I've been yelling at the TV again

(By Erik)

Why aren’t commercials for the Olive Garden even remotely funny? Why is every “joke” they tell completely devoid of humor?

Seriously, next time you see an Olive Garden commercial, please tell me if you think it’s funny. Please limit your responses to 200 words or less.

For some true commercial hilarity, enjoy http://www.maketjdrink.com. It’s a Web site featuring TJ and that other guy on the Sonic commercials. It’s really fun. See if you can guess TJ’s favorite drink.

Petition to promote Jerry Lamb to "planet"

(By Erik, with assistance from Jerry Lamb)

As most of you know, the International Astronomical Union yesterday downgraded Pluto to the status of “dwarf planet.”

This diminutive (and, in my opinion, pejorative) classification no longer entitles Pluto to be recognized as a planet, putting it on the level of a glorified asteroid.


No longer can it get 20 percent off of its order at “Planet Sub,” nor will it be eligible for free parking at Planet Hollywood. And John Gray has been forced to rename his bestselling book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, But Nobody’s From Pluto Because It’s Not Even A Planet.

We also understand that during this weekend’s Emmy Awards’ after-party Pluto has been “downgraded” from the table with Garry Shandling to the table with Gary Busey.

In light of these developments, we’d like to petition the IAU to upgrade the status of Christian Chronicle advertising manager Jerry Lamb from “non-planet” to “planet.”


(This is Jerry's actual work ID photo — and further proof that he deserves to be his own planet.)

On top of being a world-renowned “swell guy,” we feel that Jerry meets all of the criteria for being a planet.

According to the IAU, a planet is a celestial body that:

1. … is in orbit around the Sun

No problem. Jerry claims that, with few exceptions, he’s been revolving around the sun for years.

2. … has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape.

Jerry has dedicated much of his life to overcoming rigid body forces — the very forces that force most of us to take actions deemed “societally appropriate.” Jerry said that he also had his hydrostatic equilibrium checked recently, and it’s well within “round” parameters. (Although his cholesterol is trending high.)

3. … has cleared its orbital path

Jerry’s done a great job of this. There are plenty of people who refuse to go anywhere near him. He once ran a fellow motorist off the road for incorrectly using her turn signal. Jerry, who is consulting with me as I type this, added, “Yeah, I’ve got a ‘clear orbital path’ — thanks to fiber.” That’s precisely the type of comment that demonstrates why other potential planets steer clear of him.


Please take a few moments to sign this petition by leaving your name (and blood type — optional) in the comment section of this post. Let’s all show our support for Jerry so that he might finally attain the “planet-sized” recognition he so richly deserves.

Shoehorns and yak cheese

(By Erik)

I love reporting international news. Here are a couple of snippets from the BBC with links to the full stories:


Yaks say cheese in rural China

Villagers in Langdu, western China, are taking advantage of improved infrastructure and help from NGOs to develop a sustainable yak cheese industry, Simon Montlake reports. …

The village of Langdu is starting to feel the impact. It is a community of ethnic Tibetan yak herders who live in an isolated fir-lined valley not far from the border with the restricted Tibetan Autonomous Region.


EU tunnel crossing ends in farce

Two Egyptian men are awaiting trial in Russia after several attempts to burrow their way under various European borders using nothing but shoehorns.

The men - both believed to be in their 20s - started in Belarus and dug a tunnel under the border with Poland.

But once in Poland, they lost their way, ending up where they started - in front of barbed wire.

Thinking they were now looking across the German border, the pair did the trick again.

But instead of getting to Germany, they ended up back in Belarus.

Minutes later, the two men were arrested by Belarussian border guards and later sentenced to 10 days in jail.

From the home office ...

(By Erik)

I've been with The Christian Chronicle for five years and I've received numerous blessings from it.

And now I have a great office, too.


I'm in Bobby Ross' former office (which more formerly was Lindy Adams' office). Lindy and I agree that it's one of the nicest spaces on campus. Bobby's moved next door to Bailey's former office and Tamie Ross is in my old office.


Jeanie helped me pick out the wall color ("Sahara Sand") and the border. The couch is from Savannah, Ga., and is the last remnant of my bachelorhood. Jeanie was happy to get it out of the house.



