How would I summarize the week of Christmas Hope 2018?
I don’t think it is possible to summarize the week. It can only be described in moments.
This summer began for me with a familiar joy—welcoming a small team of university students to join our missions work Romania!
Just days ago, four young women from Azusa Pacific University arrived to serve alongside RTC this summer. I could see in their faces a desire to embrace new rhythms, a different culture, and unfamiliar places. I also saw in them a resolute trust in God to work through every detail.
I knew the date was coming, but I didn’t expect it to feel quite like this.
Without telling me, my wife reached out to people from different seasons of my life and asked them to write. I expected a few kind birthday notes. What I didn’t expect were these to be the kind of messages that make you slow down, read twice, and quietly thank God.
It started as a fairly normal morning until I received a call about four siblings who had been found abandoned. They are young (12, 8, 6, and 5) and in that moment, they needed somewhere safe to go.
You know what’s always amazed me?
How something as simple as a college student saying “yes” to a summer can turn into something much bigger over time.
For years, we’ve had students come serve with us. They arrive not fully knowing what to expect but come willing. And somewhere along the way, something shifts. You see it in how they connect, how they listen, how they begin to care about people in a deeper way. And then, years later when you start hearing it in their stories.
