When my wife and I were at Dallas Seminary back in the early 1960s, we lived in a little apartment that was part of a small group of apartments that have since then been destroyed, I am happy to say. Hot and cold running rats—all the joys of home were there. In the summer the weather came inside, and it was hot. Hot? Hotter than you can imagine. Like a desert.

That hot fall we began to pray for an air conditioner; we didn't have one. I remember through the cold blowing winter we were praying for an a…