I Met Goliath but I Wasn’t David
My summer began nicely with a short-term service assignment in my home country. I learned flexibility in doing God’s work. I didn’t accomplish what I thought I would, but I let go of my own plans, helped where I could, and was blessed. Then I began my second assignment for the summer. I joined a literature team. Three weeks in,…
Read MoreLove Language Immersion
I don’t speak Arabic, and I even stumble through English. But after working in Antakya, Turkey, this summer distributing aid to the victims of the Turkey-Syria earthquake, I realized I could speak the language of love. One day as we drove around looking for those who were least likely to get aid, we came upon ten…
Read MoreI’ve Never Known That Kind of Love
Alara stood at the door of the church, hesitant but intrigued. A friend had told her it was a great language school. She wanted to learn English, so she figured, “Why not?” After a few weeks, she knew it was worth it. Even though she wouldn’t ordinarily step inside a church, she enjoyed the classes,…
Read MoreWhat Have They Seen In My House?
I had just welcomed the serviceman into my home to assemble my new table when my phone rang, so I stepped out of the room to take the call. When I returned, he stopped working and looked up at me curiously, “Are you a Christian?” Wondering why he would be so direct in a country where Christians…
Read MoreSeeing What I Don’t Want to See
I do not like horror movies; my heart is too sensitive. That’s why there’s no reason I would have ever volunteered to visit Aleppo, Syria, where ten years of war and the recent earthquake has left unimaginable horror. But I had been chosen and the papers to travel were in order. As we approached a…
Read MoreMeeting the General
The challenges of doing God’s work meets the rewards of seeing Him work. I started my morning with a much longer prayer time than usual. After meeting many difficulties in applying for our residency in a Middle Eastern country, my wife and I had been told that it might be possible for us to apply that…
Read MoreSabbath at the flower shop
A faithful worker could not keep the Sabbath and help his boss out too, but God could honor both. Arman stood quietly at the flower shop counter, listening to his boss’s plea. “I have respected your wish to observe Sabbath all this time. Now I would hope you could respect my request to come to…
Read MoreTRAGEDY OPENS DOORS
A language school director offers his students more than a language Khalid dreamed of learning Portuguese, an unusual goal for an Arabic-speaking Middle Easterner. But he wanted to be a tour guide, and a foreign language is a professional asset. That’s how I first met him. He was excited to sign up for the free Portuguese classes I taught. He was an ambitious…
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