“Unexplainable: Who Would Gun down a 62-year-old Woman?”
So read the front-page headline of The Bakersfield Californian’s April 29th, 2009 newspaper, highlighting the Monday night shooting death of 62-year-old Iva Craig. Her 54- and 44-year-old-friends were also wounded by a hail of twenty some odd bullets.
As I read Wednesday morning’s article concerning this tragedy, I knew I’d be at Iva Craig’s home that very morning, hoisting the large 10-foot cross upright and right next to where she and her two friends were shot, praying long and hard for her family. Read the rest of this entry »
Tom and God's Plus Sign at Ventura's Surfer's Knoll
From The Long Board To The Long Cross
Surfing hit the Texas Gulf Coast in 1961, when I was fourteen. My sister’s boyfriend knew some California surfers, who visited Galveston Island that summer and brought the long board to the Lone Star state. From what I can recall, I was the fifth or sixth Texan to take up the long board and ride the two to three foot swells of Galveston Bay.
When I caught my first wave, I was hooked.
That summer I gave up the girls for the surf board. Riding waves was both exhilarating and unbelievable. Every morning my friend Louie and I would hitchhike the nine miles from my home in Texas City to the island city. Sometimes we’d actually spend the night on the beach just to wake up to and ride the “glass,” the pristine and gently-breaking waves.
Nothing smelled better than the sun tan oil, the wax, and the surf. Read the rest of this entry »
God bless America and America, bless God
The story is told about a group of college “mathletes” who were returning to their residence hall after an evening of intoxicated pleasure. Suddenly, their drunken leader noticed on the steeple of a church a large cross illuminated by the moon. “Ye mathematicians, look at God’s plus sign!” he yelled for all to hear. The group burst into spontaneous laughter.
One of the students from that prestigious group couldn’t sleep that night. Toward morning he stepped into the leader’s room and shared that the luminous vision of the cross as God’s plus sign (the symbol of His love for mankind) had made him decide to uphold that cross. Seven others from that group followed him and gave their lives to the One who had died on the cross, God’s plus sign. Read the rest of this entry »
Tetrahydrocannabinol. THC for short. The truth is, if marijuana didn’t contain THC, nobody would be smoking it, much less trying to legalize or medicalize it. After all, the real purpose in smoking pot is not to treat the symptoms of a serious illness, but to get high.
The overwhelming majority of young people don’t have terminally-advanced AIDS or cancer. There is not one medically sound reason for a normal and healthy individual to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. Again, the real reason for smoking pot is to get high because the individual simply doesn’t want to cope with or experience the mental and psychological discomfort of what are really normal and everyday problems and situations. Read the rest of this entry »
Just like adults, young people “pack,” or carry, guns or other weapons for four primary reasons: PROTECTION, REVENGE, NOTORIETY, or CRIMINALITY. It can be very scary when a bully threatens to harm you. Getting even may seem to be the only way to save face. Carrying a gun to make others respect you might seem sensible to a youth who isn’t popular. Using a gun to commit a crime and obtain what you do not have might seem to be the only solution. But, are these really good reasons to carry a gun or other weapon? Is this what your parents really want you to do? Here are ten alternative things to carry instead of a gun or other weapon. Read the rest of this entry »
Coming soon: daily “Good News” sermonettes on Jesus Christ.
Check out the Dodge Dakota Sport truck recently donated to Cross Walk Bakersfield and Cross Walk California ministries. Because of this donation, Street Evangelist Tom Alexander will be able to take the large 10-foot, 60-pound cross to many California cities in 2009.
Praise the Lord for a new go-ye-mobile and the opportunity to present the cross of Jesus Christ as God’s Plus Sign to men, women and children living in California cities and towns.
Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom He has redeemed out of the hand of the enemy.
(Psalm 107:2).
I am a born-again Christian, a third day believer. This wasn’t always the case for me. Like the majority of religious and nonreligious people, I had no clue whatsoever that I was completely selfish and self-absorbed, The purpose of my life was to be the purpose of everyone else’s life. I was totally caught up in the “me, myself and I” syndrome.
Then came prison.
At age 22 and as I sat in a crowded jail cell, I felt no remorse at all that I had gone on a state-to-state rampage, first robbing a bank in my hometown of Texas City, Texas and escaping by the skin of my teeth, and then robbing people at gunpoint in their homes throughout California cities and towns, until finally being busted in the northern coastal city of Monterrey. Read the rest of this entry »
In Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who (both the 1954 book and 2008 movie adaptation) and on the 15th of May in the Nool Jungle, Horton the elephant hears a small speck of dust talking to him. Turns out the speck is actually a tiny world and home to a city called Who-ville, which is inhabited by microscopic-sized inhabitants known as Whos.
The Whos ask Horton to protect them from harm. Though he can’t see them, the goodhearted pachyderm is able to hear the tiny people quite well and agrees to protect them, proclaiming throughout the book and the movie that “even though you can’t hear them at all, a person’s a person, no matter how small.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by admin on February 19th, 2008
Cross Walk California got off to a wintry start in the mountain town of Tehachapi on Tuesday, January 22. The very moment I parked the van and stepped out, snow began to fall. And for the next six hours of cross-walking and praying for this city of 13,000 inhabitants, the warmth of the Son filled my heart as I hoisted the 60-pound, ten-foot cross upright at various downtown and residential locations and prayed for great revival to break out in this mountain community.
The response of the people at the sight of a street evangelist carrying a large cross throughout both commercial and residential streets as snow fell was, to say the least, very upbeat and positive. At City Hall I prayed for the mayor, council members and all city employees, that they give their lives to Jesus and allow Him to lead them in all governing decisions for the safety and welfare of the people of Tehachapi. At the headquarters of the city’s newly incorporated police department I hoisted the large cross upright and prayed for the safety of these law enforcement officers as they carry out their sworn duties to protect and serve and for crime to decrease throughout all of Tehachapi. No policemen in sight as I prayed.
Read the rest of this entry »
