Aslan Newsletter of June 12, 1996
Today is my forty-eighth birthday. It's really no big thing, but it does have me thinking a bit about my own mortality. Sometimes Lynn Ann and I still feel like two kids in our early twenties when we loaded our few earthly belongings in the back of a Plymouth Belvedere and headed out after some wild, idealistic dream some two thousand miles from the dusty New Mexico town we grew up in. What a different world we lived in as 12 year old kids in our little town of Portales. Life was a whole lot less complicated then. It must have taken all of 20 minutes to ride from one end of town to the other, but on my twin headlight, single-speed bicycle it seemed like forever.

Through high school there was not one black student in our school system. Actually, I do remember one black girl attending my junior high school for a few weeks. I also vaguely remember the ugly way she was treated - the rock throwing and name calling she experienced during the short time she was at our school. We never dreamed then that we would spend our lives some 40 miles from New York City working with disadvantaged African-American children!

Now some 36 years later I am sitting at my computer penning these few words of thanks to you who are so important and vital to the work God has called us to here. The legacy of Aslan Youth Ministries is LOVE! The troubled Sixties certainly germinated the seed of this work, as Lynn Ann and I saw the enormous injustice done to so many innocent people in our country and wanted to do something - anything - to undo that injustice. However, the reason Aslan continues to touch so many lives in so many wonderful ways is because it is a work of love. Sometimes the discouragements and setbacks make me feel all of my forty-eight years (and some)! However, as long as love is the driving force, Aslan will continue to flourish.

Our sincerest thanks for caring about the work of Aslan through your gifts and prayers. Each and every day new names are added to Aslan's legacy of love - Kerry, Chaun, Melendy, Diana, Lynn, Andre, Mark, Jason, Ebony, Earnest, P.J., Carlos, Edie, Shantaya, Alisha, Monk, LaQuella, Leon, Perry, Quaniesha, Marcus, and on and on and on. Truly, "Love never fails." (I Corinthians 13:8).

Most sincerely,