Movers and Shakers From Wiktionary:  Noun mover and shaker (plural movers and shakers) (idiomatic) Someone who has power and influence in a field or activity; one [who] accomplishes tasks, who gets things done. In Late May Karen and I had an opportunity to spend some time with two very different – and very similar – groups of “movers and shakers”. The first group attended Training Camp for the July launch of three Squads (roughly 150 people) on the World Race.  The World Race is a stretching journey into 11 countries in 11 months to serve “the...

My name is Dan Shogren and along with my wife Karen we are coaches for The World Race.  By way of quick background, by far and away our greatest accomplishment in life so far (in my humble opinion!) is that we’ve raised three great kids. Our oldest, Jonathan, and his wife Katya and our granddaughter Emilia recently moved back to Georgia from Chicago.  By the time you read this our daughter and her Army pilot husband, Capt. TJ Menn will have both completed their Master’s Degrees from Harvard and will be moving (moved?) to West Point where TJ will be an instructor for...

I don’t know how to do that   My grandfather was a plumber.  My dad was a plumber.  One of my brothers followed in their footsteps and is about to retire after over 35 years in the business.  A cousin is a pipefitter.  A couple of in-laws are plumbers.  One niece married a plumber.  It’s always nice to have one in the family for times when the toilet backs up, or the water heater fails, or the ejector pump gets clogged. Or the skills (?) to handle those things yourself.     My grandfather on the left, and my dad, sitting at...

I can’t compete.  Or perhaps better said, it’s not a competition I’ll ever have a chance to win.  There are currently 46 racers plus the two Squad Leaders on U Squad and most all of them are blogging like crazy.  I can’t keep up.  I can hardly keep up reading them all – but I do read them all!  Trying to keep up with my own blogs is a challenge to say the least.  Many of the racers have wonderful stories and profound insights to share.   You can get to the U Squad “main” blog page here:...

Some of my friends and colleagues have asked about my “mission” work.   My role is pretty simple – I get to love, support, guide, and teach a team of “Racers” as THEY travel around the world for nearly a year (11 countries in 11 months!).  Right now Karen and I are coaches for U Squad.  They’re the ones actually out in the field day after day doing real missionary work.  I just get to visit them – somewhere along their journey – a couple of times during their travels.  My latest (first field trip) visit was to...

Our journey to Harbin was to meet with the 49 World Racers and was not aimed at connecting with or ministering to the Chinese people. So our interactions with the locals were few and for the most part tied to getting around or eating.  (We did a LOT of both – GREAT FOOD.) The Chinese language is hardly a romantic one; even in “friendly” conversations it often sounds like they are angry.  So when the taxi driver seemed to wave us off we weren’t deterred.   After all he was sitting in front of our hotel with his “For Hire” sign on....