Category Archives: Europe

John Wesley — March 2

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)
Surrounded by the mob in Wednesbury, England

Bible connection

For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the desire of the flesh is against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, in order to keep you from doing whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. — Galatians 5:6, 13-18

All about John Wesley (1703-1791)

John Wesley lived for most of the 18th century . He was the world-famous founder of Methodism which is alive and well in many forms all over Creation right now.

John and his brother, Charles, were twentysomethings when they began to meet as the “Holy Club” they founded at Oxford University in England. They read spiritual classics and tried to apply what they read to their lives and encourage one another. This small group was the seed bed for future Methodist groups. The ancestors of Wesley’s disciples have proliferated a Christian small group movement around the world.

In 1735 John and Charles went on a missionary trip to the colony of Georgia. John returned very discouraged that he couldn’t translate his ideas about God in effective ways for the people of the colony (plus, he fell in love with a local woman and the relationship did not work out very well).

In this period of discouragement, he became friends with a Moravian preacher, Peter Boehler. At a small religious meeting connected to the Moravians in Aldersgate Street, London, on May 24, 1738, John had an experience with God that changed his life. He famously described this experience as having his heart “strangely warmed.” This personal encounter with God prompted John to spend the rest of his life energetically encouraging others to meet God personally. This encounter with God seems to have caused his faith to move from mostly his head to his heart; it activated a deep dependence on God’s grace and a whole new way of living that he then shared with thousands of people.

During his ministry Wesley rode over 250,000 miles on horseback, a distance equal to ten circuits of the globe around the equator. He preached over 40,000 sermons—sometimes four or five a day—which led to the conversion of thousands [link]. He succeeded in reaching the poor and simple commoners through the practice of open air preaching to audiences estimated in the tens of thousands. At his death in 1791 his followers numbered 79,000 in England and 40,000 in America. In 1995 there were approximately 23 million affiliated with Methodist churches worldwide in 108 countries. If you count the Pentecostals as Methodist offshoots, as we do, then the numbers are even higher: 279-644 million and counting.

Wesley’s faith was devoted to social justice as well as preaching. It is hard to overestimate how large a transforming force the Methodists were in England and the United States in the 17 and 1800s. They can be congratulated for being instrumental in the abolition of slavery by England, as well as in uplifting the poor in countless ways. Just six days before his death, Wesley wrote a letter to William Wilberforce encouraging him in his efforts to bring an end to slavery: “O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of His might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it.”

Notable quotes from Wesley:

  • Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.
  • Earn all you can, give all you can, save all you can.
  • “Holy solitaries” is a phrase no more consistent with the Gospel than holy adulterers. The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social; no holiness, but social holiness.
  • Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees.
  • When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to me.
  • Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.
  • Catch on fire and people will come for miles to see you burn.
  • God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.
  • Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.
  • As for reputation, though it be a glorious instrument of advancing our Master’s service, yet there is a better than that: a clean heart, a single eye, and a soul full of God. A fair exchange if, by the loss of reputation, we can purchase the lowest degree of purity of heart.
  • Our church did some theology about being radical in 2016 and John Wesley was the example. Check out this material that relates: Radical Energy at 3000 Feet, and Are We Visible Enough?

More

Bio from Christianity Today [link]

2009 film Wesley includes June Lockhart, playing his mother Susannah. There are quite a few films to watch: John Wesley: The faith that Sparked the Methodist Movement (2020 documentary using scenes from 2009 film) and one from 1954 John Wesley.

Interesting look at Methodist history in England [link]

Wesley’s books were best sellers. As he got richer, he got more generous, as the following story about his financial discipline shows.

While at Oxford, an incident changed Wesley’s perspective on money. He had just finished paying for some pictures for his room when one of the chambermaids came to his door. It was a cold winter day, and he noticed that she had nothing to protect her except a thin linen gown. He reached into his pocket to give her some money to buy a coat but found he had too little left. Immediately the thought struck him that the Lord was not pleased with the way he had spent his money. He asked himself, “Will thy Master say, ‘Well done, good and faithful steward?’ Thou hast adorned thy walls with the money which might have screened this poor creature from the cold! O justice! O mercy! Are not these pictures the blood of this poor maid?”

Perhaps as a result of this incident, in 1731 Wesley began to limit his expenses so that he would have more money to give to the poor. He records that one year his income was 30 pounds and his living expenses 28 pounds, so he had 2 pounds to give away. The next year his income doubled, but he still managed to live on 28 pounds, so he had 32 pounds to give to the poor. In the third year, his income jumped to 90 pounds. Instead of letting his expenses rise with his income, he kept them to 28 pounds and gave away 62 pounds. Even when his income rose into the thousands of pounds sterling, he lived simply, and he quickly gave away his surplus money. One year his income was a little over 1400 pounds. He lived on 30 pounds and gave away nearly 1400 pounds.

Favorite works about Wesley:

What do we do with this?

John Wesley caused enormous change in the lives of individuals and in both England and the United States by giving people practical ways to live out radical faith. Many churches today reflect his methods. Do you connect with others to be a force for change, or do you kind of do your own thing? That would be one of his questions for you. [Wesley’s 22 Questions]

Ask God to move you from your head to heart—or just anywhere.

John Cassian – February 28

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226)

John Cassian

Bible connection

Read 2 Corinthians 6:17-7:3

Therefore, “Come out from them
and be separate,
says the Lord.
Touch no unclean thing,
and I will receive you.”

