“The state of orphans and vulnerable children was improving for decades, then suddenly one crisis hit after another,” says Karmen Friesen, principal coordinator of World Without Orphans (WWO), a global movement that seeks to mobilize the Church to respond to the needs of vulnerable children in every nation.
Student fellowships equip during Chinese students to step into full-time service in response to God’s call. Many women are among them but there are few women recognized as leaders given the opportunity to model good leadership to others on public platforms. Emerging leaders need to be influenced by a wide range of experienced leaders to stop the drift away from the faith.
Nearly half of all men in United States' state prisons are fathers. Many struggle to know how to fill that role. This lack of knowledge can perpetuate harmful cycles and lead to generational damage. This Father's Day, June 15 in numerous nations, it is an opportune time for fathers in churches to model healthy fatherhood to the world for the benefit of the next generation.
The story of the woman with a bleeding ailment encountering Jesus is a lesson to us all. In this gospel narrative, we see Jesus as the one who brings healing in its fullness, not just to our bodies but to our social and eternal well-being also. All it takes is for us to reach out to him in faith.
“God saw it and it was good” should be the starting point for our faith, but too often we begin a couple chapters further on. The Hebrew word for "good" is "tov" and it is a golden thread through the Old Testament that needs to guide our sense of participating with God's purposes for the world: to work all things together for "tov" (Romans 8:28).
