friend who is involved in AIDS education in the Republic of Haiti, a troubled nation that I called home for one year back in the 70’s, while I served as the Administrator of a small mission hospital in the mountains high above Port-au-Prince.

· An e-mail conversation with another friend – a West Point alumna and recent graduate of Harvard Business School. She is spending her Fulbright Scholarship doing AIDS research in Singapore on behalf of a pharmaceutical company.

· An e-mail conversation with my son’s Romanian father-in-law – written partly in Romanian, English and French.

· Christmas greetings via phone and e-mail with friends in Quebec City – mostly in English, but partly in French.

· Dinner a few days before Christmas with a special family I have come to lovein Newton, MA. Among the ethnic strains and heritage represented in this remarkable extended family are Armenian, Greek, Turkish, Egyptian, Indonesian (Sumatra), and American Jewish!

· A phone call on Christmas Eve from Moscow as it was turning midnight there. Vasili Zhuravlev, a TV anchor and journalist who calls himself my “Russian son” was calling to send greetings from him, his wife and new son, his parents, and the many friends I have developed in Moscow from my 10 visits there since 1992.

· A “Merry Christmas” call from a Muslim friend from Morocco.

· Christmas Eve worship in Barrington, NH with my sons –Ti and Scott, daughter-in-law – Raluca, granddaughter, Laurelin. Following a moving service in which Scripture was read in five different languages, we repaired to Ti and Raluca’s