Thanksgiving 2012 in Southern California

Before I get started on this post... This is the holiday season, and soon it will be Christmas!  Take a quick look down the sidebar at the right.  I know you're plenty busy at this time of year, but if you have a few minutes, come back and watch Andy, as he "uncomplicates" Christmas!  He's an exceptionally good speaker, and you'll be glad you took the time.  I guarantee it!

Okay... about 3 weeks ago, Paula and I borrowed our son's car and drove from Colorado to the West Coast to visit our youngest daughter, Andrea, who lives with her husband, Anthony, in Lomita (just south of Los Angeles).  They were married here in Colorado more than a year ago, but this was our first opportunity to visit them in California.  The weather was absolutely perfect for the 1050-mile drive out, and was just as good for the trip back.  No rain, no snow, anywhere along the way!

But it was more than just a holiday weekend for us.  Believe it or not, there is a PROJECT BUCHANAN connection in this "trip report"!  So please read on...

Paula loves going to the ocean, where she likes to get the sand between her toes and dip her feet in the water.  So Andrea took us down to the beach a couple of times.

Now me... I'd rather keep my shoes on, and scan the water for birds we don't normally encounter in Colorado--like wintering grebes and loons, or a Brown Pelican flying overhead!...

...or just watch the variety of west-coast gulls and terns that have gathered on the shore to soak up their share of the California sunshine!

One definite highlight of our trip to California was the opportunity to visit with Deuk Hyun, a foreign student who a few years ago lived in our home here in Colorado while he was attending the high school where I taught science.  He took me to Koreatown in LA where we enjoyed dinner at a Korean BBQ, and then we went to a coffee shop to chat some more!  He is now in his 2nd year of college in LA.

One afternoon Andrea and Anthony took us to the Samuel Oschin  Pavilion at the California Science Center in Los Angeles to see the recently retired space shuttle Endeavour.

Of course we had to pose with Andrea next to this model of a rover that was sent to explored the surface of Mars.  But most of the memorabilia in this fabulous exposition have to do with the era of the NASA space shuttles.

Finally... we entered the hangar that had been specially built for the 122-ft Endeavour.  (By the way, this is the only space shuttle to have received its name, as the result of a competition among elementary and secondary students.  It was named after Captain James Cook's ship HMS Endeavour that, in 1768, embarked on a voyage for scientific research and discovery in the South Pacific.  Hence, the British spelling of the orbiter's name!) The Endeavour's first flight was in May of 1992.  Altogether it successfully completed 25 missions into space, orbiting the Earth 4,651 times and flying a total of 122,883,151 miles!  Endeavour's final mission was in May of 2011.

The 139 astronauts that flew on the Endeavour during its 19 years of service included the first African-American female astronaut (Mae Jemison), the first Japanese astronaut with the shuttle program (Mamoru Mohri), and the first married couple to fly on the same space mission (Mark Lee and Jan Davis).  The Endeavour was also the first shuttle to service the Hubble Space Telescope.  On that mission in December of 1993, astronauts were able to make the technically challenging corrections in the telescope that would allow us finally to get crisp images of the galaxies in deep space.

On the runway, the Endeavour stood 57 feet tall!

No fewer than 23,000 ceramic tiles cover the surface of the Endeavour, especially on its underside.

These tiles protected the Endeavour from the temperature extremes to which the shuttle was exposed in space, and especially the searing heat (about 3000 degrees F!) that it experienced as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere at 25 times the speed of sound (18,000 mph)!

Manufactured by the Rockwell International Corporation in Palmdale, California, the Endeavour has now returned to it's home state for a well-deserved retirement.  [If you're ever in LA, be sure to visit the California Science Center.  Admission to see the Endeavour is free, but you need to reserve a time slot for entering the exhibit!]

Thanks, Andrea and Anthony, for such a great experience!

Andrea loves her two cats!  (Notice her sweater!)  She is holding 'Madea;' her other cat is 'Archimedes!'  You guessed it--she follows the movies and she's a math teacher!  (Or do you need to go online to research these names?)  Besides taking time out for her cats, Andrea must also spend a lot of time at home on her laptop, preparing math lessons.

Before we left town on Monday, Andrea wanted me to come to her school in LA and talk to her students about PROJECT BUCHANAN in Liberia and what Paula and I are doing there to provide education for kids in a post-war country.  What a great time we had in her classroom that day!  In my presentations, I used some PowerPoint, and then we went online to have a look at this blog (!) and to use Google Maps to zoom in on the actual project site in Buchanan.  In the satellite photos, you can actually see the sand pile next to the first building that is still under construction!

So... to you guys in Mrs. Van Dunk's classes... just in case you're checking out my blog, here are a few picture that your teacher took while I was speaking.  Maybe you can find "you", or a few of your friends, in these photos!  You guys were the best!

"Buchanan is a small city on Liberia's Atlantic coast," I told the students.  "In this town of 34,000 people, there are 15,000 kids under the age of 15.  We are building a brand new school where they will be able to get a quality education and so be able to follow their dreams.

"Not every Liberian kid has the chance to go to school, but every one of them has a 'computer' behind those eyes.  Every kid has the potential to 'download information' and then grow up to make a positive difference in the world.  Every one of these children should have the opportunity to go to school and be well-educated.

"Here's your chance to make a difference," I told the students in LA.  "Most of you guys can speak Spanish.  This means that you, too, could chose a career in education and then go somewhere to change the world of an underprivileged kid--anywhere from here in California, all the way to the tip of South America!

"To quote Andy Stanley: 'My life is too small a thing to give my life for!'

"It's one opportunity at a time...  For example, on one of our recent visits to Liberia, there was this kid next door, whose name was Timothy.  He wanted to go down to the marsh with me, hoping that I would let him look at a few birds through my telescope.

"Of course, I let him tag along.  And then there was Timothy's moment of discovery... as his eye adjusted for the first time to the crystal-clear, close-up view of a bird through my 'scope!

"'Yes, Timothy, that's for real!  That's an African Pygmy-Goose!'

"'And those are White-Faced Whistling-Ducks!'

"You could tell, by the look on his face, what he was thinking: 'Wow!  This is so cool!  I could really get used to this!'  You just never know when you're making a difference... This may have been a life-changer for Timothy, the moment when a future career in scientific research began!"

Timothy speaks English, Liberia's national language, and he goes to school in English; but his African language is Bassa, which is tonal.  On this page from the Bassa New Testament is John 3:16--the verse that in just a few well-chosen words "uncomplicates" Christmas!

What a great week in California it was!  From a little relaxation at the beach...  To renewing acquaintance with a friend...  To Thanksgiving dinner with Andrea and Anthony at a Peruvian diner...  To encouraging students, who live in a small inner-city world, to find their places of service in the bigger picture--the picture that really matters.