And, “I will be a Father to you,
and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.”

Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

All about John Cassian (c. 360-c.435)

John Cassian taught: “God can be sensed when we gaze with trembling hearts at that power of his which controls, guides, and rules everything, when we contemplate his immense knowledge and his knowing look which the secrets of the heart cannot evade.”

His writings reflect his adventurous, radical, ever-seeking life. He was born in the Danube Delta in what is now Dobrogea, Romania, in about 360 (some sources place his birth in Gaul/Southern France). In 382 he entered a monastery in Bethlehem and after several years was granted permission, along with his friend, Germanus, to visit the Desert Fathers and Mothers in Egypt. They remained in Egypt until 399, except for a brief period when they returned to Bethlehem and were released from their vows.

After they left Egypt they went to Constantinople, where they met John Chrysostom, who ordained John Cassian as a deacon. He had to leave Constantinople in 403 when Chrysostom was exiled, eventually settling close to what is now Marseilles, France, where he was ordained a priest and founded two monasteries, one for women and one for men.

John’s most notable works are the Institutes, which detail how to live the monastic life, Egypt-style, and the Conferences, which provide details of conversations between John and Germanus and the Desert Fathers and Mothers. These writings have been very  influential from his lifetime until the present.

Cassian also waded into the big controversies of his day. He ably warned against some of the excesses in Augustine of Hippo’s theology when Augustine defamed Pelagius, whose writings Cassian also found extreme, in parts. He also defended the nature of Christ against Nestorius. John Cassian died peacefully in about 435.

John Cassian, like many during his time, was seeking to deepen his relationship with God and to escape a corrupting culture. He tried to balance the tension between pursuing an individual purity, loving God in solitude where distractions were limited, as the Desert Fathers and Mothers taught him, with living in a community with like-minded companions who could guide one’s journey. His life is a testament to seeking holiness individually and to loving God and others in community.

A quote from Conference Nine:

We need to be especially careful to follow the gospel precept which instructs us to go into our room and to shut the door so that we may pray to our Father. And this is how we can do it.

We pray in our room whenever we withdraw our hearts completely from the tumult and the noise of our thoughts and our worries and when secretly and intimately we offer our prayers to the Lord.

We pray with the door shut when without opening our mouths and in perfect silence we offer our petitions to the One who pays no attention to words but who looks hard at our hearts.

We pray in secret when in our hearts alone and in our recollected spirits we address God and reveal our wishes only to Him and in such a way that the hostile powers themselves have no inkling of their nature. Hence we must pray in utter silence, not simply in order that our whispers and our cries do not prove both a distraction to our brothers standing nearby and a nuisance to them when they themselves are praying but also so as to ensure that the thrust of our pleading be hidden from our enemies who are especially lying in wait to attack us during our prayers. In this way we shall fulfill the command “Keep your mouth shut from the one who sleeps on your breast” (Micah 7:5).

The reason why our prayers ought to be frequent and brief is in case the enemy, who is out to trap us, should slip a distraction to us if ever we are long-drawn-out. There lies true sacrifice. “The sacrifice which God wants is a contrite heart” (Ps 51:19). This indeed is the saving oblation, the pure offering, the sacrifice of justification, the sacrifice of praise. These are the real and rich thank offerings, the fat holocausts [a sacrifice in which the offering was burned completely on an altar] offered up by contrite and humble hearts. If we offer them to God in the way and with zeal which I have mentioned we can be sure to be heard and we can sing: “Let my prayer rise up like incense before your face and my hands like the evening offering” (Ps 141:2).

More

Hit all the tabs on this site and you will know everything [link]

Cassian’s tomb in Marseille [link].   A nice description for tourists [link]

Here is a nice bio and summary of his writings from the Orthodox Church of America. Quote:

In his works, Saint John Cassian was grounded in the spiritual experience of the ascetics, and criticized the abstract reasoning of Saint Augustine (June 15). Saint John said that “grace is defended less adequately by pompous words and loquacious contention, dialectic syllogisms and the eloquence of Cicero [i.e. Augustine], than by the example of the Egyptian ascetics.” In the words of Saint John of the Ladder (March 30), “great Cassian reasons loftily and excellently.” His writings are also praised in the Rule of Saint Benedict.

What do we do with this?

John Cassian is such a scholar! His works are like a grounded theory dissertation, drawing conclusions from first hand interviews and experiences rather than rearranging biased abstractions. Let’s think about our own study. For instance, what would you do with Micah 7:5?

Put no trust in a friend;
    have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
    from her who lies in your embrace,

  • John reads it in a contemplative way, using it to speak into his personal relationship with God. He sees all the Bible as a means to that end. You might say, he starts his reading from his relationship with God, not from the words of the Bible.
  • In fact (as 21st century people see fact) Micah’s colorful analogy has little to do with relating to God or the devil, the  prophet is talking about not being able to trust your intimates when trouble comes.  John Cassian goes beyond the “facts.”
  • Do you want to think about what you are doing with these different ways to look at the same sentences? You could start with the prophet, start with yourself, or start with God, or even think of the words as having meaning in themselves—all might be profitable. How do you start your study of the Bible?

John Cassian changed the direction of his life after he met the Desert Fathers and Mothers — and he had to go to great lengths to meet them! Then he went to be a disciple of John Chrysostom! When was the last time you went to meet someone who could inspire or guide you? When did you last go to “the desert?”

