Never Too Late to Serve: Barbara E. Joe
Barbara E. Joe dreamed of joining the Peace Corps, but raising kids and facing tragedy kept her from going. Nevertheless, she joined when she was 62.
Barbara E. Joe dreamed of joining the Peace Corps, but raising kids and facing tragedy kept her from going. Nevertheless, she joined when she was 62.
A pastor who was so excited about retiring and doing nothing ended up creating a difficulty-with-retiring support group for the presbytery.
16th century missionaries to China Ruggieri & Ricci learned Chinese, wore Chinese robes, and did not insist that western cultural values were a part of learning the Gospel.
Vacation Bible School was started by D.T. Miles in 1894!
Women had leadership roles in the early church, but then that power was taken away. Reformer John Knox railed against women’s leadership, as did men at a General Assembly meeting in America in 1811.
Desmond Tutu was still trying to bring down Apartheid in the mid-eighties. The powers that be hired protestors to try to smear Tutu, but he ended up sharing a tea party with them.
Elijah Parish Lovejoy was a minister and journalist who felt called to fight slavery. He refused to stop speaking out, to stop writing, to give up his cause. He was murdered by a pro-slavery mob.
Visiting a concentration camp means feeling the suffering that calls out from the ground. It means remembering that so many Christians chose to wait passively and that we must make different choices.
In the late 18th-early 19th centuries, Seraphim of Sarov fasted, prayed, and meditated for decades. He became a miracle worker, a source of peace, and a friend of bears.
Harriet Tubman’s faith in her own words: