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Congratulations on everything you’ve accomplished! We’re excited to see where God leads you. There’s a lot of excitement in this season (probably some nerves, too), and we think keeping these things in mind we’ll be incredibly helpful as you move into this next chapter!

About this time last year, I stumbled upon a story I’d never read in the Bible before. It’s about a grieving widow from a town called Nain. Luke writes (chapter 7 if you want to read for yourself) that Jesus is traveling with His disciples and a crowd, passing through Nain when a funeral procession walks out of town. The woman leading the procession is burying her only son and, Luke notes, she is a widow.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. -Mark Twain. A friend called me a few weeks ago. His mind was racing. He had so much happening.

If you had an audience with God today, what would you ask? If you knew He would audibly answer one question, what would you want the answer to be? I want to say that I would have some big theological question, or perhaps the obvious “why do bad things happen” would fly out of my mouth without a second thought, but I don’t think so.

In my off hours lately I’ve been watching “The Chosen” — have you heard of it? It’s a TV series that tells the story of Jesus’ disciples (the chosen, get it?). Before you rush to conclusions and start picturing all the other Bible shows you’ve seen, let me tell you — there’s something different about the way this one depicts the gospel stories. For one, they’re in no rush to tell the story in 10 succinct episodes.

“Brazil” – the first word stamped in my passport. Many other stamps have followed — and I have relished each one. I consider it a unique privilege that almost all my stamps have come from travel on mission trips.

Once upon a time, there was a wee little man who climbed up in a sycamore tree and was never the same again. Maybe you’ve heard of him. Maybe when you were young you even sang a song about him. His name was Zacchaeus. The day he met Jesus he was changed. That’s what Jesus does to people.

We took off at twilight, after the sunset had skipped ahead to the edge of the sky. I don’t know if this is the normal course for a MIA to DFW flight, but we ascended through clouds and flew to the edge of the city.