In the middle of the first wave of the pandemic, I went out for a walk in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. I heard a young voice call out to me, and met a battered young woman named Sasha**, who had just run away from home after being badly beaten by her father. I asked her to stay where she was, woke up my wife, and together we spent until sunrise hearing her story, praying with her, calling the Runaway hotline, and getting her the medical and legal help she needed. She came back to our house a few days later and we were able to give her a Bible. We wrote our numbers in the Bible. She hasn’t ever called us again, but we still think of her often. I hope our brief role in her story was part of a pivotal point in her life, and that she is now walking with God through faith in Christ. Sometimes we don’t always get to see the end of the story; just glimpses of the parts we’re lucky to be a part of.

Recently, I met a man named Solomon** who, as a teenager, experienced the cruel realities of war in Central Africa. His story was painful to hear. Around the same time that I was struggling to learn the rudiments of Spanish in middle school and dealing with the “excruciating” pain of liking girls who didn’t return the feeling, Solomon was left for dead from a shrapnel wound, only to awake in a field and walk miles to a nearby village to receive medical help. This was the first step of many on a long and agonizing journey as a refugee.  He would eventually find his way to America, come to know Jesus as his Savior, and begin to have a deep, abiding, characteristic joy and gratefulness. He and I have recently begun to meet weekly to talk and pray together.



It was an honor to be welcomed into Fatima’s home and hear her story. It was an honor to be there for Sasha in her time of need. It is an honor every time Solomon calls me “brother”.

There are more stories. I could speak of the haunted looks in the eyes of Afghan refugees, almost all with family still in Afghanistan, as Kabul fell just two years ago. I could speak of a conversation with a man on a bridge, depressed and mentally ill, trying to decide whether or not to jump. I could share about meeting person after person that my heart went out to, desperately wanting to talk and share the Gospel of Christ with them, only to be separated by a language gap that I couldn’t cross.

I could speak of the joy of making friends from all over the world, of getting to experience new cultures and perspectives. Of seeing people begin to walk with Christ, praise God!

(I could also share about the humor and mild frustration of having upstairs neighbors who vacuum at midnight, for reasons unknowable to me.)

In all these circumstances and conversations, my hands often feel empty… there is so little ability within me to help those in need.  All I can do is point people towards Jesus.



In Acts 3 we read the story of a crippled beggar who called out to Peter and John, asking for money. Peter responded, “Gold and silver I don’t have, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus, rise and walk.”

That’s a story that resonates with me as I interact with people in this town. All we really can do is seek to point people to Jesus.  “Gold and silver I have not, but what I do have, I offer you. Place your trust not in me, but in Christ, who is sufficient to cover all your greatest needs and hurts, to cover all your shame, if you will but walk with Him in faith and obedience.”

God has not and will not call everyone who reads this to live in this beautiful and broken town, filled with beautiful and broken people. But He does call us all, all who claim to follow and trust in Him, to be salt and light.

How are you seeking to be His hands and feet today? To whom do you need to reach out? For whom do you need to fast and pray?

Gracious God, we are so little, and our efforts and abilities are so feeble. And yet, You make us sufficient to be Your ambassadors of the Gospel of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5). Have Your way in us, mold us, shape us, use us.