Cooling a Hot Alaska House With Only a Fan

For years when we lived in the Interior of Alaska, we suffered with a hot house on summer evenings. I can remember lying on my back on top of the covers too hot to sleep. The temperature in the house was in the 80's or 90's.....but on the other side of the wall, only a few inches away, the temperature was ten or twenty degrees cooler. Alaska houses are designed to retain heat, so cooling them down on long hot summer evenings can be a problem.

About 15 years ago we learned a trick, and since then we have never suffered from an overly hot house in Alaska. Anchorage set a new official temperature record today (81F, 2 degrees above the previous record), but the house has not been uncomfortable.

The trick is a box fan in the window. We open two windows on opposite sides of the house. We press the box fan up against the screen and keep it in place (in our present house) with a cord secured on either side of the window with screw eyes. The fan takes air from the cool side of the house and exhausts warm inside air out another window.

It seems to be important that the fan is pressed up against the screen. We have tried placing a fan near the window and the effectiveness is markedly reduced. We also cover those parts of the window not covered by fan. The point seems to be to create enough pressure from the fan that the air has to exhaust out another window...which in turn draws in more cool outside air.

If we don't want the noise of the fan, we draw air through a window in the room we want to cool (like where we are sleeping, for example) and exhaust warm air elsewhere in the house. Since warm air rises, we use the fan trick upstairs.

Transformational Living

More than 2 in 3 prisoners returned to American society in 1994 committed another crime which landed them back in jail. There is a basic flaw in a correctional system that has such a high rate of failure to correct. We are as a society just warehousing criminals and then returning them to the streets...in many cases with new skills and contacts for perpetrating more serious crimes.

And we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world: 751 locked up per 100,000 population. Even Russia is less with 627 per 100,000.

But there is a ray of hope for turning around the lives of prisoners. I met it last night at the Hiland Mountain Correctional Center in Eagle River. It is the Transformational Living Community operated at several prisons around the US. Here's what the Alaska Correctional Ministries website has to say about the program:

"The Transformational Living Community (TLC) is an intensive 12-18 month faith-based residential therapeutic program within the prison setting focusing God's transforming power relative to the issues of addiction and life controlling problems in an offenders life. The recidivism rate currently is between 11-15% for those who complete the program and have returned to the community. This compares to a general national norm of about 70%.

This multi-phase program is designed to provide a new alternative to traditional types of correctional rehabilitation programs in which the spiritual dimension of an offender's life becomes the primary gateway to habilitation. Prisoners volunteer to be admitted and may volunteer to leave at any time. The residents live together in a positive, supportive community environment and are expected to embrace high levels of personal accountability, responsibility, and commitment to change. Every aspect of the program is designed to help the residents embrace and internalize truth, and to make the kind of changes that are necessary, so that when they come back into the community they will be a person much better equipped for return to society."

A group of us visited Hiland last night and saw a presentation of how the Community works and met 20-some women who volunteered for the program. Participants in the community live and study together and support one another. "I am my sister's keeper", a large banner ready. A mural depicting Jesus standing on the water lifting Peter from the waves fills a wall. The letters in a large "Transformational Warriors" banner are filled with scripture verses.

A chaplain whose meager salary is paid by donors is the shepherd for this small flock. Volunteer mentors from "outside" visit every week and spend time with inmates.

We listened as the inmates sang songs of faith in Christ. Two shared movingly about their broken lives. A former Hiland inmate who came with us talked about how Jesus had been the key to transformation in her life. As I looked into each face, I saw a common element in their eyes: hope!

The community is made possible by a willing correctional center administration and the contributions of churches. The TLC is entirely faith-based, and could not exist without theses contributions.

The astonishing success of the TLC is due to the transforming power of Christ. Prison experts we talked with said nothing else comes remotely close to this.

Between Passover and Pentecost

We are on May 17 in the days between Passover and Pentecost; between the Old Testament feast memorializing the passing over of the Jews by the Death Angel at the beginning of the Exodus, and the New Testament holy day memorializing the Fall of Holy Spirit in Jerusalem.

The Passover that was has for Christ followers become the Easter that is. At Passover, the blood of lambs smeared on the door frames of Israelite homes in Egypt purchased protection from the Death Angel. On that first Easter weekend, the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, purchased protection from death for all who following Him. Said another way, Christ's Good Friday sacrifice on Easter morning opened the doors of Heaven -- much like the blood of lambs at Passover opened the door to the Promised Land long before.

In the centuries before Pentecost the Holy Spirit was given to a few for specific purposes. At Pentecost, God fulfilled the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:31-34 and sent the Holy Spirit for the first time to all who believe.

