WHAT I DID TODAY

Well today is a landmark birthday for me. I’m almost a little embarrassed to say how old I am now. Forties were ok....fifties are old, man. I can take some consolation in that yesterday I had a day off and went backcountry skiing with some of Whistler’s most robo skiers. With my smaller boards I had a hard time on some unbelievable steep couloirs...pitches that we’d never ski in Alberta because our snow would never hold at that steepness....but on the ups the only guy faster was my Canadian Nat’l ski teammate, Alex. At one point I was tempted to tell ‘em, “hey guys tomorrow I turn 50!” But I didn’t.

In the Olympic village I looked UP my old friend Greg P. Whom I’d met when he coached Canada’s Nordic combined team. Greg has always seemed open spiritually. Now he’s coaching the US team. Then I finally ran into Dawa Sherpa of Nepal. Dawa and I hit it off 4 years ago in Italy at those Olympics. We’d ski together, take meals, etc. Of course I’d feed him some gospel material. As a former Buddist monk I wasn’t sure how hard to present Jesus. We’ve had some good talks, but I hope to go deeper.

I’m planning on joining Lyndon Rush for dinner. Deb said I can splurge on my birthday as it costs 25$ to eat with the athletes and not in the worker bee cafeteria. Lyndon is a guy I meet up with each week for discipleship when he’s in town (which is pretty hit and miss when you’re travelling the world cup bobsled circuit). The other night he was sharing how unbelievably great it is to have our Olympic chaplaincy. I’ve been helping him to try to lead the Christian (and pre-Christian) bobsledders in fellowship and bible study meetings on the bob circuit. It hasn’t been easy, but here he can just relax and be ministered to. He's been loving it!

We have a set schedule each day for bible study, fellowship at 9 in the a.m. and 8 at night. We really hold these to ½ hour knowing that an athlete will be more likely to come when it doesn’t go on all night. These have been really great times and pretty well attended. Gotta go get ready for my turn leading tonight.