My father-in-law picked this particular decoration out for me at a garage sale. GO DAWGS!

The world at our dorm steps

(By Erik)

This year we’ve got some new students at Oklahoma Christian University from the nation of Rwanda. Most of them arrived on campus recently. They’re here through a scholarship program that was announced when the Rwandan president visited OC earlier this year.

The students who got here earlier in the day were treated to a lunch of chicken and steak fajitas in the student center.


Here’s Allen Thompson, on the right (not the baby), talking to one of the Rwandan students. Allen is from Ethiopia and is actively involved in the missions organizations on campus. Allen’s got a great story, too. You can read some of it in this story about the film “Invisible Children.” Allen is mentioned near the end of the story.


Dan Hays, our men’s basketball coach, was one of the first people to greet the new students. He kept asking them how tall they were and if they knew what a “free throw” was. (Just kidding!)


I love this photo. Mike O’Neal, OC’s president, introduces one of the new students to his grandson.


Here’s Michael Cady, the controller for the school, with a couple of the students. Michael and his entire family (brother, sister, their spouses and kids, plus his dad and mom) were in Belize earlier this year as part of the mission team I joined, coordinated by Windle and Barbara Kee. You can read more about that here.

My Summer Vacation (or some semblance thereof)

(By Jeanie)

OK, my husband is hounding me to write something that he could post on the blog, so here goes …

The life of a resident is interesting. When you combine the lifestyle of a resident with that of a roving international reporter you sometimes end up with what I will call organized chaos (some would say it is more like mass chaos).

Well, I guess my summer vacation actually started in April when Erik’s family came out to Oklahoma. We went to the zoo, the arts festival and generally showed them around OKC. With residency you get three weeks of vacation, this was my second week.

In May I took my third week. Erik had been in Zimbabwe, so he could not take too much time off of work. We did get to go to Dallas and see the School Book Depository. Following Dallas we spent the weekend seeing most of my family.

Then there was June. I was back on the wards. I won’t go into too many details, but it was a rough month. It was very busy. You get four days off and are on call six days of the month.

Then comes the magical transformation. In July I became an “upper level.” I started on an elective in Hematology/Oncology (kids with cancer and blood problems). This was not my first choice, but I won’t go into that either right now.

I was in my good friend Karen’s wedding the first weekend of July, and at the end of the month I got to go to Diabetes Camp (Camp Endres). I had a great time. I went trying to decide if diabetes was something that I was interested in pursuing as a profession. (Endocrinology is the field — and they really do take care of more than just diabetes.)

My cabin was a group of 15 12- and 13-year-old boys. These guys were amazing. They really tried to manage their disease. I was there to teach them, help them adjust their insulin and monitor their blood sugars. It was very hot and my good friend from residency Katherine and I went together. I wished that I could have stayed all week. I really missed the kids after I came back. It did make me feel like I had a summer.

Now it is August, and the real work has set in. I am in the nursery right now, which is probably the hardest rotation for me. You never know what to expect. We also have to carry this phone that rings until you answer it. It could be a nurse asking if a baby can go home, but it also could be the OB’s saying they have a 25-weeker (or worse, twins — or triplets) that are on their way.

Well that wraps up my summer vacation. Hope this is interesting to someone!

Not so Burkina Faso, mister!

(By Erik)

Jeanie just got back a few days ago from diabetes camp. She spent the better part of a week counseling and testing kids with diabetes — and she loved it.

I’m VERY proud of her, by the way. I don’t get to say it much here, but what she does constantly amazes me. I lucked out in the spouse department.

(Several of you have felt compelled to remind me of that.)

Anyway, while she was gone I actually turned to housecleaning as a means of occupying myself. I finally sorted through some boxes full of stuff my parents brought when they visited us last November. It’s all stuff they had to box up when they moved from Macon, Ga., to Spring Hill, Tenn.

I found a bunch of small flags in one of the boxes. I collected them when I was in high school. I went to a bunch of “model United Nations” events (since the football team was full). If you never had the great pleasure of going to a model U.N., you basically pretend you’re an ambassador and you represent your country on various committees, etc.

Yeah, it’s a thrill a minute. I know that’s what you’re thinking. But back in high school I couldn’t get enough of it. It gave me an appreciation of foreign countries — and a collection of small flags.

Now that I’ve been able to travel outside the country to cover international church news, I have a separate collection of little flags of the countries I’ve been to, and I sort of have this rule that I can’t buy a flag until I’ve been to the country that flag represents.

So now I have this whole host of nations I feel oddly compelled to visit to “earn” the flags I purchased back in high school. Just for fun (and because Jeanie’s asleep and I’m again trying to occupy myself) here’s a list of the places I need to go:

Burkina Faso — “Where?” is usually the response I get when I mention this landlocked country in western Africa, bordering on Ghana. I “represented” Burkina in a model U.N. in Washington in 11th grade. I was in the International Monetary Fund meeting. Each country got a number of votes based on how much money it put into the fund. The United States got 6,771 votes (or some number like that). I got one. We got to visit the Burkina Faso embassy and talk to an ambassador. She spoke French.

I really do plan to visit Burkina someday. Jeanie’s friends Andy and Melissa are missionaries there. I’ve gotten to know Andy, mostly through e-mails. Great guy.

Denmark — I collected all the Scandinavian flags at some point. I’d love to experience Copenhagen (the city, not the tobacco product).

Germany — I took two years (zwei jahre) of German in college, but have never set foot in the country. I have been to Austria, though.

Greece — There’s tons of stuff I’d love to see here. Greece is the word.

Holy See Papal State — Yeah, I actually represented the Vatican at some sort of model U.N. I kept trying to tell the other Catholic countries to do what I said. They didn’t listen.

The Vatican actually has its own government, situated in downtown Rome. Not sure if you have to show your passport to get in or not.

When we did our Missions Sunday at church I think Neil Arter carried this flag. It was listed as one of the “unreached countries.” I’m guessing it would be pretty hard to plant a Church of Christ in the Holy See.

Iceland — We had some friends in Macon from Iceland. They went to visit and came back with T-shirts that said “Hard Rock Café: Reykjavik.” I’ve wanted to go ever since.

Israel — Maybe not the safest place at the moment, but I would love to go there and visit the Churches of Christ in Nazareth and Jerusalem.

Latvia — I have no idea how I got this flag. And I was SO CLOSE back in 2002. I went to a conference in Estonia, which is next door. Along with Lithuania, these countries are the Baltic states, formerly part of the Soviet Union. Estonia was great, by the way.

Malawi — I’ve been hearing about this little African country since I was 5. Our church in Macon supports Jimmy Judd, a longtime missionary here. I think this country also has the highest concentrations of Churches of Christ in all of Africa. I definitely want to see it for myself.

Norway — This is my hands-down, number-one, gotta’ go there country. My great-grandfather came over in 1910, and I think it would be really cool to lead a contingent of Tryggestads back in 2010. Maybe we can even find the little farming village we’re named after. We’ll see.

Sweden — Norway’s next-door neighbor. They kind of view Norwegians like Georgians view Alabamians.

Yemen — This would no doubt be the hardest flag to "earn." Not the easiest country to get into (or out of)!

I represented Yemen (next to Oman and Saudi Arabia) in a model U.N. in Macon, just a few months after the first Gulf War ended. The other countries on my committee were trying to pass a resolution punishing Iraq and demanding reparation payments.

Representing Yemen, I was the only voice of opposition to this. I kept trying to tell the other countries that if they came down too hard on Iraq, it would only lead to a second Gulf War. That's not exactly what ended up happening in real life, but still ...

I think I also told the representaive of Burkina Faso that he was being a dink. (He was another kid from my school. And he was.)

Shifting gears in our careers

(By Erik and Jeanie)

We would like to take this opportunity to announce that, effective tomorrow, we will be resigning our jobs at the Christian Chronicle and OU Medical Center to enter the exciting world of automotive sales.

We’ll be working for Big Red Sports and Imports in scenic Norman, Okla. After doing the math, we’ve discovered that they pay their employees a minimum of $69 per hour.

If we both put in 40-hour weeks, our combined income for the next fiscal year will be about $291,000.

Plus, they've got dental.

