Traveling Mercies Ministry

During the 45 years I spend as a scientist and engineering manager, I believed in Darwinian Evolution. I was taught Evolution in school, and I took courses in Paleontology and Geology in college which supported changes occurring over millions of years of Earth's history. During my career, I met a number of scientists who professed to be Christians, and they seemed to be able to harmonize their faith with their understanding of science. Some of those were world-class scientists, by the way. No one ever talked to me about Creationism. When I became a follower of Jesus Christ in the year 2000 (at age 60). I believed the Bible was a true historical account dictated to men by God, who wrote it down, but there remained a nagging problem with the millions of years of geological history. I embraced the Gap Theory, and shoehorned the millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, as many Christians have done. Because Satan was already in his fallen state in Genesis 3:1, his fall had to ha...

If you are familiar with my testimony, you know that the book "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel was pivotal in my coming to belief that the Bible was true. The Bible tells us that (1 Peter 3:15) we should always be prepared to defend what we believe and why we believe it. Strobel's books are filled with information that can be used when confronted by sceptics. Now I have found a similar book that provides additional evidence, but from a different perspective. Strobel is a lawyer and, as an atheist,  used the techniques employed by lawyers to find the truth in a courtroom scenario. He put the Bible on trial, and lost the case. He subsequently became a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. J. Warner Wallace is a retired Homicide Detective, and his book "Cold - Case Christianity" uses criminalist science to show the New Testament was written by eye-witnesses. Furthermore, these witnesses were familiar with the geography, culture and language of the places t...

Years ago, before atheists came up with political correctness, and other nonsense, there was the Democratic FarmerLabor Party and the Republican Party which replaced the Whigs and Torries, for some reason. The Democratic Party was the political representative of the common working man, who was honest, hard working, a patriot and believed in freedom of religion. While some members of the party might be described is having liberal views, most were very conservative.They believed that big business was their adversary, and sought to exploit the workers. Thus, they aligned with labor unions who promised to get them better pay and benefits if they would give them a portion of their pay. The Republican Party was the representative of the business owner and the management of large corporations. Most members were honest, hard-working, a patriot and believed in freedom of religion. While some members of the party might be described as having liberal views, most were intensely conservative. T...

Amongst all the yakking about assault rifles is the media implication that assault rifles are extremely powerful guns that make huge holes in people. That is not the case. The AR-15 rifles fire a 22 caliber round that was designed to be small and lightweight so a soldier could carry more ammo. Hunting rifles fire larger, more powerful cartridges that are intended to drop a moose or bear with one s hot. I wouldn't try to bear hunt with an AR-15 - it's too small. From the time of the Civil War through the Korean war, soldiers carried rifles that fired really big cartridges which were lethal beyond 200 yards (one shot, one kill). Beginning with the Vietnam war the AR-15/M-16 weapons were used for close combat, spraying lots of lead quickly. Most of our Congressmen know this, but our president, who has never been in the military apparently does not. The reason the original assault weapons ban was allowed to expire, was that is was ineffective. Be informed - do not su...

Monday, and I am packing up to leave Detroit and head for Minnesota. After spending a week in the Detroit area, my impression is considerably more favorable than you might expect. Suburban Detroit is upscale with large green areas. Downtown is cleaner and better looking than you may have heard. The city is suffering a serious lack of money, and is close to bankrupt. Nevertheless, they have great museums and summer activities. People who come here temporarily, tend to stay permanently. Many people questioned why I wanted to visit Detroit when I announced my plans to come here. I am a car buff, and I wanted to visit the auto museums. You will find pictures of my travels on Facebook here - http://www.facebook.com/james.houchens.

In February, I went on my third trip to Israel with a group of Pastors, sponsored by NET Travel (Near East Travel - www.netours.com ). Net is owned by Palestinian Christians, and has been in business since 1964. They did a great job of showing many more things than I saw on my previous two trips. We traveled from Galilee through Samaria, stopping to drink water from Jacob’s well. Our Palestinian hosts were gracious and friendly, and we had no problems in our several passages through security checkpoints. At this time, I see no issues for Americans to travel within the Palestinian territories. Unlike most tour groups, we spent an entire day in Bethlehem. Again, we enjoyed eating lunch in Arab restaurants, who serve very tasty food. NET also offers an itinerary through the NEGEV desert which gives you the opportunity to see the light show at Masada in the evening. NET owns 8 hotels and 30 tour buses. They coordinated our itinerary through MTS travel here in the United States – www.mtstra...

On Saturday, I attended the annual meeting of the University of Minnesota Alumni Association in Naples, FL. Every year the University brings some of the brightest and best researchers to report on their technology. The keynote speaker was Dr. John Wagner, Professor of Pediatrics, Director of the Division of Hematology-Oncology and Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Co-Director of the Center for Translational Medicine, School of Medicine. As a pediatrician, Dr. Wagner has specialized in debilitating diseases of children. His work with adult stem cells has produced spectacular results in curing Leukemia and some other diseases that I can't pronounce. He then turned his efforts to diseases that are either incurable or existing treatments are inadequate. He showed pictures of children with these diseases that were revolting. Conventional treatment would call for strong chemotherapy, which would destroy the immune system, then bone marrow transplant to rebuild the immune system - ofte...