Bob Dylan This is neither a spiritual analysis, nor a political statement; it’s merely a ‘pondering’ I’m having about the book (and movie) entitled ‘The Shack’; and the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States of America. The book, with sales of …
July 2017 ‘Struth Today, this is a little-used word—it’s short for ‘God’s Truth.’ Sadly it is employed in some cultures as a blasphemous oath. But what is God’s truth—in the pure sense—as you and I as believers would, and should, understand it to be? A star football player in England was recently arrested for DUI …
June 2017 Humble Barney Part 2: Edged Out? The rest of the story follows, but first let’s take a look back to the start of Barney’s tale . . . [Click here for Part 1] Barney, along with Paul the apostle, were good missionary-mates all through their dangerous and successful first outreach to Cyprus and …
April/May 2017 Humble Barney A True Story in 2 Parts From our survey of admirable, successful and model-able Bible characters in the February eTouch (click here to read that one), I mentioned that my two choices were Ruth (loyalty, faithfulness and more), and the bi-cultural Joseph of Cyprus, better known as Barnabas. For the purpose …
March 2017 How Not To Interpret Dreams A song from Disney’s Cinderella goes, “A dream is a wish that your heart makes.” (Quote that to someone who just had a nightmare!) The wishfulness in that song, recently led me astray. I seldom remember dreams. We all dream, but for me, only fragments seem to remain …
February 2017 Father-like He Tends and Spares Us . . . It happened again. . . A few months ago I woke up to that old Sunday School chorus—“Wide, Wide as the Ocean.” This time it was the wonderful words and beautiful old melody of a song that was rolling around in my inner music-chamber; …
January 2017 Are You Living by Faith—or by Fate? Some people live by fate; their theme song might well be, “Que sera, sera, whatever will be, will be.” Nice song; bad theology. This is fatalism—’whatever will be, will be.’ Today we’ve kind of boiled it all down to that most disagreeable of expressions, “Whatever!” That …
December 2016 Born in a Barn If someone insults you by asking, “Were you born in a barn?” they’re making it clear that they think you have no manners and are behaving like an animal. Or perhaps a friend rudely remarks that, “You’re from the other side of the tracks,” (meaning that you originate from the poor …
November 2016 Armed & Dangerous Right outside our window flows a river, about 100 yards wide, which as I sit before my laptop, is about to start freezing over for our winter. Imagine with me that I’m going to step onto that thin and still-forming ice—metaphorically speaking of course! This will be both slippery and …
October 2016 Fearfully and Wonderfully Made Fearfully? Really? The meaning of the word ‘fearfully’ in Ye Olde English is ‘extremely’ or ‘to the highest degree’; and the word fearfully has little or nothing to do with being frightened (unless you’re thinking about the Fear of the Lord; but that’s something that is Joy Dawson’s territory—you …
September 2016 For 40 years God has taken care of all our family’s daily material needs—even though we went into missions with not a single promise of support. Our extended families, our friends and our church—thought we were crazy to take four young children into the unknown at their tender ages—and gave us little encouragement …
August 2016 Wide, Wide as the Ocean . . . Wide, wide as the ocean, high as the heaven above; Deep, deep as the deepest sea is my Savior’s love. I, though so unworthy, still am a child of His care; For His Word teaches me that His love reaches me everywhere. …
June–July 2016 A Mighty Man Lies Weakened (physically, that is . . . ) In 1978, fairly new to the YWAM world, I took part in the Football World Cup outreach in Argentina. (I should explain to some readers that ‘football’—the most played and watched sport on earth—chiefly employs the foot to move the ball …
May 2016 More Of What The Bible Doesn’t Tell Us . . . Part 2 I suppose we all have enough trouble understanding and obeying the basic truths that we know, and that are clearly laid out for us in Scripture. So why worry about things that aren’t even mentioned? Let’s just love …
April 2016 Double Call–Outs At a very young age, I was ‘called’ to be a missionary to China. Well truthfully, I had no choice—I was born there! The youngest of four children in a missionary family, I grew up as a foreigner in that densely-populated and mysterious nation. I never knew any of my grandparents, …
March 2016 Excellence Crucified Back a few years ago, there was a television commercial by a well-known stockbrokerage firm whose catchphrase was, ”When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen.” I could say that about quite a few people I know, but there’s one person in particular, a wise and somewhat hidden prophet, who when he …
February 2016 What The Bible Does Not Tell Us . . . (and some questions we might want to ask) You may very well find some of what follows is offensive to you—or perhaps brings an uneasiness. As I researched and wrote this, I most certainly felt the sharp sting of conviction in a number …