Frank Bartleman observed that Pentecost opens a possibility to walk where the flesh no longer sets the agenda. The fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, etc....these are signs of Holy Spirit baptism. Walking in the Spirit is walking in the way of the cross with Holy Spirit leading.

But, will we arrive at the fullness of Pentecost where the fruits of the Spirit operate in us, or are we lingering at the glory of Easter? It is a good thing to believe in Jesus and to follow Him, but it is an even better thing to also have the power of the Holy Spirit working in us.

Let us press forward to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the supernatural power that comes with it to do the works of Christ !

The Castle, the Cathedral and the Smokestacks

I originally published this in 2003, I believe. A shorter form of this also appeared in the Anchorage Daily News.

In a beautiful city whose skyline boasts the distinctive shape of a castle of Swedish kings and the soaring spires of the flagship cathedral of the Church of Sweden, the very tall smokestacks of Uppsala's Vattenfall seem at first a little out of place. But I came to understand over the course of a year spent there recently that they, like the castle and the cathedral, are monuments in their own right.

The purposes of the castle and the cathedral were fairly obvious, but I did not for some months understand the purposes of the smokestacks. They were not far from our house, and each time I stepped out, I could see them over the tops of the trees near our house. I thought they were simply industrial smokestacks. A neighbor explained them to me one day in excellent English.

The heat always on during cold days and nights in our multi-unit house was piped to us from the Vattenfall (= waterfall) plant, he said. Electricity comes from the same source; augmented, of course, by a regional electric power grid. What surprised me about what he said was that waste burnables are also burned here, and contribute to heat and light. It was a cool afternoon, but even so, the smoke was not very visible. Efficient scrubbers cleaned most of the particulates out of the smoke stream.

Nearly all of Uppsala is heated from the plant at the base of the Vattenfall smokestacks. Steam radiates out through the community in subterranean corridors. Radiators in the floor or along the walls or in heat exchangers are always on in inverse proportion to outside temperature. Individual radiator controls allow for variation within a building.

We had pieced together much of the rest of the system over our preceding months in the community. We had learned early on that trash must be separated before disposal: source sorting it is called. The signs - in Swedish -- on the garbage containers outside our row house were cryptic at first, but my lexicon clarified that the biggest was for burnables. Another was for organic material - compost. Others were for cardboard or heavy paper, hard plastic, and metal. Disposal trucks came on a regular schedule to haul away one or the other. Our house association paid for this.

We could throw away plastic drink containers if we wanted, but the fact was we were strongly motivated to return them to a grocery store. The bigger containers had a return deposit fee of about $0.40. Besides….it was fun to put the bottles in the automated return devices. We put them in headfirst, waited for the green light and put in the next bottle. Crates of beverage bottles could be returned for credit in specialized machines in larger stores. Beverages packaged in aluminum cans had automated machines, too, and printed credit slips just like those for plastic. We would hand the bar-coded credit slip to the cashier, and reduce the overall price for our grocery items.

If you looked at my list above closely, you might have noticed the absence of glass waste, newspapers and magazines. Glass items we cleaned and brought to large round-top containers scattered around the community marked "colored" and "clear." Swedes use more glass in packaging food than we do. Light bulbs had to go into yet another container, as did dry cell batteries. Newspapers and magazines we placed in a central location in the common area of the house. They were bagged monthly and left out for the recycling trucks.

We never threw away anything large, like a television set, a car, or a computer, but each of these have disposal procedures as well. I think the largest item I disposed of was our small Christmas tree. I cut off its limbs, cut the trunk in half and placed it among the burnables. Sometime later it returned to us in the form of electricity and heat.

There is more to the recycling system than I have indicated here. Our limited command of the language kept us from more fully understanding its intricacies, but what we saw impressed us with its integration and completeness. We never thought it onerous or complicated. We quickly adapted to life with multiple disposal containers.

While we observed a bit of litter in some particularly public places, by and large, Sweden is an exceptionally clean country. A well-entrenched recycling system contributes to that, but I believe it is also true that most Swedes are temperamentally inclined to keep their surroundings clean.

Pollution is a fact of life wherever people live, but Swedes have done an impressive job of reducing the fouling of their air and water. The waters of Lake Mälaren flow in several channels through Stockholm, the capital and largest city. In the summer months, some Swedes fish right downtown - and the fact that they can and do eat their catch is a remarkable testament of their national commitment to clean air and water.

While I recognize great differences exist between Sweden and Alaska, there may be some lessons for us here. Uppsala is about the latitude of Homer, and the climate is somewhat similar to Anchorage, although a little warmer in winter.

People in Uppsala don't seem to think much about recycling and sorting their waste…it's just the way these people live. It is an obviously more expensive system than that here, but seems to me to have advantages in reducing waste and energy costs.