Cassian applied the lessons he learned in the desert for the rest of his life. He adapted the way the Egyptian radicals formed community to the bustling world of Southern Gaul. He found it was possible for people to withdraw “into the desert” without going to the desert. As a result, monasticism developed into a force that influenced Europe for centuries, and still does. How are you doing with your own spiritual disciplines in the midst of your busy life?

Valentine — February 14

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226)
Church of the Dormition in Jerusalem.

Bible connection

 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. — 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (RSV)

All about Valentine (c. 226-269)

The exact history of Valentine is murky. What we do seem to know is that in the 3rd century the emperor Claudius II of Rome outlawed marriage for certain young men because married men were reluctant to leave their wives and go to war.

Valentine continued to marry couples in secret. When the emperor found out, he attempted to convert Valentine to believe in the Roman gods. Valentine refused and attempted to convert the emperor to Christianity. Claudius II responded by sentencing Valentine to death.

While in prison, the story goes, the jailer’s blind daughter visited Valentine. By a miracle, Valentine cured the jailer’s daughter and she was able to see.

Therefore, Valentine’s day is more about resistance, martyrdom, and sacrifice than romantic love. However, his saints day falls around the time that love birds traditionally mate in England, so he became associated with romance.

More

Check out the History Channel: [link]

Rod’s tributes to St. Valentine:

  • A poem about his obscure but courageous-sounding history [link]
  • Making a connection with poor Whitney Houston [link]

From the Roman Catholics:

What do we do with this?

Talk to your mate about martyrdom. Can your relationship bear the trials of faith? Do you hang on more tightly to one another than to Jesus?

Consider how you face the challenges the godless government tries to impose on you. Do you go along with its philosophy of economics and power?

I think Valentine would love it if you celebrated your love with your mate or special someone. Love is better than war. You might say Valentine died for love. His love gave sight to the blind and keeps giving a reason to see love in the eyes of another.

Brigid of Kildare — February 1

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226)
Icon by Brother Simeon Davis

Bible connection

Read John 1:10-14

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

All about Brigid (c. 451-515)

Today is the traditional feast day to celebrate Brigid of Kildare. She was a crucial figure in the 5th Century church, particularly in Ireland. Brigid was a convert to the faith, a nun, an abbess, and the founder of several monasteries, most famously at Kildare. Her powerful office as the abbess of Kildare (an office which held the powers of a bishop until the 12th Century), made her an unusual and somewhat controversial figure.

Her father was a pagan chieftain and her mother was a Christian. Some have said Brigid’s mother was born in Portugal, kidnapped by Irish pirates and brought to Ireland to work as a slave, just like St. Patrick was. Brigid’s father named her after one of the most powerful goddesses of the pagan religion: the goddess of fire, whose manifestations were song, craftsmanship, and poetry, which the Irish considered elements of the flame of knowledge. Despite her grand name, Brigid spent her early life cooking, cleaning, washing and feeding the animals on her father’s farm, the daughter of a slave.

She lived during the time of St. Patrick (died ca. 493) and was inspired by his preaching. She became a Christian. When Brigid turned eighteen, she stopped working for her father. Brigid’s father wanted her to find a husband but she had already decided she would spend her life working for God by looking after poor, sick and elderly people. Brigid’s charity angered her father because he thought she was being too generous. When she finally gave his jewel-encrusted sword to a leper, her father realized she would be best suited to the religious life. Brigid finally got her wish and entered an intentional Christian community (call it a convent or monastery).

News of Brigid’s good works spread and soon many young women from all over the country joined her community. She founded many convents all over Ireland; the most famous one was built beside an oak tree where the town of Kildare now stands. Around 470 she also founded a double monastery, for men and women, in Kildare. As Abbess of this foundation she wielded considerable power, and was a very wise and prudent superior. The Abbey of Kildare became one of the most prestigious monastic communities in Ireland, and was famous throughout Christian Europe. You can still visit the site, with its striking tower.

Her cross (she’s holding it in the icon above) is a famous symbol of using ordinary things to show God’s love by sharing one’s time and labor. The symbol comes from the famous story of her weaving a cross out of the rushes covering the floor to demonstrate the gospel to a dying man. Here is one version of the story: A pagan chieftain who lived near Kildare was dying. Christians in his household sent for Brigid to talk to him about Christ. When she arrived, the chieftain was raving. As it was impossible to instruct this delirious man; hopes for his conversion dimmed. Brigid sat down at his bedside to console him. As was customary, the dirt floor was strewn with rushes both for warmth and cleanliness. Brigid stooped down and started to weave them into a cross, fastening the points together. The sick man asked what she was doing. She began to explain the cross, and as she talked his delirium quieted and he questioned her with growing interest. Through her weaving, he converted and was baptized at the point of death. Ever since then the cross of rushes has been an important symbol in Ireland.

More

A bio from Solas Bhride in Kildare [link]

A bio from the Brigidine Sisters in Australia: [link]

Thoughts from Rod, who “visited” Brigid on pilgrimage [link]

Inspired to make an Irish pilgrimage? [link]

What do we do with this?

Brigid reminds us that women have always been esteemed by God as worthy leaders. Men have often denied them their calling, but Spirit filled sisters often break through the injustice. Celebrate the daring women of faith you know!

Brigid reminds us of earth, wind, fire and water. Her home-grown, Celtic Christianity is full of natural elements, including a fire symbolizing God’s presence which she and her band tended in Kildare — one which burned continuously for centuries.