Though neither of us have a lot of experience selling cars, it is our understanding that Big Red has a pretty liberal policy on such matters.

So come on down and see us, friends. That’s Big Red Sports and Imports, I-35 … NORMAN!

http://www.channeloklahoma.com/sports/9619076/detail.html

(Special thanks to Tamie for the link to the photo!)

Another Sleepless fright

Watch the trailer for the suspense thriller "Sleepless."

Some of you said that you enjoyed the movie "preview" we posted for the family picture "Shining." Here's one that takes the opposite approach. Witness the suspense and terror of "Sleepless in Seattle."

Thoughts on special needs

Alex and family
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

(By Erik)

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve hated loud noises.

Pops, bangs, shouts and whistles — sudden, sharp sounds always make me jump and set me on edge. Getting through a Fourth of July fireworks display is still a bit of a challenge, pretty colors aside.

That’s partly why I’ve shied away from people that get lumped together in the broad category called “special needs.” A lot of churches have them — people with autism, Down syndrome, retardation. I just don’t do well with them, I’ve always thought.

And some of them make loud, sudden noises.

I remember a boy in the church where I grew up who had severe mental handicaps. He couldn’t communicate or even walk, but his parents faithfully brought him to church each week. He’d occasionally make these sort of loud, gurgle-type sounds that are hard to describe. I can still hear them if I think back.

I also remember wondering why his parents brought him to church. He clearly wasn’t getting anything out of it, and he was somewhat distracting (though I remember our minister deftly working one of this young man’s noises into a sermon once). It must’ve been hard for his parents to get him there every week, too.

I don’t think like that anymore, not after meeting another young man, Alex.

A missionary in Africa had contacted me about Alex, who was baptized not long ago at the Brentwood Oaks Church of Christ in Austin, Texas. Jeanie and I were headed down there for Karen Reynolds’ wedding (see previous posts) so we spent an extra night in Austin and attended the church’s special worship service for kids with special needs.

Alex is autistic. His mom told me the technical term for it — it’s long and vague. A lot of folks, myself included, get confused here because we equate autism with Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man.” That’s a very narrow perspective of autism. It’s a huge spectrum of disorders — I think they even call it “autism spectrum disorder” now — that range from mild to severe.

A lot of people who society used to label as anti-social have a mild form of autism that’s been classified only recently. It’s called Asperger’s Disorder.

And autism is a lot more common than I thought. One out of every 116 children born in the United States has some form of it. For Down syndrome, the number is 1 out of every 800 births, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Alex, like a lot of autistic children, is non-verbal. He only speaks a few words, but a therapist taught him how to communicate by pointing to letters on a piece of paper.

There’s another boy in at Brentwood Oaks, Jackson, who’s also autistic and communicates the same way. I talked to his mother on the phone, and she said that the conversations her son engaged in after he learned the point-and-spell method amazed her.

For example, in a recent group class for autistic kids, one girl asked the other students what they thought about Hamas. Jackson replied by spelling out “I can’t believe they won the election.” He went on to say that he wants peace in the Middle East and doesn’t support their brand of violence.

“And how old is your son?” I asked his mother.

“He’s nine,” she said. The family doesn’t even watch that much TV. As best as they can tell, Jackson has been reading the newspaper over his father’s shoulder.

The folks who teach the special-needs class at Brentwood Oaks are starting to realize that they need to modify their topics to include discussions of the Holy Spirit and other issues they once considered too complex for the students to grasp.

Taking care of kids with autism and other special needs is tough. It’s an around-the-clock job. Parents don’t get to worship together, and some have given up on church because it’s just too difficult to manage. That’s why Brentwood Oaks and other congregations have launched special programs for these kids.

They’re not easy to start. Brentwood Oaks brought in a therapist to work with the kids for the better part of a year — and to train the “pals,” volunteers who accompany the children to class. The volunteers told me that the first weeks of their program, now a year old, looked like a circus compared to today. But they kept training, and things got better.

Now the program is a magnet for people from different churches who have kids with special needs. Some people bring their kids to Brentwood Oaks just for the special-needs ministry. When Jeanie and I visited, one of the kids got picked up early so he could go to Buddhist temple with his parents.

