A Texas Town Called Paris The link above will take you to a song I co-wrote with an AI app (ChatGPT). The song was sung by an AI app called Suno about my hometown, Paris, Texas. First let me say up front, I have little musical talent. But, I can write. To write a song using AI for assistance with rhymes and flow, I start by writing what I want to accomplish with my song, the genre, tempo, and whether I wanted a male or female vocalist. In this case I wanted a country genre, 90's heartland...

When we lived in Kenya, some of my favorite moments came from being in a Masai boma, surrounded by fellow missionaries and Maasai pastors. Life there moved at a different pace—slower, simpler—and I almost always had my camera in my hand. Over time, the villagers grew used to me, used to the quiet click of the shutter as I tried to capture pieces of their world. One day, a group of American visitors arrived from a church back in the States. They came bearing gifts—bags of candy—and before...

All I ever knew him as was “Old Man Edwards.” He lived just behind our house when I was growing up in Paris. To us kids, he was something of a mystery—an eccentric old man with a gift for carpentry. Day after day, under the hot sun, he built small clapboard shacks, only to tear them down and start again. Nothing was wasted. He saved every board, every nail. I don’t recall ever seeing him throw a single one away. As I remember, he had been a World War I veteran. Back then, they called it...