There is a Druid goddess named Brigid, as well. Sometimes the Irish have gotten the saint and goddess mixed up. But we can celebrate how the yearning represented in gods and goddesses are met in Jesus, as Brigid boldly proclaimed. Think about honoring the yearning of people around you. Imagine how you can connect them to Jesus.

Menno Simons — January 31

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936),

Menno Simons

Bible connection

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. — James 1:27

All about Menno Simons (1496-1561)

At the height of their persecution, one convert survived to give form and future to the Anabaptist movement. Menno Simons  was a Catholic priest born in modern day Netherlands. While studying the Scriptures for the first time (even though he had been a priest for over a decade), Simons realized he was in conflict with church leaders  about transubstantiation. A few years later, around 1531, Simons heard about “rebaptizing” when Sicke Snijder was beheaded, the first Anabaptist martyr in the Netherlands. He was moved to study and found that infant baptism was not in the Bible. He began having more contact with Anabaptists, and while the date of his own adult baptism is not known, those who harbored Simons were arrested for the offense.

The Mennonites, a religious group descended from the 16th century Anabaptists, take their name from Menno Simons. His moderation, after the militant excesses of the fanatical Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster (1534 – 35), restored balance to the movement.

As Simons’ influence increased over the years, the Dutch Anabaptists became known as Mennonites. They developed a distinctive focus on evangelism. The most celebrated of Simons’ work: Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing (1539) reads,

True evangelical faith is of such a nature it cannot lie dormant, but spreads itself out in all kinds of righteousness and fruits of love; it dies to flesh and blood; it destroys all lusts and forbidden desires; it seeks, serves and fears God in its inmost soul; it clothes the naked; it feeds the hungry; it comforts the sorrowful; it shelters the destitute; it aids and consoles the sad; it does good to those who do it harm; it serves those that harm it; it prays for those who persecute it; it teaches, admonishes and judges us with the Word of the Lord; it seeks those who are lost; it binds up what is wounded; it heals the sick; it saves what is strong (sound); it becomes all things to all people.

The Mennonites rejected infant baptism, the swearing of oaths, military service, and worldliness. They practiced strong church discipline in their congregations and lived simple, honest, loving lives in emulation of the earliest Christians. Because Mennonites refused to assume state offices, to serve as police or soldiers, or to take oaths of loyalty, they were considered subversive and as such severely persecuted. These persecutions led at various times to the emigration of Mennonite groups, such as one group’s escape to the American colonies (1683), where they settled in what came to be known as Germantown, now a neighborhood in Philadelphia. At the end of the 18th Century, merging this Anabaptist stream with influence from the Pietist movement, the River Brethren (later to birth the Brethren In Christ) were formed.

Menno Simons died a free man of natural causes on this day in 1561, 25 years after he had renounced his priestly vows. He was buried in his personal garden.

More

Here is all you might want to know from the Mennonite history website. 

Online collection of Simons’ writings.

Admiring Menno Simons by Rod.

What do we do with this?

Read through the excerpt from the writings of Menno Simons again. Maybe we should all take a “dormancy” test. Are there an elements of the true evangelical faith that are less active in you or us than they ought to be? Does our relative lack of persecution quench the Spirit among us?

Amy Carmichael — January 18

Asia, Europe, This century (1937-2024), ,

Amy Carmichael

Bible Connection

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.
He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken.
Evil shall slay the wicked: and they that hate the righteous shall be desolate.
The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate. — Psalm 34:18-22 (KJV)

All about Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) 

Amy Carmichael was a well-known missionary during the first half of the 20th century. Her 35 books are loved by thousands.

She was born into a well-to-do, Northern Ireland, Christian family. In her teen years, she was educated at a Wesleyan Methodist boarding school and, at age 13, while still in boarding school, she accepted Christ as Savior. When she was age 18, her father died, leaving the family in difficult financial circumstances, as he had given a large personal loan that was not repaid. The family moved to Belfast. There she became involved in visiting the slums, and saw the terrible conditions under which many women and girls worked in the factories. She began a ministry with these women. It was unpaid work based on faith in God alone, and the Lord met her needs in remarkable ways.

She became acquainted with the Keswick Movement, and it was there that she learned of a close, deeper walk with the Jesus. The founder of the movement, Robert Wilson, a widower, asked her to come and live in his home and be his secretary. She learned much from that employment. She remembered on one occasion at a Keswick meeting when D.L. Moody preached on the prodigal son. Afterwards, he was talking with Robert Wilson and stopped in mid sentence. He was struck with the moment when the father says to the older son “Son, thou art ever with me and all that I have is thine.” Moody said, “I never saw it before. Oh, the love of God. Oh, the love. God’s love.” Tears rained down his cheeks. Amy never forgot that spiritual truth—”All that I have is thine.” It reinforced her faith that God knew her needs before she asked and wanted to supply them by faith.

She received a “Macedonian call” in 1892 at the age of 24. The following year, she became the first missionary appointee of the Keswick’s missions committee. She went to Japan. But there and elsewhere her missionary efforts met with disappointment. She left Japan for Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), went back to England, and then India, where she caught dengue fever.

In India, she saw that the missionary community was very active but there were no changed lives. She detested the meetings with the other missionary ladies—drinking tea and gossiping, showing very little concern for the salvation of those about them. She felt very alone. In reflection, she wrote:

Onward Christian soldiers,
Sitting on the mats;
Nice and warm and cozy
Like little pussycats.
Onward Christian soldiers,
Oh, how brave are we,
Don’t we do our fighting
Very comfortably?