My first glimpses of Uppsala took in with admiration the huge spires of the cathedral. Built beginning in the 13th century, it is a national treasure and a testament to the Christian heritage of the nation. Only slightly newer, the castle occupies a commanding hill nearby. Unusual in shape, it is still obviously a building of significance in the community. While I admire these two edifices, I find my imagination returning again and again to the tall Vattenfall smokestacks and the carefully organized system of recycling and reuse they represent that is so well applied in this ancient Swedish city.

The Book of books

Here's what showed up this week on the NY Times Best Seller list:

1. LIBERTY AND TYRANNY, by Mark R. Levin
2. OUTLIERS, by Malcolm Gladwell
3. COLUMBINE, by Dave Cullen
4. ALWAYS LOOKING UP, by Michael J. Fox
5. THE GIRLS FROM AMES, by Jeffrey Zaslow

Perhaps these are all good and worthwhile books, but none is familiar to me. Chances are very good in 50 years, they will be more or less unknown. In a 100 years, they will be antiques.

There's another book that isn't on the list. It's the best seller every week of every year. It is not listed because it would always be number one.

That book is the Bible. There have also been more Bibles printed than any other book; I've seen estimates ranging from 2.5 to about 6 billion since the invention of the printing press. It has been translated into over 2,000 languages, and more language versions are appearing every year.

At first it was copied letter by letter onto parchment or papyrus scrolls by scribes who went far beyond careful to insure there were not copying errors. The text we use today has an incredibly small number of differences from copies made almost 2,000 years ago.

The Bible is not just one book; it's 66 different books written over a span of around 1500 years. We believe the Bible was written by people inspired by God.

And what it really is is a love letter from God to man. When you look at it as a whole, what you see is this incomprehensible love of God for humanity. The story line throughout all these books is this: He made us, but we have often turned away from him, still he keeps pursuing us with a love that will not quit. That story continues even today. Here is a very small sample from the book of Jeremiah (29:11):

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

This book of books; this Bible will open doorways for you, as it has me, into a life of connectedness with the God of the universe. All we have to do is read it and let these timeless truths change our hearts.

The Real Significance of Easter

Give or take a few years, today is the 1,982nd anniversary of THE pivotal event in human history. It is the one event that has shaped people and humanity more than any other before or since.

On one level, I have nothing new to tell you. This is an old, old story about a cross and an empty tomb and being saved from the wrath of God, and Satan and sin and Hell. A few billion people are hearing this basic story around the Earth on this day. Interestingly, our brothers and sisters in Eastern Orthodox Christianity celebrate Easter next weekend....but that's another story.

But what if this year there was a new wrinkle in the story? What if archaeologists had found the bones of a man they had identified as Jesus of Nazareth; a man crucified. And what if after months of study, archaeologists concluded that without a doubt this man had been the Jesus of the New Testament.

What would that do to your faith? Would you be able to soldier on as a Christian? I'll tell you what it would have done to my faith: I would cease being a Christian.

But I am here to tell you that the bones of Jesus will never be found on this planet. Let's review what happened on those three amazing spring days 2,000 years ago, and then I'm going to tell you why you and I can have unshakable confidence in Christ's resurrection and all that it means.

I am fascinated by how Isaiah 53 foretells the first part of the story with uncanny accuracy. The accuracy is particularly uncanny in that it was written 700 years before Christ.

The basics of the first part of the story – the Good Friday part – are well known. The Apostle John tells the story from his first-hand experience in John 19:16-42. Each of the Gospels have this basic story, but each approaches it a little differently.

From the viewpoint of the outside world looking into Jerusalem on that day, what happened must have not seemed very different than any other day. Here is the “10,000 foot view:”

• In late March or early April of about the year 27, a Jewish carpenter who was leading some kind of miracle movement was sentenced to death by crucifixion.
• His was not the only crucifixion that day, and probably not the only one that week.
• The Romans had perfected crucifixion. It was an exquisitely cruel method of using gravity and nails to slowly and agonizingly execute criminals, rebels, and others that got in their way. Swedes call Good Friday, the day of Jesus' death, Långfredag which means "long Friday" in memory of the suffering of Jesus over many hours.
• History tells us that crucifixion was commonly used from Rome to Persia for about 1,000 years. It was finally abolished out of veneration for Jesus about AD 300 by Constantine, the first Christian emperor of the Roman Empire.
• The Jews were a particularly difficult-to-govern people in the Roman empire and the provincial governors must have thought crucifixion would help keep the population under their control.
  

Basically, the crucifixion of the Jewish carpenter was just one more in a long line of them. It wasn't big news....at least when the crucifixion got started. This crucifixion didn't follow the usual pattern, however.

First, and for no apparent reason, the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place in the temple was torn from top to bottom. Second, there was a violent earthquake and the sun went dark. And even one of the soldiers recognized that this man he had helped to kill was special, and called him a son of God.

