I noticed a need at my new church: a choir to lead congregational hymn singing. Although I’ve been part of church choirs since my childhood, the idea of directing an adult...

Every winter, I spend four months living in Mexico City and working at two refugee centers. In May, before returning home, I spend a week on Mexico’s southwest beach coast. May...

For 45 years I have been friends with a woman from Turkey who is Muslim. Her husband came to the U.S. for medical school, and they now live in Istanbul. My...

After attending a meeting that included a presentation on mission work in the Dominican Republic, I began to pray for those involved. A few years later, I vacationed in the Dominican...

One morning during the winter of 2011, I woke unable to speak. I panicked because I worked as a professional singer and voice-over artist. Little did I know it would be...

When my wife and I babysit our granddaughter, she doesn’t always cooperate when it is time for her to go to bed. She cries as we put her in her crib...

As a five-foot-tall teenager with a poor complexion, I was always on the receiving end of jokes. My so-called friends called me by nicknames that referenced my height, and my well-meaning...

The COVID-19 pandemic filled me with anxiety. The waiting and disruption of normal life made me think of the time when my friend Jane, a hairstylist, injured both hands and became...

I heard it again. I woke up to the same sound that I had heard every morning for the previous three weeks: da, da, da, da, da in rapid succession. When...