One day as she fell to her knees in despair, a verse she had learned long before floated into her memory: “He that trusteth in me shall never be desolate.” From there on she found that to be true throughout her long life of ministry in India.

She left Bangalore for South India and with the daughter of her host family and several Christian Indian women, began an itinerant ministry through the villages of Tamil Nadu. They were dubbed the “starry cluster,” because the Indians recognized their sincerity and the light shining from them. The members of the band had no salary but looked to God to supply their needs. Their attitude was, “How much can I do without that I may have more to give?” It was during this period of time that Amy took on the habit of wearing Indian dress, which she continued throughout her lifetime.

A life-changing experience took place in 1901. A little five-year-old girl, named Pearl Eyes by Amy, was brought to her by an Indian woman. Her mother had sold her to the temple, and there she was being prepared for temple prostitution. Twice she had run away only to be caught, carried back, beaten, and subjected to sexual service there. Little Pearl Eyes told her story as she sat on Amy’s lap playing with the rag doll she had given her. She described what was done to her in the temple, demonstrating with the doll.

Amy never forgot that day nor the child’s story. It was the beginning of her work to rescue children who had been dedicated to the temple gods. To do so, she founded the Dohnavur Fellowship. In 1918, they began to also rescue baby boys who were also dedicated to the temple gods and goddesses. Other areas of the work over the years were added such as a hospital, schools and publishing house. Amy was not understood by many of the missionaries in India. She was also greatly resented by the Hindu priests and was frequently taken to court on charges of being a kidnapper.

In 1931 Amy had a fall that left her an invalid for the remainder of her life, and she seldom left her bed. It was during this period of her life that she was most prolific in writing. Occasionally someone would wheel her in a wheelchair out onto a veranda where her children could gather to greet her and sing to her.

Amy was very self-effacing. She rarely allowed her photograph to be taken and never referred to herself by name or personal pronoun in her writings.

Upon a life I did not live,
Upon a death I did not die,
Another’s life, another’s death,
I stake my whole eternity.

More

BBC2 video

Fan video bio focusing on prostitution

Goodreads quotes pages

Trafficked women, in particular, are exploited for their image, fueled by the increasing demand for nude images and other pornographic content on the web. Check this out this data trove: Webroot Cybersecurity estimates that 35% of all internet downloads are related to pornography. A study found that data aggregated from 400 million web searches revealed that the most popular term related to sexual searches was “youth.” Additionally, one of the most-searched terms on Pornhub, a popular porn website, is “teen.” This term has remained in their top 10 searches for six years.

What do we do with this?

Amy Carmichael’s life reflects a conviction that we should give our “utmost” for God’s “highest.” Her convictions led her to do very unusual things, especially unusual for a woman in her time. She would want you to ponder whether you are receiving the sanctification from God that sets you apart for your best work on the Lord’s behalf. She would want her example to move you to consider how you should shine God’s light and be a conduit for God’s compassion. The whole world is your mission field, even if you end up in a wheelchair!

The exploitation of women is an age-old sin. MSHT (modern slavery and human trafficking) is a multi-billion-dollar “industry.” Become aware.

Thomas Becket — December 29

Europe, Forerunners (33-1226), Holy Days,

Bible connection

Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses,
but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.
 They will collapse and fall,
but we shall rise and stand upright. — Psalm 20:7-8 [Here it is in song]

All about Thomas Becket (1118-1170)

The Fifth Day of Christmas is also a time to remember the faith of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was martyred for his defense of the rights of the church against the English king, Henry II.

Like yesterday’s Feast of the Holy Innocents, this day adds the somber foundation for Christmastide, since every incarnation of God’s grace has an opponent waiting to kill it.

The church and the burgeoning idea of the “state” vied for power in Europe as it emerged from centuries of reorganization after the fall of the Roman Empire. Periodically, a leader would have an actual debate about the theology of the matter with some kind of spiritual conviction instead of just managing his power in order to expand it.

Once Becket was made the leader of the English church, he surprised the king with his new set of convictions. Like the surprising Oscar Romero who stood up against U.S.-sponsored death squads and unjust government soldiers, Becket was murdered in his own church building.

Becket had more influence as a martyr than a leader. Within years, King Henry was making public penance at his very popular shrine and pilgrim destination.

Becket’s Well in the 1950’s

Once a saint, Becket’s fame grew around the Norman world. He remains a peculiar, English phenomenon. As a member of the clan who were founders of the mercantile fraternity of Mercers, Becket was much lauded as a Londoner and adopted as the city’s co-patron saint with Paul the Apostle: they both appear on the seals of the city and of the Lord Mayor. The idea of drinking the “water of Saint Thomas,” sprang up, meaning one could buy a miraculous mix of water and the remains of the martyr’s blood. Here’s the story:

A citizen of Canterbury dipped a corner of his shirt in the blood [of Becket], went home, and gave it, mixed with water, to his wife, who was paralytic, and who was said to have been cured. This suggested the notion of mixing the blood with water, which, endlessly diluted, was kept in innumerable vials, to be distributed to the pilgrims; and thus, as the palm was a sign of a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and a scallop-shell of the pilgrimage to Compostela, so a leaden vial or bottle suspended from the neck became the mark of a pilgrimage to Canterbury. — Arthur P. Stanley, Historical Memorials of Canterbury

Local legends reflected Becket’s well-known gruffness. “Becket’s Well”, in Otford, Kent, was said to have been created after Becket was displeased by the taste of the local water. Two springs of clear water bubbled up after he struck the ground with his crozier. The pilgrims to Canterbury grew greatly in number. (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales mentions Becket)

More

5 minute biography

British Museum’s 2021 retrospective on how Becket became a revered saint and pilgrimage draw for Canterbury..

