Thoughts

I'm sitting now in a dorm room at Stanford University. It's the echo of a memorable experience I had in Boston. For the past month, I had the privilege of staying at Emerson College in that city to teach two two-week summer school sessions to high school students from around the country and world. Along with the program director, I taught college preparation. From everything I learned about subject-- which was a lot, given that I applied only to one school-- I got the impression that getting into college today is more difficult than it was even ten years ago, when I was applying. In any case, I enjoyed the learning experience and, especially, being in Boston for one month. While there, we had the opportunity to visit several universities-- prestigious ones, like Harvard and M.I.T.-- tour the city, visit museums, shop at famous places like Quincy Market, go to a Red Sox game, and just wander. The city is active, with green space for play, concerts, plays, and more. Most peop...

The gates opened to reveal a crisp set of two-story buildings at the base of a lush, towering mountain. To the right of a green courtyard stood the new straw-thatched gazebo that last year’s team gave money to build; to our left, a new elongated concrete planter complete with ferns and a bench for rest. Whether its members were coming for the third time or seeing it for the first, the team that traveled to the Hands and Feet orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti, discovered that day the result of God’s people coming together to serve. They found a place of comfort for orphans; they found a place of provision for Haitian staff; and they found a place of purpose for short- and long-term missionaries alike. Throughout that week, in fact, our team found ourselves fulfilling very real needs. Having purchased a large piece of land behind the orphanage proper, the missionaries there plan to build homes for the orphans who have become adults, a step that will ease each orphan’s transition into the wor...