All through college I was bombarded with images and ads like this, showing how much (and how many) people around the world were suffering.  And the response was to feel guilty, give something up so I could give something away, and do the right thing: send some money.  Maybe this was your experience,too. For...

Yesterday I read an article in Parade magazine proclaiming that ninety-eight percent of Americans today “have engaged in at least one activity to make a difference.” I wasn’t surprised; only disheartened. If you haven’t noticed, it’s become quite popular—even trendy, cool, or fashionable—to...

Margarette was 18 when someone forcefully took control of her life.  She had been dating a guy for a while; he was good to her and the relationship seemed to be going well.  One day while she was driving and he was in the passenger seat, he punched her in the face.  Between the pain and the shock,...

Certain perks come with being in a new city and not knowing folks, like waking to an agenda-less weekend morning.  If I made it to the farmers market, or a dusty aisle of the used bookstore, great, but as I departed my front step, I was determined to let twenty bucks and the wind be my compass, not...

I recently heard an interview with an anthropologist whose area of study was the native people in far northern Canada. He had studied their stories and legends and worked directly with them for many years. This is one of those arctic (and sub-arctic) people groups who live a purely subsistence lifestyle....

I met Tammy about two years ago. We used to be neighbors, and my son and her eldest daughter caught the same bus to school every day. Tammy and I would often chat, strolling home from the bus stop. As it turned out we had a lot in common. Tammy, like me, was a wife, mother, a Christian and a cancer survivor. Tammy...

When I was younger, I only wanted one thing. To be a wife and a mother. I wanted children, four to be exact. It was difficult to pick a major in college because strangely enough, they didn’t offer a family and marriage major. They must have been behind the times, or maybe I was. Every year as my...

My production of the musical Annie in an elementary school involved 67 students, 18 parents, backdrops flown in from New York, and one poodle. My off-the-cuff reading of a Christmas play in a homeless shelter involved one scarf, several women, and a teddy bear with one eye. At the women’s shelter...

I was more content living in a third world country than I am living in the United States. When our family lived in Costa Rica we had no car, a small basement apartment that reeked of mold, an oven that looked like it belonged in a doll house, and amoebas cruising around our intestines.  What’s not...

I first met Sharon two years ago on Midnight Outreach. Her and a friend were working north Florida Blvd. She told us that she was a backslid Pentecostal. She said she knew Jesus and prayed everyday. She let us pray with her and she said she would come to church the next Sunday. Alliece, the head of Rescue...