Tonight I am sitting on the porch of the small house we stay in when we are in the town of Xemac. It is on the edge of town, overlooking this small community of more than 5,000 people. I will never forget my first day in this town 26 years ago. We had to fly here in a small plane because there was not a passable road. We slept on the cement floor of the church and used a candle for light. There have been many changes over the years here, but one of the most dramatic was the arrival of...

These past couple of weeks I had a trip planned that involved 9 airports, 8 flights, 1 train, 1 van, and 2 long car rides, all during a global conflict. The countries where I was traveling also required extra special care following the laws. Thankfully I made it around the world without a problem. This brought peace but it was not the source of my Shalom. My peace during this trip was the absence of difficulty. But even though in English we translate Shalom as peace the word has greater...

In Luke 4 we read that Jesus stood up in the temple and quoted Isaiah 61:1,2a, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Christ was declaring that His coming was the fulfillment of this prophecy concerning the year of Jubilee which was to be a time of forgiveness and healing....