While it was still light, the soldiers gave Jesus body to Joseph and Nicodemus, and they prepared His body for burial and laid it in a tomb. The Chief Priest asked permission to seal the tomb, and guard it with soldiers, and that is what they did. That was the end of the first day.

Night fell, and it was the Sabbath. The Gospels are silent about the events of this day, but Jesus body lay in the tomb all day. The soldiers continued guarding his tomb. The disciples must have been in shock. What must have been going on in the minds of the disciples on this Sabbath day? Fear and doubt must have been right there at the top of their fevered imaginations. The Gospels record that they kept their doors locked for fear of the Jews. I doubt they slept much.

The religious elite must have been expecting to finally have been done with that troublesome Nazarene....but surely they were struggling on this Sabbath because the crucifixion did not go as they planned. And the people who had a week earlier cried Hosanna, Hosanna must have wondered what had happened to the man they hoped would be king.

But then night fell again, and it was the third day; the day we now call Easter Sunday. Let's pick up the story in John 20:1-19.

Most people, at least here in the West, whether Christ followers or not, have heard the story of Jesus' resurrection. Why do we still believe this incredible story after nearly 20 centuries have passed? Let's take a look at some of the proofs:

• First of all, the Bible tells us so. There are four separate accounts, essentially the same, by four different authors. Matthew and John witnessed the events first hand. Mark wrote down the words of Peter (according to Church tradition) and Luke interviewed eyewitnesses. There is general agreement in the stories, but not so much as to suggest collusion.
• Doubters suggest that Jesus didn't really die; that He just swooned. But the scourging was enough to kill some, and that combined with crucifixion was enough to kill the strongest. Even if He had survived that and the spear thrust to the heart, he would have suffocated in nearly 100 pounds of linen and burial spices.
• People of the first century world did not believe in life after death, with the exception of a few sects of Judaism, and they believed in an afterlife, not life on earth after death. That Jesus returned to actual living life on earth burst like a bombshell in the first century and that is why Christianity spread so quickly -- people rightly interpreted this as a powerful sign from Heaven, and they are still interpreting it that way today.
• Acts 6:7 records this astonishing statement: "So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith." I'll bet I read that a dozen times before the other shoe dropped. These priests were invested in the Jewish religious system: why would they lose it all by becoming disciples of Jesus? It's because the resurrection happened, and everyone in Jerusalem knew it.
• Peter turned from a coward to a bold lion. How did that happen? Because he had seen the resurrected Jesus. It was the same with the other disciples. Here were men who had fled in the night on Thursday who on Sunday suddenly had, and kept, courage to proclaim their faith even to the point of death. Will people die for a lie? If they had made up the story of Jesus resurrection, would they be willing to die for their fabrication?
• What would it take for you to worship your brother as God? In Jesus case, resurrection from the dead had that effect for His brothers. Two of Jesus' brothers were transformed from doubters to believers and became leaders in the early Church, and wrote books in the NT.
• Then there is the evidence of dramatic transformation in my own life and the lives of people around us, and men and women through history
  

There are many proofs that the resurrection of Jesus is really true. These are just a few.

The real significance of Easter is that the reality of Jesus as God burst into the minds of men and women. It is still bursting into our minds today almost 2000 years later.

If Jesus rose alive from the dead, then the Good News of the Kingdom of God is the best news of history. It is hope for you and it is hope for me and it is hope for every person who ever lives.

It is hope for a life without drama; hope for healing; for deliverance; hope for peace; hope for forgiveness of all that we have done wrong that separates us from God.

Jesus did not come to us as a mighty king, but humbly, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey. He does not command us as a king, but as a suffering servant, He offers us entrance to his Kingdom. He does not call us servants, but friends.

The real significance of Easter is the same today as it was on that first Easter: Christ has purchased our pardon, and He has opened a way back to God. He has made possible eternal life with God instead of eternal separation and torment. We now have a true and living hope.

If today you are far from God, His kingdom is closer than you think. You need only repent of your sins and ask the Lord to forgive you. In the Book of Romans, it is written that that if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Happy Easter!

Fireproof

Linda and I just went to see Fireproof at one of the movie theaters in Anchorage. I was impressed....and moved.

If your marriage is not great, or even if it is, this is worth seeing. Guys: major wife points to go to this one. I think you'll probably be glad you went, too.

Misty Fjords

A friend living in Ketchikan invited Linda and I down for a visit earlier this week. It was an amazing trip in one of the most stunning parts of North America. Rob owns Classic Alaska Charters and operates overnight adventure cruises in the Ketchikan area of southeast Alaska.

It's wet by any measure, but the atmospheric moisture is what makes it what it is, and there is a fierce beauty all around.