T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral” in a British Museum event.

Scene from Becket (film, 1964)

YouTube historian gives you the history of Henry II.

What do we do with this?

 Pray: Guide me on the difficult path of discernment and trust

Christians often talk a good game when it comes to “speaking truth to power” but we mostly keep to ourselves. We even have problems talking to each other! So we can get locked into going with whatever the latest graceless thing the government is doing, even acting as if political power is all that matters. This day calls us to change our perspective.

Pray with your journal and ask the Lord to show you what you actually trust. It might be the fear-led defenses that protect you from experiencing lack of trust! It may be some substitute for God that promises safety in a troubling world.  It may be yourself. “Who or what do you actually trust?” is a basic question we all need to answer, right?

Catherine Doherty — December 14

Europe, North America, This century (1937-2024)

Bible connection

And someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do so that I may obtain eternal life?” And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you want to enter life, keep the commandments.” Then he said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false testimony; Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man *said to Him, “All these I have kept; what am I still lacking?” Jesus said to him, “If you want to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.

And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were very astonished and said, “Then who can be saved?” And looking at them, Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” – Matthew 19:16-26 (NASB)

All about Catherine Doherty (1896-1985)

Catherine de Hueck Doherty (née Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkina) was a Catholic lay apostle, a social activist, a pioneer in the struggle for interracial justice, a spiritual writer,  a lecturer, and a spiritual mother to priests and laity.

Doherty was born in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia to parents of deep Christian faith, who also communicated to her an extraordinary love for the poor. She was baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1920, she was received into the Roman Catholic Church while in London. Over her lifetime, she integrated both traditions within her own spirituality.

In 1910, when she was fifteen, Doherty entered an arranged marriage with her first cousin, the wealthy nobleman, Boris de Hueck. During the First World War (1914-18), she volunteered as a nurse on the German front and was decorated with the Cross of St. George for courage under fire. Boris was an officer in the Russian Army.

As Russia collapsed, the couple returned to St. Petersburg, where they found nothing to eat. They escaped Russia, rummaging through garbage cans in Finland where they were attacked by Bolsheviks for being aristocrats. Westerners, Catherine later insisted, can’t  understand real starvation, “never having really experienced [food’s] complete absence.”

They ended up in London and eventually moved to Toronto where their son was born. Catherine worked at what menial jobs she found to support her infant and her sick husband. After a time, she found a well-paying position as a lecturer on the the Chatauqua circuit, and later became an executive with the Leigh-Emmerich Lecture Bureau in New York City. Meanwhile, Boris managed to form his own company, which went bankrupt in the Great Depression. Their relationship unraveled and their marriage was annulled by the Catholic Church.

Catherine became a single parent with a small child to support. Yet she felt called by Christ.

During those days I was in the throes of hearing the Lord say, “Sell what you possess … come follow me,” and I was running away from him. One night, while dancing with this man, I heard laughter, a very gentle and kind laughter. I heard what I thought was the voice of God laughing and saying: “You can’t escape me, Catherine, you can’t.” I pleaded a headache and went home. Some new phase of my life was about to begin.

With the blessing of her bishop, she went to live and work with the poor in the slums of Toronto, where she founded Friendship House.

When the work fell apart in Toronto, she went to New York. Two things shocked her: the extent of white racism, and the living conditions in Harlem. At Columbia University, she asked a professor why African-Americans weren’t discussed. He responded: “Oh, we don’t study the Negro. We study American history.” The United States, she wrote, “had this marvelous Constitution, but it doesn’t apply to Negroes.”

In Harlem, she found “a no-man’s land of fear and doubt.” She asked, “Where is God in it all?” In 1938 she founded a Friendship House there, an interracial apostolate dedicated to fighting segregation. Similar missions sprang up all over the country, some sponsored by Doherty. A similar mission that became Fellowship Farm near Pottstown started in Philadelphia in 1931. Like her friend Dorothy Day, the “B.” (the Baroness), as they called her, attracted idealistic young people nationwide. One volunteer recalled:

White people, black people—talking, laughing, friendly, sipping coffee. How simple the solution all seemed then: the sooner we of different races learned to work together, to pray together, to eat, to study, to laugh together, the sooner we’d be on the way to interracial justice.

Advocating civil rights in America, she discovered, could be as deadly as revolutionary Russia. She was spit at and called a “n*gger lover.” At a Catholic women’s group, she was berated for eating “with dirty n*ggers.” When a woman told her, “You smell of the Negro,” Catherine lost her temper: “And you stink of hell!” Once at a lecture in Savannah, she was nearly beaten to death by a group of white Catholic women.

“You have to preach the Gospel, without compromise, or shut up,” Catherine said. “One or the other. I tried to preach it without compromise.” She always ended her lectures the same way:

Sooner or later, all of us are going to die. We will appear before God for judgment. The Lord will look at us and say, “I was naked and you didn’t clothe me. I was hungry and you didn’t give me anything to eat. I was thirsty and you didn’t give me a drink. I was sick and you didn’t nurse me. I was in prison and you didn’t come to visit me.” And we shall say, “Lord, when did I not do these things?” I would stop here, pause, and in a very loud voice say, “When I was a Negro and you were a white American Catholic.” That’s when the rotten eggs and tomatoes would start to fly!

