One of my favorite parts of our Arise program is seeing a student's paradigm shift. I have to tell you about one transformation that took place in our Arise Australia class this spring. Angelo Grasso, one of our instructors, drew a circle on the board at the front of the...

I recently heard a story that broke my heart and simultaneously filled me with hope. I have to share it because people like you have had a hand in it. A church planter named Apolonio was working in Nicaragua, planting seeds for the gospel and distributing Light Bearers literature. About...

"You can do this. You have a good reason to be here," I assured my 8-year-old self as I walked over to our neighbor's house. My family was new in town, and my brother Nick, who has never had any social anxiety, had rapidly made friends with the kids next...

I need to tell you about an incredible way the Holy Spirit is working in Argentina. A group of young people at a Seventh-day Adventist Christian church, San Miguel Centro, had something many young people today don't: real friendships. Genuine ones. However, this group of youth craved something more: they...

One of the most liberating truths I’ve learned in my life is this: If someone finds their relationship with God to be burdensome or anxiety-inducing, their picture of God is likely inaccurate. Trygve is a young man from Norway who recently came to this realization. He went from being a...

I was sitting in the Helsinki airport, bags packed, heart full, and body tired in the good way that comes after two weeks of teaching at ARISE Finland. I was headed home, but before I left, Mikael reached out. I told him I had a couple of hours before my...

I need to tell you about Donald and his fellow Bible worker, ​​Juan Moisés, who recently experienced something incredible. They were hiking through the pouring rain in the Cordillera Mountains of Costa Rica, heading toward a village inhabited by Cabécar people, the largest indigenous group in Costa Rica. Juan and...

I have to tell you about a young man named Patrick, a law student at the University of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who has recently encountered the good news of the gospel in the most profound way. Patrick is the kind of person who burns hot for...

My youngest son enjoys cooking. He tells me that there are two kinds of cooks: those who follow recipes and those who don’t. He’s the latter. And I can enthusiastically report that the food he prepares, like the from-scratch egg ramen he made yesterday, is delicious. Recipe-following cooks aim for...

For a number of years, my mother was in an abusive marriage. That was a really bad thing. Eventually, after being brought to the brink of death, she escaped that relationship. That was a good thing. But raising four kids alone in Los Angeles? That was brutal. So, she moved...

Stomach acid burned Mikael’s throat as he vomited. How many people had noticed he had come to church hungover? Mikael just wanted to belong. So, he began partying and drinking with friends. If you could’ve met him back then and somehow seen his future, you’d be surprised to learn that...

“Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing’” (Luke 23:34). These words have often unsettled me. I understand the first part, “Father, forgive them.” But then comes, “They don’t know what they’re doing”? Really, Jesus? Jesus sees not only their actions but also their...