My last entry was around our wedding anniversary - about 5 months ago.  Does that make me an "inactive account"?  At least from my perspective, I have been anything by "inactive"!

To mimic Tolstoy, it's been a period of war and peace. 

WAR:  At work our department is "in default", which means that we are spending more than we are taking in and continue only by the grace of the Dean of the medical school.  Of course, we're working like crazy to turn things around, but this ship has been headed the wrong direction for some time and coordinating the efforts to turn it around will take time - that is, unless at some point the powers that be decide that the time has been long enough and the department gets forcibly combined with some other department that is not in arrears.  We'll know more next July 1, when the new fiscal year starts - or doesn't.

Oh, and I should mention that the chairman stepped down a year and a half ago.  We currently have an "acting chair", which adds to how tenuous the situation is.

PEACE: This is the last of five years for my NIH training grant.  It has been a phenomenal opportunity to learn and do research.  God has been good!  The American Journal of Epidemiology has accepted my functional data analysis paper which focuses on hormones.  I also helped a colleague do the analyses for a paper he was writing that has been accepted by the Lancet (#1 British medical journal).  The clinical trial I helped design and run over the last 4 years has our primary outcome paper on which I am a co-author coming out in the Journal of the American Medical Association in November.  And we have a baseline paper for the same clinical trial that we hope will soon be accepted by another good medical journal.  I hope to have a couple more papers submitted before the end of April (when the grant ends) comes upon me.  It's turning out to be a very profitable year.

WAR:  This is the last of five years for my National Institutes of Health (NIH) training grant.  (Didn't I already say that?)  That also means: find more $$$ or become .... hmmm ... unclear what that something else is.  I am a co-investigator on two grants that have been submitted already.  I have two that I hope to submit for a February 1 deadline.  I know that I will be able to return to teaching some next year (about 20% time), so we'll have to see how things go.  I hope to be able to always have some of my own funding to do my own research in addition to my participation on others' grants as biostatistician or co-investigator.  NIH is currently only funding about 9% of the grants submitted, so competition is fierce and success has become rare.  I do have tenure, but for those who aren't aware, at medical schools in the US this means that you have a guarranteed position - not that you have guarranteed pay.

More WAR:  Becky went back to teaching this year and we thought we had erected some boundaries that would make it "do-able".  While she is teaching only one more course than other teachers, because the science classes are over-full, she has 176 students per day rather than the normal 120-130 that most teachers at school have.  On another front, at church we lost three of nine board members during a six month period this year, good friends who chose to leave for a variety of reasons.  Add to that that we are in the midst of a building program and that there is some tension around the progress of the building.

And more PEACE:  Becca has settled well in Normal at ISU and been blessed with a good job and success in her classes.  We see more of Anne than we have for a couple of years and both enjoy her and are happy about choices she is making and success she is having at work.  Joel found and married a wonderful young woman this summer (TeeTee), so our family has expanded.  (Their experience was rather like the biblical description that says:  2 Chr 29:36  Then Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced over what God had prepared for the people, because the thing came about suddenly.)

And REAL PEACE:  I haven't forgotten:  Jesus is still Lord.  I don't know how often you read through Revelation, but I pass through it at least once every two years as part of my Bible reading program.  I am going through it now and what an encouragement it is!  I believe that Jesus of Nazareth is who He said He was, and that He will return to judge wickedness and rule the earth in kindness and truth, as He said He would.  I will be delivered from my sinful inclinations and freely and joyfully serve Him the way I wish I would now.  And so, regardless the external circumstances (whether seemingly good or bad), I have good reason to have hope and to live worthy of the life He called me to, loving others and making a difference in the world.