January 2016 Those Dark Days This is midwinter for us Northern Hemispherites (or are we Hemispherians? Hemispherics? Hemispheroids?). But this is not about those extra hours of nighttime we get due to the angle of the sun. It’s about a condition that can even apply to those who live on the Equator, where daylight hours …
December 2015 refugee someone who has been forced to leave a country because of war or for religious or political reasons Jesus was a refugee. His father Joseph, warned by an angel in a dream, fled the horror of King Herod’s Bethlehem ‘Massacre of the Innocents,’ and escaped with his small family to Egypt. We …
October~November 2015 Getting & Giving Paul said to the Ephesian church leaders, ”. . . keep remembering that our Master said, ‘You’re far happier giving than getting.’” [Acts 20:35 The Message] From even before conception, God saw all the bits of ‘unformed substance’ that were to become you and me [Ps 139]. He gives us …
Out of Order This edition of eTouch is unique, personal and quite unlike anything we’ve done before. Donna & I have just lost the youngest member of our family, our only son, 45 year-old Peter Andrew. He passed away unexpectedly in his sleep last weekend in Vancouver, Canada, where he has lived for 22 years. …
July 2015 The Family that Eats Together . . . A Lost Art? Growing up, our family was fairly dysfunctional (but then, show me a fully functional family and I’ll show you a herd of clones!) Marriage and family are a crucible in which sanctification (or its rejection), is slowly ground into us. The family …
June 2015 Today, as we go about life, we notice that generally speaking, conscience and morality are non-words, no longer concepts and standards by which to live; if it feels good, well go right ahead and do it. Just as long as you don’t hurt anyone else. Oh? Is it possible not to hurt others, …
May 2015 This Month The Sheep Are Sleeping And so am I . . . but Donna is wide awake (see “and Finally . . .” for an explanation). Donna’s Corner Dear Friend, I’ve been pondering a lot about what covenant is. I’m sure there are many books written about it. Covenant is a very …
April 2015 Reality? . . . Shows? TV and various other digitalizers (that’s my word for all the newfangled devices we can’t possibly live without), among other things, feed us a steady and unrelenting diet of so-called Reality Shows. First came Survivor (I confess to watching just the very first episode). This was followed by …
Donna and I are blessed with three fine sons-in-law. I say they’re ‘fine’ because among other things they are excellent husbands to our daughters and wonderful fathers to their children. All of their Dads have passed on—one I never met, another I got to know just a little, and the last one to go, in …
Got Wisdom? My Mother, who becomes more saintly in my memory each day, taught me at a young age to read one chapter a day of the book of Proverbs. Since there are 31 chapters, for some of the shorter months I had to read a bit more. February was a killer. And I was …
Donna’s Corner Dear Friends, As we begin this new year according to our calendar, I was asking the Lord what was on His heart for us, we who are called by His name; and He reminded me of this: He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord …
A mini-eTouch for you this Christmas . . . Donna’s Corner Getting Ready To Turn The Page Dear Family, As we come to the end of 2014 and move into 2015, I asked the Lord what was on His heart, and I sensed Him say to me, and this can be for you too . …
This month, Donna comes first! Donna’s Corner Dear Family, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes Me; and whoever welcomes Me does not welcome Me but the one who sent Me.” [Mark 9:37] Last week I was praying for a children’s camp near where we live, when all of a sudden, …
Freudian Slips and Other Things I Missed in Psych 101 Do You Know Your Own Personal Defence Mechanisms? Not talking about guns or terrorists here. Nor about bomb shelters or defending yourself from WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction). Not talking about protecting yourself from deadly diseases. Not talking about being prudent by staying away …
Ed’s Excellent Vacation The sheep have been dipped and clipped and are now lying down in luscious, emerald-green and chlorophylled pastures, contentedly munching their way towards next year’s shearing. Or maybe lambing. Or even worse, to someone’s dinner table. And so too, Ed is taking a break this month, to do a little grandfathering. But …
So, you’re walking along a busy city sidewalk on your way to lunch. Suddenly, an attractive woman from XYZ-TVNews, mic in hand, blocks your way. “Excuse me,” she says, “May I ask you a question?” Behind her hovers a dude with an enormous camera, heavy on his shoulder. They want to capture your thoughts on …
What Do You Think About Evolution? Relax! Calm down, have a cup of tea! [To make a good ‘cuppa,’ according to my Mother, steep the tea for 3+ minutes in a teapot using only boiling hot water, cover teapot with teacozy (see photo of of my Mom’s ‘cozy’ at the end of ), pour …