If you've ever been to Camp Fairhaven, you've probably met Dunkin. Dunkin is not a person, he's a dog. He belongs to Dave, who is currently one of the directors at the camp.

I've never seen a dog quite like Dunkin. I've never seen a dog so devoted to his master. If Dave is in the camp office, Dunkin will stand just outside the office door and stare at him. Doesn't matter if Dave is in...

At Camp Fairhaven, there is a lake right in the middle of the camp. There are two sets of cabins and lodges on either side of the lake. One is the boys' side, the other is the girls' side. This year, things were different than they have been in the past; this year they couldn't get enough staff to run both sides of the camp, so they moved the boys to the girls' side, and left the boys' side deserted.

With one exception. Since they were using all the cabins on the girls' side, they put me, the Bible teacher,...

Last week I spent a night in the emergency room at Franklin Memorial Hospital (Farmington, ME). Turns out I have gallstones. The doctor discussed my options with me, considering that I wanted to finish out my summer of camp ministry before having surgery. My main issue is, I need to spend the summer on a very low-fat diet.

In other words, no camp food.

I find, though, that people tend to misunderstand what I mean when I tell them I'm on a low-fat diet. When people think "low-fat diet," they think of someone trying to lose weight or lower cholesterol. And...

My neighbors have an orange tiger cat that lives on the porch, and thinks that it belongs to me instead of them. No kidding.

Part of the reason for that is probably the fact that they have a pre-school-age daughter, and (I would imagine) she's a bit rough on the cat. I, on the other hand, always stop to pet the cat when I walk by, so it's natural that the cat would enjoy my company.

During the winter months, particularly when it's very cold outside, the cat more or less lives in front of my door. Either that or he has...

Excellence is defined as: the fact or state of excelling; superiority; eminence

We often use this word when talking about musical performance, academics, and sports. Thinking about the word excellence makes me think of when I learned to play ping-pong.

I was in college, and I used to play against my roommate all the time; late at night we would go down into the dorm basement and play for hours. Neither of us was a great player -- we just had a lot of fun (and wasted a lot of time!).

And we weren't really serious about getting better. Consequently,...

When I was a child, my parents both worked as school teachers. An easy job? No way! If you've never had the experience of standing in front of a group of people and teaching, let me assure you -- it is exhausting work!

And at the end of the day, when classes were over and we returned home, the day wasn't really over. Because there were still papers to grade and lesson plans to write. It seemed like a never-ending job.

But one thing I remember about those days is that, during the spring time, and again in the fall,...

Today I did something I'd never done before in my life. I ran out of gas. I was on my way to teach a Vacation Bible School at a church about 35 minutes away. I'd been going every morning this week. On Monday I glanced at the gas gauge and said: "Oh, plenty of gas." On Tuesday I looked at it again and said: "Still plenty of gas."

And then I never even thought about it for the rest of the week.

Pretty embarrassing to have to call someone to come with five gallons of gas to get me going again!...

Whenever I go to camps, Sunday Schools, or Vacation Bible Schools, I always bring my puppet Jeffrey with me. Jeffrey is a timberwolf, and although he claims to be "fierce and ferocious," he's really "cute and cuddly." And children love to pet him. He's the only one of my puppets that I will let anyone touch.

And the children absolutely love being able to pet him!

Two weeks ago I was teaching a Vacation Bible School, and I had a group of young children (mostly under the age of six years old). As I got to know this group of children, I...

My parents have a very foolish dog. He's a boxer named Duke. They got him when he was more than a year old, which is unusual for them -- they like to train a dog from when he's just a puppy.

This dog has been a source of frustration for my parents. He's got a tongue about the size of the state of Rhode Island, and with one lick he can cover you with drool from your big toenail to your forehead.

He also enjoys chewing on things. Shoes. Jackets. Furniture. Electrical cords. Yeah, electrical cords.

He's even been known...

The world is a scary place.

Several years ago I took a business trip to Israel. While I was there, I stayed in Beersheba, which is known for Abraham's Well. Some of us decided one evening we wanted to see this little piece of Biblical history, so we asked the hotel clerk how to get to it.

He told us to go out of the hotel, down the street, turn in at the bus station, walk through and out the other side of the station, then turn down that street, and the well was at the end.

So that's...