One of Catherine’s key supporters was New York’s Cardinal Patrick J. Hayes, who was “always worried” about her. After she organized a study group at Friendship House, the local pastor visited her:

“Listen to me, you Russian nitwit. What are you trying to do? Make them think they are loved just because they have become Catholics? You are giving them the raw Gospel and it isn’t getting you anywhere. Stop it!” I said, “Father, would you like to come with me to see the Cardinal? If he orders me to stop, I will stop.” “Oh, hell,” he said. On the way out he slammed the door and smashed the glass in the window.”

Our Lady of Combermere at Madonna House

Catherine would eventually marry Edward J “Eddie” Doherty, with whom she co-founded the Madonna House Apostolate in 1947 in Combermere, Canada. Their ongoing mission included publishing a newspaper, Restoration, which still exists.

Wherever she worked, Baroness Catherine de Hueck Doherty sought to actualize the Gospel message in the present moment. As she once told a Fordham University Jesuit: “I have never read anywhere in the gospel where Christ says to wait twenty years before living the gospel. The Good News is for now.”

More

  • Read Poustinia, by Catherine Doherty. Borrow it on Internet Archive [link]

The poustinia (literally meaning “desert”) is an Eastern Orthodox tradition in which God calls someone to live in a poustyn—a bare-bones cabin where they pray and fast, alone except for the Holy Spirit. Catherine Doherty brought the idea of the poustinia with her to the States.

“To go into the poustinia means to listen to God,” she wrote. “It means entering into kenosis—the emptying of oneself. This is really a climbing of this awesome mountain right to the very top where God abides in his warm silence.”

Importantly, the poustyn is usually in a village, and the poustinik is also a part of village life, helping where help is needed and always praying and sharing the love of Christ.

“If I touch God I must touch man. … Christ incarnated himself and became man, so I must, like Christ himself, be a person of the towel and the water. That is to say, wash the feet of my fellowmen as Christ did, and washing the feet of my fellowmen means service. …I cannot pray if I don’t serve my brother. I cannot pray to the God who incarnated himself, when my brother is in need.”

The poustinik is always praying, always immersed in the silence of God, even when they are not alone. Every act of service is also a prayer. They carry the poustyn in their heart.

  • Catherine Doherty writes about prayer and sacraments as ways to welcome and know the presence of God in “First Meet God.”  While you are there, check out the rest of the Madonna House Archives.
  • Luminous Lives, a Renovaré e‑course hosted my Mimi Dixon
  • Doherty as Thomas Merton’s spiritual mother [link]
  • Dialogue about her spirituality:

What do we do with this?

The core of Doherty’s spirituality is summarized in a “distillation” of the Gospel which she called “The Little Mandate” — words which she believed she received from Jesus Christ and which guided her life. Use it to ponder your own distillation of the Gospel:

Arise — go! Sell all you possess. Give it directly, personally to the poor. Take up My cross (their cross) and follow Me, going to the poor, being poor, being one with them, one with Me.

Little — be always little! Be simple, poor, childlike.

Preach the Gospel with your life — without compromise! Listen to the Spirit. He will lead you.

Do little things exceedingly well for love of Me.

Love… love… love, never counting the cost.

Go into the marketplace and stay with Me. Pray, fast. Pray always, fast.

Be hidden. Be a light to your neighbor’s feet. Go without fear into the depth of men’s hearts. I shall be with you. Pray always.

I will be your rest.

C.S. Lewis — November 22

Europe, This century (1937-2024)

Bible Connection

And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables. — Mark 4:11 (KJV)

All about C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Clive Staples Lewis was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1898. His mother, Flora, was the daughter of a Anglican priest (Church of Ireland). His father, Richard, immigrated from Wales and worked as a lawyer (solicitor). He and his brother Warren had a dog named Jacksie, who was killed by a car when Lewis was four years old. He decided that he would take the dog’s name in his mourning, eventually allowing his family to call him Jack—the name friends would refer to him by for the rest of his life.

He was privately tutored and sent to the notoriously abusive Wynyard School in England for two years with his brother after his mother died. He came back home to Belfast and attended Campbell College (for boys 11-18) only to drop out because of respiratory problems. He was sent to a health-resort town back in England where he attended preparatory school. It was there, while he was 15 that he decided he was an atheist. Later in life he would reflect that this decision was largely based on being mad at God for not existing.

His interest in mythology, beast fables, and legends developed—especially Norse, Greek, and Irish mythologies. In them, he sensed what he later named “joy.” He was bound for Oxford to study when he volunteered to fight for the British Army in the trenches of France during World War I. The trauma and horrors during the war confirmed his atheism. Lewis was injured during an accidental friendly fire explosion that killed two of his comrades. He had a pact with a close friend that if either died the survivor would take care of the other’s family, and after “Paddy” Moore died Lewis took care of Jane Moore until her death in the 1940s. The two had a close relationship, during both Lewis’ recovery and the period before Moore’s eventual death. Lewis often referred to her as his “mother.”

He resumed studies at Oxford in 1918. He excelled academically and began getting published. In 1929, largely because of the influence of friends and colleagues: J.R.R. Tolkien and Hugo Dyson, Lewis decided to “admit God was God,” kneel, pray, and admit he was a Theist. Two years later he had a conversion experience with the two friends playing a huge role in his shift to becoming a Christian. He would later recall in Surprised By Joy, “When we set out [on a motorcycle trip to the zoo] I did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did.”

