I Missed the Whole Thing

I'm proud to say that I didn't see a single down of yesterday's Super Bowl game. I have nothing against football, though the only games I saw this year were at the high school level. I had a more important engagement with the South Coast Youth Symphony Orchestra.

My daughter plays flute and piccolo in the orchestra and they had their first big concert yesterday afternoon. Why on Super Sunday? The concert was originally scheduled for last Sunday, but when the organizers realized it was the Chinese New Year, they knew they had a problem. The majority of the orchestra is Asian. Consequently, the concert was moved. No big deal for me, though there may have been a dad or two who objected.

The kids did great, playing some very tough music, and we're very proud of them. During the summer of 2007 the orchestra will be touring in Italy, so this is pretty big stuff for the kids.

I wasn't the only one to miss the game. Seattle Coach Mike Holmgren's wife and daughter also missed the game, and for good reason:

The wife and daughter of Seattle Seahawks Head Coach Mike Holmgren have decided to skip Super Bowl XL in Detroit for something they consider more important -- a faith-based humanitarian trip to Africa.

Kathy Holmgren and daughter Calla are scheduled to leave Thursday (Feb. 2) on a 17-day medical training mission with Northwest Medical Teams -- a relief group based in Portland, Ore. -- to the northwest region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A nurse and obstetrician, respectively, the two will join six other physicians with experience as missionaries.

During the three days it takes to reach the region, the team will travel over marginal roads that narrow to near non-existence, wade through streams and cross rough-hewn and often improvised bridges.

While much of the world tunes into the Super Bowl, the team will begin training the staff of a hospital operated by the Evangelical Covenant Church, the denomination to which the Holmgrens belong.

The hospital is the only facility for 300,000 people in the region, and the staff often must use rudimentary equipment to treat 2,500 patients a month. More than 3.9 million Congolese have died since 1998, most from preventable disease, according to the British medical journal The Lancet.

Kathy Holmgren spent 10 months in the region during 1970 but gave up her dream of being a Covenant medical missionary to marry. Last October, Mike Holmgren's birthday present to his wife was the trip back to the country she loves.

Nice story.