Zingy, zesty, and bright. That's how some describe the taste of gooseberries. Others say they're like sour grapes. Scientific circles refer to them as Phyllanthus emblica or Emblica officinal. In Sanskrit its name is "Amalaki," which means ‘the sustainer.’ In Hindi, however, Indian gooseberries are called "Amla." Amla has been...

Love Suffers Long I ran my first marathon at 23. The first half was a breeze. By mile 18, I felt sore. At mile 23, a young man ran up beside me and asked: “Sooo… what are you gonna do after the race?” If he was asking me out, I totally...

“Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I just sit down until it goes away.” I found this snarky saying printed on a little plaque, stored in a box of my junk from high school that my mom recently decided she didn’t want me to keep in her storage unit...

Report from the Northern Conference, South Africa By Pastor Corrie Venter Sharing Hope and Healing is a social responsibility and moral regeneration project designed by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The project has been dubbed Gauteng Hope and Healing due to its geographical location, which is the Gauteng province, in South...

When Martyrdom Doesn't Matter Shortly after I became a follower of Jesus, somebody in a group Bible study said something that was kind of like theological shock therapy for me. "You know," he said, "not all the martyrs in Christian history are going to be in heaven.” I thought to...

Diabetes for Dummies I spend time with a woman every other month who uses words such as "dummy," "stupid," and "idiot" when describing herself. As she acknowledges what hinders her from making healthy choices and positive changes for improved diabetes management, the deprecations flow. It pains me to hear her...

Presently, for my local church, I’m in the midst of a preaching series on the book of Romans, called All Roads Lead to Romans. And the next sermon is on one of my three favorite passages in Romans: chapter 3:21-31. Without going into too much detail, I want to highlight...

Have you ever expected one thing and gotten another? Once while traveling to Germany, I expected a small, gutless, compact rental car, because that’s what I reserved. What I got was a large, four-door, super-fast BMW luxury car, because that’s all they had left. I had great fun on the...

Shortly after finishing her master’s degree at Johns Hopkins University, Ana Montes was hired at the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). What the DIA didn’t know was that she already had been hired by the Cuban government. For 16 years she was a double agent and, in that time, did...

São Tomé and Princípe is a small country located on the seacoast of West Central Africa, just under the equator. With a population of approximately only 200,000, São Tomé and Príncipe is a peaceful country. It has few cities, but its population is heartwarming, welcoming, and open to the gospel....

“The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). As I was thinking about this verse the phrase, “He will rest in His...

Growth doesn't occur without resistance of some kind. Sometimes the strongest resistance we face when pursuing change is from ourselves. How do you feel when you think of going back to school, joining the gym, losing weight, or apologizing for a wrong? That’s resistance. How do we surmount the thoughts...