Two years later, the three friends along with some others began a group they called “The Inklings” which would meet up once or twice per week for sixteen years. For most of 1941, Lewis published 31 weekly Screwtape Letters, donating the proceeds for them to charity. He began giving radio talks on the BBC that developed from “Right and Wrong” to a later series about “What Christians Believe” and then “Christian Behavior”—these later became his enduring classic Mere Christianity. He published The Great Divorce in weekly installments. In all, he wrote about 60 books, most of which are non-fiction, often apologetics of the faith. It was perhaps in his fiction, like the Space Trilogy, where he did his heaviest theological lifting.

In 1956, Lewis and his intellectual companion, Joy Davidman, entered into a civil marriage so she and her two sons could stay in the U.K. She was separated from her abusive husband. Later that year, after discovering her advanced-stage bone cancer, the two had a Christian marriage ceremony. Joy died in 1957 while on a family holiday. Jack raised her sons as his own. Four years later, Lewis had kidney issues that developed shortly into renal failure. He died on November 22, 1963 a week before he would have turned 65 (the same day as John F. Kennedy — book by Peter Kreeft).

Quotes

  • I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else. — “Is Theology Poetry?”
  •  I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. — Mere Christianity
  • There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, ‘All right, then, have it your way.’ — The Great Divorce
  • It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.– Mere Christianity
  • If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning. – Mere Christianity
  • A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word “darkness” on the walls of his cell. — The Problem of Pain
  • Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained. — “God in the Dock”
  • God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing. — Mere Christianity
  • Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. — The Joyful Christian
  • Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. — Mere Christianity

  • It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. — “The Weight of Glory”

More

Christian History biography

BBC biography

C.S Lewis’s surviving BBC radio address

C.S. Lewis – from atheism to theism

Mere Christianity — Internet Archive,  The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses — Internet Archive

The Great Divorce — audio book on YouTube, PDF online

Till We Have Faces — PDF online

The Silver Chair (BBC dramtization) — Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Illustrations of Lewis’ books. Some by Lewis himself. [link]

The works of C.S. Lewis at C.C. Lewis.com [link]

The Most Reluctant Convert (Movie – 2022). Buy or rent on YouTube

What do we do with this?

C.S. Lewis was a brilliant apologist for Jesus in the mid-20th Century. Some of what he wrote is beginning to sound dated. Most of it is timeless. Some of it has been perverted by marketing and profit-taking. If you have never read one of his adult books, try one: Mere Christianity is a compilation of his radio productions. Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce are allegorical tales about life and death. Till We Have Faces is his last work that makes a Christian story out of a Greek tale.

Consider the time it takes to think deep thoughts. Lewis learned about Jesus before there was TV. After TV, our information started coming to us in ever-decreasing bites. Plan for a few hours to read, pray and think. Plan some time when there is no plan. Those are good times to be freed from your “silver chair.”

Eberhard Arnold — November 22

Europe, The Modern Era (1227-1936)

Bible connection

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,  that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” — Matthew 5:43-45

All about Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935)

Eberhard Arnold was born in 1883 to a middle class family in Königsberg, Germany (now Kalinigrad of the Russian Federation). After a rambunctious childhood, he experienced an inner change at the age of 16. He felt accepted and forgiven by God, and felt a calling him to “go and witness to my truth.” He became active in evangelism and acted with  compassion for the poor.

When he was 26 Arnold married Emmy von Hollander. They had five children. Both grew increasingly discontent with the new movements of urbanization and industrialization in Germany. They criticized the state church of Germany for various reasons. He became a sought-after speaker in his region. In 1915 he became editor of Die Furche (The Furrow), the periodical of the Student Christian Movement, and editor of the Das Neue Werk (New Venture) Publishing House in Schlüchtern, Germany in 1919.

Arnold supported Germany during the first World War at first, even enlisting for a few weeks before being discharged for medical reasons. He sent copies of The Furrow to young people at the front lines. The returning soldiers had a profound influence on Eberhard, and he had an increasingly difficult time reconciling the gospel with war.

During the war, the Germans sustained incredible losses. Afterwards, hunger protests and strikes were common responses to the political upheaval and national shame. Among groups working for change, the Youth Movement inspired Arnold with their love of nature, rejection of materialism, and aspirations towards joy and love.  Eberhard and Emmy began meeting with Youth Movement people once or twice a week in homes.

At age 37, Arnold and Emmy abandoned middle-class life. In 1920, the couple, along with Emmy’s sister Else, moved to the village of Sannerz to found the Bruderhof (place of brothers) community with seven adults and five children. Their community was founded on the Sermon on the Mount and the witness of the early church. The community grew and needed a bigger farm. Eberhard’s writing continued and he became well-known. He began corresponding with the Hutterite Brethren, an Anabaptist group that had fled to and flourished in the United States and found common cause. The Bruderhof’s values now also included a common purse as well as pacifism.

The rise of the Nazi party was a catalyst for the Bruderhof to send their children (school age and draft age) out of the country. The rest of the community eventually also fled. During the travel Arnold sustained a leg injury that led to his death on this day in 1935. The Bruderhof groups re-assembled in England before being forced out of the country. The Mennonite Central Committee helped them relocate to Paraguay, the only country that would accept a pacifist community with mixed nationalities. The Bruderhof Communities are now in four states in the US as well as Germany, Paraguay, and Australia.

Quotes:

Love sees the good Spirit at work within each person and delights in it. