Read Isaiah 6:1-8 Have you ever stepped onto a military installation just weeks or days before its gates were closed for good? It is an eerie sight. The once-bustling Patrick Henry Village in Heidelberg, Germany was, at its peak, home to 16,000 American military families packed...
Read Hebrews 4:11-13 Most modern knives and blades are sharpened by a few passes through an electric sharpener but true experts still prefer to use a whetstone. Made up of rock and grit and wet with water, the whetstone is designed to provide friction that hones...
Read: 1 Samuel 30:11-20 Mary Ludwig married local barber, William Hays, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania in 1769. They were an unremarkable New England couple until William was drawn into fighting for American independence from England in the Revolutionary War. Keen to do her part, Mary (also called...
Read Acts 16:1-15 There is a strange network across America that one is unlikely to see except from a singular vantage point: looking down from the sky. They are usually found in very remote locations and in the middle of terrain that is difficult to access. There,...
Read Matthew 22:34-40 The human body is comprised of three kinds of muscle: skeletal (the kind of muscle we typically imagine, that which covers our bones), smooth muscle (such as our stomachs and digestive tract) and cardiac (the muscle that is our hearts). Ironically, skeletal and...
Read 2 Timothy 1:1-7 She couldn’t stop crying. The Jacob’s Generation mission teams had just returned to their homes in Europe and throughout the USA. Everyone’s flights had landed and they’d unpacked their luggage and gone back to life as usual. One of the kitchen leaders, Tamika...
Read all of Isaiah 58 Fasting brings out the worst in us. Have you ever noticed how the Holy Spirit, through the words He inspired in the Old and New Testament, does not tiptoe around anyone’s feelings but says what He intends quite bluntly? Such is the...
Read Mark 2:18-22 Fasting brings out the best in us. When we fast, every night while we sleep as a minimum, our bodies undergo the most extraordinary process called “autophagy”. During this time, the body conducts a cycle of cellular clean-up and repair. The longer the body...
Read Psalm 16:11 & Hebrews 12:2 I’ll never forget the aged, Georgia preacher who chastised his congregation one Sunday saying, “The reason we can’t get folk to come visit our church is most of you look like you got baptized in pickle juice!”...
Read Isaiah 55 My, my, my! How we love the waffles of Belgium, the brötchen in Germany, the sumptuous Korean bakeries (not to mention the goodies created at the Brazilian-Japanese-American fusion bakery operated by our Directors, Cris and Meiko Reyno, in Okinawa, Japan)! How cruel does...