The business of trade in human lives is more robust than ever in history. The US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report presents a comprehensive view of how the various nations on our planet are (or are not) responding to human trafficking. For those who want to become acquainted with the global realities of…
Category: Mission
Gospel harmonics
I was sitting in a café with a few teammates across from one of Berlin’s 1700 bridges. As we waited for our currywurst, we listened to the tolling of cathedral bells, resonating and disbursing into a complex and fascinating mist of harmonic overtones. Hundreds of people in the neighborhood were shuffling into the numerous cathedrals…
The “missionary call”
We were having lunch with a couple families and one of the young moms, who’s been wondering about global mission and knows our background as long-term mission workers, heard us refer to our “call” to cross-cultural ministry. She’d obviously heard such words numerous times in the past from various people, but it was clear that…
Table talk in crisis time – real people seeking real answers to real problems
I signed off last time with an urgent request for prayer, sensing that the situation in Kyiv was at a critical point. Since then, we saw an all-out violent assault on Maidan, in which scores of people were killed, the majority shot in the street by snipers, an abortive attempt at a “negotiated settlement” (which…
Mission as transformation
Because it sums up a lot of what I’ve heard from fellow believers and Ukraine, and illustrates the above post on what “real people” need in times of crisis, I pass along the following blog, posted around the time of my visit, by Mykhailo Cherenkov of Association for Spiritual Renewal. I believe he has a…
The heart of Maidan – touched by prayer
It was -15F, the frost on the window next to my bed has become a thick coating of ice. But the sun is shining for the first time since I arrived. I had an opportunity to meet with Sergei, an evangelical leader whom I had not seen for many years. We met at a nice…
Learning to learn from those who have been taught. Observations from Kyiv
The news hasn’t changed much since I left Kyiv last week. It remains a tense standoff, without clear directions as to how to defuse it, with prospects for resolution developing along vectors that include splitting apart the country, massive damage and loss of life, civil war or financial and/or governmental collapse. Meanwhile, the country muddles…
If this is truly Good vs. Evil, how could so many be on the sidelines?
A number of people have asked for a little ‘tutorial’ about the background, particularly political, of how things got this way. It truly is a complex, multifaceted and dynamic situation, so no one would be well-served with any source that purported to explain it all in just a click. Some good background for English speakers…
Mill Pond Porch 