On a spring break Novo Serve Trip to Iraq, a team of 10 adults and 10 kids faced challenging questions about evil, hopelessness, and “How good is the good news?”—all while building a playground and being impacted by the irrepressible joy of refugee children.
Do you know people who just say it like it is? They don’t pretend to be something they’re not. Those people carry an authenticity through life that’s refreshing, even more so when they walk the talk. And that’s what comes to mind for us when we think about Dorah.
In 25 years of helping trauma survivors, Alex had never encountered the level of trauma these young Yazidi women had. But a week of intensive group therapy and the love of Jesus would make a significant impact.
I live in a very under-resourced area in Nairobi, Kenya. The average income for a household here is about $150 a month. So when Covid hit, all the restrictions on movement and gathering had a big economic impact on my neighbors. Because there’s so little financial margin, when people lost jobs, had fewer work hours, or had less business in their small shops, it had a dramatic effect.
We wanted to help so we asked the question: What would it look like to really be the hands and feet of Jesus in our communities?
Priya (not her real name) came to our city from India at 19 to study biology. She’d grown up in a Sikh family, but her parents were basically atheists. Priya had concluded that God was just a prop that people had made up to blame things on or ask for things from.
When Priya first arrived in the US, she found her way to a party that “Ministry K” (name changed), our international student outreach, was hosting. That’s where her story with us began. But first, let me give you a little background…
An invitation into a Muslim home for one of their largest religious holidays would unexpectedly become an opportunity to clearly share the good news. And the surprising catalyst? Musical theater.