Alex’s mother told me that one of the blessings her son has brought her is the realization that sometimes we have to accept help. We can pretend to be self-reliant all we want, but these kids — these very intelligent kids — remind us that we’re all reliant on God for everything. We all have special needs.

And we’re not all that different.

During the Brentwood Oaks class, we sang “If You’re Happy and you Know It.” We skipped the verse that goes, “If you’re happy and you know it shout ‘Amen!’ ‘AMEN!’”

One of the volunteers nodded toward one of the young, autistic students and told me why.

“He hates loud noises,” he said.

If you want to read the story I wrote for the Chronicle about special-needs ministries, click here

PHOTO: Meeting special needs

Serving special needs
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

Here's another photo from our recent trip to Austin. Jackie Boyd, children's minister for the Brentwood Oaks church in Austin, Texas, teaches a class for children with special needs.

Found my thrill on Solsbury Hill

(By Erik)

Have you ever heard the song “Solsbury Hill” by Peter Gabriel?

Yes you have. Even if you don’t think you have, you have. Trust me.

It might help if I tell you it’s the song with the lyric “my heart goin’ boom boom boom.” I’ve just googled the lyrics and I can’t find another memorable one in there. The song tells about someone longing to live with the eagles after he hears one say, “grab your things I’ve come to take you home.” (I guess that’s another somewhat-memorable lyric.)

By the way, Peter Gabriel wants to go live with eagles that fly, not The Eagles that sing “Hotel California” and “Take it Easy.”

OK, back to my current gripe against “Solsbury Hill.” It’s overused. It’s the theme to a current cell phone ad, it was featured in the films “In Good Company,” “Big Fish” and probably a dozen others. Pick another song, please, advertisers and movie-makers of the world.

According to a moderator of the Web site “DVD in my Pants,” the song is “used in every sensitive father-son relationship movie or any time Cameron Crowe is allowed within 50 miles of a soundstage.” (And I think we all know it's hard to find a more reliable source than a Web site named "DVD in my Pants.")

One rather creative usage of the song is in a movie “preview” for “Shining.” This short video clip shows you how much a song can set the mood for a film — or change the mood, or even change the genre!

Now I’ve got “I’m standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona” stuck in my head.”

Watch the preview for the touching family picture "Shining"

The good ol' days at Deer Gap Court

(By Erik)

Mom sent me this a few months back. A dear friend of the family passed away, and this was in a collection of old church-related material that he had. It's a page from the directory of the Alexandria, Va., Church of Christ, where we attended from the time I was born until I was 5. (Amy was 2.)

Dad worked for the government and we lived in a townhouse on Deer Gap Court. Then dad another government job, only to find out that it was in Macon, Ga., not the D.C. area.

I'm not lookin' too happy in this photo. I'm guessing there was some familial strife leading up to it.

Or maybe I'm sad because they misspelled my name!

PHOTO: Karen and Scott's wedding

(By Erik and Jeanie)

We're just getting around to posting photos from the wedding of our good friend Karen Reynolds (now Karen Cuellar) from a couple of weeks ago. It was at the Westover Hills Church of Christ in Austin, Texas. The Flickr site is down right now, so we're trying a different way of posting the photo.

In this shot, Karen and her bridesmaids (pictured are Jeanie and Karen's sister, Becca) are looking at a video monitor showing a bunch of pictures of Karen and Scott when they were kids. The flower girl, Karen's niece Emily, was very cute but somewhat unimpressed by the slide show.

Flag Day (sort of)

(By Erik)

We've been non-stop busy since the Fourth of July, it seems.

This past weekend we traveled to Austin, Texas, for Karen Reynolds' wedding. Had a great time. We also visited Roger McCown, minister for the Brentwood Oaks Church of Christ, and attended Sunday morning service with the church's ministry for children with special needs. More on that experience later. (It'll be in the next Chronicle, too, by the way.)

Today is Missions Sunday at our home church, Memorial Road. I'm working as a flag bearer during the service. There are about 200 of us carrying flags of various countries. The church has divided the flags into categories:

1. Flags of countries that Memorial Road spends missions dollars in or has some connection to (Brazil, Australia, Kenya, etc.)

