It was nothing short of a miracle that there was a church—a Protestant church—at the end of my street. I hadn’t been in Yelabuga, Russia, for two weeks, yet I already felt crushed by the loneliness and spiritual darkness that hung heavy over the city. The Fulbright program had catapulted me and my idealism into…
The tables were all set with festive tablecloths and centerpieces, and light twinkled from votive candles as we awaited the arrival of our guests. Christmas was in the air. As more than 40 of our close friends gathered in the warm Florida December evening to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I addressed the group to…
There are many different varieties of trees on our 120-acre homestead, along with crops and brush, a bit of pasture and a spring-fed creek that flows year round from a pond that never freezes over. And don’t get me talking about the diversity of wildlife that thrives in our woods and around the pond. From…