Mrs. Kang (no relation) was one of the most generous people I have ever known. She worked the night shift at the Post Office and volunteered as a church secretary during the day. Her husband had purchased a dry-cleaning business, hoping it would become a nest egg for retirement. Instead, the business barely broke even. She once told me that their monthly bills exceeded their income. Yet somehow, every bill was paid. They never had extras, but they were never without what they

I thought it was cute, then I realized he was serious. Mr. Johanssen called and asked for Pastor Mia to make a hospital visit. Mind you, Mia was my five-year-old daughter. A month earlier, I was running errands with Mia when I learned that Mr. Johanssen had knee replacement surgery. Without a second thought, I headed to the hospital for a brief pastoral visit, with Mia in tow. We had a wonderful conversation with Mr. Johanssen, and before we left, I offered to pray with him

My dread turned to anger. When a volunteer wants to talk in private, it is rarely good news. So when one of our youth volunteers asked if we could talk, I immediately felt a sense of dread. The silence that surrounded us as we walked to my office only deepened that feeling. She told me that several of the youth, including her own son, had come to her with concerns about one of the new kids in the youth group. The boy had a bad reputation at school. They said that if he was al

I was saddened. I never imagined it would happen to Phil. Years ago, I organized a couples' retreat and invited the former director of my college ministry and his wife to be our guest speakers. During one of the breaks, as our conversation turned to people we had known, I asked about Phil, my Bible study leader. Phil had grown up in a rough part of rural Australia and, after high school, went to England to work in the mines. Seeing a bright young man making unhealthy choices,

I was surprised. (If I had listened more carefully to my own sermons, I probably wouldn't have been.) Maryan and I had invited a missionary couple to dinner. During our conversation, they shared a story from the last time they had visited us—one that neither of us knew. Several years earlier, after witnessing the heartbreaking conditions of street children in Guatemala, they founded an orphanage and even adopted several of the children themselves. By the time they came to vis