2. Flags of countries that have a significant number of Churches of Christ (and, in most cases, tenuous connections to Memorial Road) — I'm carrying the Cuban flag here.

3. Countries that are "unreached" (with fewer than 100 church members and three churches) — this is the biggest category and I'm carrying the Norwegian flag, of course!

I disagree with some of the listings in category 3 (Bolivia should be in 2, not 3, and so should Argentina, etc.) but overall it's a pretty good concept.

I asked Jeanie if I should wear my Castro hat (see photo a few posts back) as I'm carrying the Cuban flag.

She said no.

Spray paint and funnel cakes

LibertyFest 2006
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

(By Erik and Jeanie)

We just got back from our annual trip to LibertyFest, our fair city's salute to the Fourth of July. Memorial Road members volunteer to help every year.

This year we spray painted kids' hair patriotic shades of red, white and blue. It rained just before we got there and drizzled throughout out shift, so customer turnout was a bit low.

Then, after dinner at Steak N' Shake (Erik's idea) we set up our chairs to watch the fireworks and Erik went to get a funnel cake (Jeanie's idea).

There were two lines at the funnel cake cart. Erik got in the shorter of the two, placed his order and paid.

Then they told him to go stand in the other line to wait for a funnel cake.

Forty-five minutes later, he had one.

The fireworks were great, and we made it back to the house in record time. Good stuff!

Too much bass for the monkeys

Victoria Falls
Originally uploaded by eandjtrygg.

(By Erik)

I’m sorry to report that my two Zimbabwean monkeys just had an accident.

Since I returned from Africa they’ve perched atop one of my stereo speakers in the den. I was just playing songs from “Share the Well” by Caedmon’s Call, and apparently the bass from the song “Volcanoland” jolted them from their position.

One fell over and the other plummeted to the floor. It’s a good five-foot drop, too. Luckily, they’re both made of wood.

A Zimbabwean monkey done in by an Ecuadorian song — how sad.

You’ll be happy to know that the stone hippo remains unshaken.

Speaking of Zimbabwe, here’s a photo I took of Victoria Falls, one of the natural wonders of the world. This picture doesn’t do it justice. No picture can.

Read more about my trip to Zimbabwe here.

Things that mystify me, Vol. 3

(By Erik)

The Home Depot doesn't carry wallpaper (at least not the one by the mall).

NEWS: Churches mourn deaths of longtime missionaries Cyndi Chowning and Dan Hardin

NOTE: This story originally appeared on the Chronicle's Web site, but was erased after a hacker broke into the system and replaced the text (see more details in the previous blog entry, below).

By Erik Tryggestad
The Christian Chronicle

Churches of Christ in Texas and around the globe are mourning the recent deaths of two longtime missionaries — Cyndi Chowning and Dan Hardin.

Chowning, pictured below with her husband, Richard, died June 14 during a church meeting in the West African nation of Benin. The Chownings have worked among the Aja people in Benin since 1997.


Cyndi Chowning was retrieving something from her vehicle during the meeting when she was hit by a motorcycle, according to a fellow missionary.

Her husband rushed her to the hospital in the nearby town of Azove, in hopes that she could be stabilized for the trip to a larger hospital in Cotonou. But Cyndi Chowning died in Azove from injuries sustained in the accident.

“Cyndi was loved by so many Aja Christians,” said Randy Vaughn, a missionary in Aplahoue, Benin. “She served them humbly, quietly, faithfully and always with great passion.”

Her funeral was scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday, June 24, at the Park Avenue Church of Christ in Denison, Texas, where the Chownings’ son-in-law, Wes Encalade, serves as youth and family minister.

Family members requested memorial contributions to assist in completion of a clinic and primary school in Benin.

Hardin, 73, died June 19 at a hospital in Austin, Texas, after a long illness.

Hardin and his wife, Joyce, pictured below, served as missionaries to Korea from the late 1950s until the mid-1970s. Dan Hardin served as president of Korea Christian University.


Sid Allen, a missionary with Texas-based Rapha International, described Dan Hardin as "a coworker, mentor and friend." The two met in 1958 at a retreat for church members serving in the military in South Korea, where Allen served in the Air Force.

