The women kick up red clay dust, dancing with babies tied to their backs. One mother takes my hands in hers, cranes her neck up at me and shouts “dance!” So we dance. Up the drive from the van toward the little pink church. All the mothers are bending side… Read More
We stomp our feet against the red Kenyan clay, dancing arm-in-arm from the van to the church. The women, with babies tied to their backs, sing in Swahili about how good the day is simply because God gave it and gave them visitors. We bend low and the women sing… Read More
“Nothing can seem extraordinary until you have discovered what is ordinary.” ― C.S. Lewis, Miracles This is the sixteenth Compassion Bloggers trip. The very first was in 2008! Man, time flies. Thousands of children have been sponsored since then because hundreds of thousands have read our posts from around the… Read More
Seven years ago, I sloshed my way through the muddy serpentine paths of the Methare slum to meet Eliud. Eliud was a dapper Kenyan teenager then. He was wearing his school uniform, a seafoam green tie and gray sweater. His home was cobbled together from wood and rusting corrugated metal… Read More
I’m headed to Kenya tomorrow with Compassion Bloggers! I was in Kenya 7 years ago. Many of you followed along then. Remember when I met a boy named Eliud? He was 18 then, orphaned, living in a house made of wood and cardboard, in the second largest slum in all… Read More
For years I traveled the world with (mostly) women I met on the internet. I oversaw Compassion Bloggers – taking groups of great writers overseas to see the ministry of Compassion International and then write about it in hopes of seeing thousands of children sponsored. Most of the bloggers I… Read More
Twenty years I’ve been living in Nashville. And living here you learn something about talented humans that you just can’t learn many other places: The most admirable people are the ones who demand admiration the very least. The most gifted make themselves a gift to others. View Post
Magonus was born in Scotland and carried to Ireland against his will by pirates when he was a teenager. He was sold there as a servant, spending the next several years tending sheep on a mountain, learning the Irish language, and praying to God. One day God spoke to him… Read More
I got spanked by science this morning… Laura Carstensen, a “lifespan researcher”, says she knows why the elderly are happier than the young. Though their bodies and minds are weaker and less reliable than ever before, and though they experience loss much more frequently, many elderly are happier than ever… Read More
Happy Giving Tuesday! Hungover from gluttony Thursday and consumerism Friday? Pop a little antacid of generosity. To get you started, here are a few folks my family and I give to regularly (and one we’re trying out this year). I’d love to answer any questions you have about these wonderful… Read More
Everyone has a story in their head about you and your group. Understand what that story is. If it’s wrong, don’t give them proof that it’s right. For instance, here’s the story some people tell themselves about child sponsorship organizations: These charites manipulate people into making an emotional decision to… Read More
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. – 1 Peter 1:22 “Obeying the truth” was an idiom in Peter’s day for conversion to Christianity. Everyone who has undergone this conversion is… Read More
At an Amy Grant concert, there are a lot of women who got through adolescence and college and marriage/divorce and motherhood listening to her music. There are the men who claim their wives made them come but, truth be told, have been secret fans for decades. And then there are… Read More
It was our first fight. No, in a fight two or more people exchange blows with each other. This was one man throwing a tantrum while the woman he loved just smiled. I was 19 and she was 23. Becky leaned against a light pole in the church parking lot… Read More
The Atlas of Giving Report released in April 2016 documented a decline in American generosity compared to 2015 and forecasted more of the same for the rest of the year. As a public speaker for a global charity since 2005, I’ve witnessed record-low giving by evangelical crowds I’ve spoken to over the last… Read More
I’ve been waiting “forever” for my meal. “This waiter is terrible.” She cuts in from of me in traffic. “Idiot!” I’m trying to be friendly but he’s giving me nothing but nods and the shortest answers. “Stuck up.” Fundamental attribution error: the tendency in Western cultures to… Read More
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of… Read More
So GOD formed from the dirt of the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the Man to see what he would name them. Whatever the Man called each living creature, that was its name. (Genesis 2:19) Hippopotamus. Platypus.… Read More
There’s always a lot of pink. And fruit tea. The songs are all in the wrong keys. And every men’s restroom sign has a “women’s restroom” sign taped over it, which I invariably discover only after drinking too much fruit tea. But still. I’m thankful for women’s conferences. Attending them… Read More
God spoke through the prophet Ezekiel and said, “The sin of the people of Israel is great; the land is full of bloodshed and the city is full of injustice.” -Ezekiel 9:9a When God’s people did nothing about the bloodshed and injustice in their land, it marred God’s reputation. Their… Read More
When foreign correspondent, Brian Stewart, gave the commencement address at Knox College in Toronto, he told graduates about the most powerful and daring organization he’s come across in his years of travel around the world. I’ve found there is no movement, or force, closer to the raw truth of war,… Read More
Audi alteram partem. That’s Latin for “listen to the other side” or “let the other side be heard as well”. This legal maxim keeps the courtroom fair: Wise judgements cannot be made unless everyone is heard. Audi alteram partem. That’s good advice outside the courtroom too. It is increasingly easy to misjudge one another… Read More
What does that word “justice” mean and what does the bible say about it? I was recently invited to speak about biblical justice at an event. And of course I said “yes.” And of course I had no idea what the word “justice” even meant. I knew it was in… Read More
Who should I vote for? In 1980, Ronald Reagan told us to answer that question by asking ourselves another: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? If you are “better off” today then vote for the party currently inhabiting the White House. If you aren’t “better… Read More
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” ~ Inigo Montoya Dr. David Tretler is the Dean of Faculty at the National War College in Washington D.C and a former USAF Colonel. He’s an expert on the Middle East – its history,… Read More
Shaun Groves