Information Super Highway

A fun memory I have involves the Information Super Highway and the World Wide Web. One evening, while we were sitting around the dinner table, Shannon announced that we needed to get on the Information Highway. I had no idea what she was talking about. Shannon was about 13 and had started using computers at school to search for information for her classes. Jason, about 15, had been reading computer magazines for a couple of years and talking with his friend Drew, who had a computer at home. Jason was fascinated by computers and very interested in getting one. Aaron was only 8. He was already using computers at school to work on reading, math, and logic skills with a game called  Treasure Mountain!

As for me, I personally had no idea what the Information Super Highway was, much less where it was located. At that point, I had only recently become brave enough to drive on actual highways. I had a great fear of highways, thanks in part to my mother, who would drive from Detroit to Ann Arbor on Michigan Avenue rather than get on the highway. So when Shannon told me we needed to get on the Information Super Highway, I probably wondered whether she was talking about another highway I was going to have to conquer!

Then Shannon explained what she meant, and I was amazed at what she had learned at school. Aaron immediately perked up, because he wanted to play Treasure Mountain at home. And Jason? Jason saw this as a dream come true. I began thinking that maybe we really did need one of these things. Jason did the research, and before long our first cow-patterned box arrived at the house—with a Gateway 2000 computer inside! Thank you, Shannon, Jason, and Aaron. You opened up a whole new world for me.

Later, three of my young people from Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church in Livonia, Michigan—Kevin, Chris, and Todd—taught me how to use a computer, including how to send email and stay in touch with them when they went off to college. Thank you, Kevin, Chris, and Todd! Somewhere along the way, with their help and the help of a professor at Concordia College in Ann Arbor who helped put a name to my writings, Notes of Hope was born.

And now, all these years later, the Information Super Highway has become part of my daily life—and I’m sure it has become part of yours, too.  Just look at how far we have come. I am here in Indianapolis. You are there. Where are you reading this – which city? Wherever “there” is for you as you read this, we are connected, and for that, I give thanks to God.  I thank God for the Information Super Highway, for the young people who introduced me to this amazing world, and especially for you, my dear friends, who continue to be a part of my life. I am so grateful for you. So very grateful.

Philippians 1:3- “I thank my God every time I remember you.”