Dan Hardin had multiple graduate degrees and was fluent in the Korean language. He developed rheumatoid arthritis in the early 1970s, "but did not let misshaped hands and feet keep him from getting on with life," Allen said.

After returning to the United States, Dan Hardin taught missions at Abilene Christian University in Texas. The couple later moved to Lubbock and served Lubbock Christian University for 24 years. Dan Hardin chaired the Bible department and Joyce Hardin served chaired the school's education department until she retired in 2000.

Dan and Joyce Hardin were active in the work of Missions Resource Network in Bedford, Texas, and were members of the Lake Travis Church of Christ in Lakeway, Texas. Dan Hardin served as a minister and elder of the congregation.

"He was an innovative educator and author," Allen said. "He excelled in hobbies — artist, master magician, scuba diver, locksmith, carpentry and computer programming, among others."

The Westover Hills Church of Christ in Austin hosted Dan Hardin’s funeral June 22.


MEMORIAL CONTRIBUTIONS

Memorial donations for Cyndi Chowning may be sent to the Chownings’ sponsoring congregation:

Homewood Church of Christ
265 W. Oxmoor Rd
Birmingham, AL 35209
Attn: Cyndi Chowning memorial

Memorial donations for Dan Hardin may be sent to the Samoa Missions Fund:

Lake Travis Church of Christ.
P.O. Box 340730
Austin, TX 78734
Attn: Samoa Missions Fund

Trying not to get hacked about getting hacked

(By Erik)

Today was a weird day — weird in a bad way.

A few days earlier I wrote a story for the Chronicle’s Web site about the tragic death of a missionary in the West African country of Benin — Cyndi Chowning. Cyndi and her husband, Richard, have been great sources. They’ve been doing a wonderful work among a group of people known as the Aja.

I added to the story the sad news of the death of longtime missionary and missions professor Dan Hardin. Dan and his wife, Joyce, have been great sources about the work in Asia and I’ve greatly valued their assistance.

Tamie Ross, our online editor, got the story on the site for me on Friday. Earlier today, e-mailed all of my international contacts and provided them with a link to the story.

About lunchtime here in Oklahoma someone hacked into the Chronicle’s Web site and replaced the text of my story with a profanity-laced declaration that basically read, “Ha ha, I hacked your site.”

That’s a kinder, gentler, paraphrase of what he wrote. I’m amazed that some people have the technical prowess to hack through multiple layers of security, yet can’t spell simple words. The hacker claimed that, instead of praying to the one true God, he was “preying to the metal gods.”

It’s praying to the metal gods. Preying is what you were doing to our Web site. If you’re going to go to the trouble of desecrating our site, at least do us the courtesy of a grammar check.

Anyway, this all happened just about at the same time that many of my contacts were opening their e-mail and following the link. Not good!

Our Web administrator restored our site to its previous state, although my story got lost in the shuffle and I can’t figure out how to get it back. So I may include it on this blog tomorrow.

In our Bible study tonight we talked about a man named Shimei. He was a relative of Saul, and as a result he had a longtime hatred of King David. When David was fleeing from his son, Absalom, Shemei followed alongside David and threw stones and cursed at him. (This is in 2 Samuel 16 or thereabout.)

Abishai, one of David’s men, wanted to kill Shimei, but David told him to stay his hand. “Let him curse, for the Lord has told him to,” David said. “It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today."

Later David returned to his throne, and Shimei begged his forgiveness. Again Abishai wanted to kill him, but David let him live. Still later, just before he died, David told his son, Solomon, to kill Shimei.

The story ends badly, but I think that — at least for a while — David did the right thing.

It’s very frustrating to me that the hacker chose my story — about the loss of two great missionaries — as a target for his prank.

But I forgive him, even though he’s unlikely to ever ask for my forgiveness.

(Incidentally, if you’re wondering who the “metal gods” are, I believe the pantheon includes Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Judas Priest and Jethro Tull — a controversial choice that only made it into this select group because in 1989 they won the first Grammy awarded in the category of ‘hard rock/heavy metal’ album, much to the dismay of fans of also-nominated Metallica. It's probably better if you don't ask me how I know all this.)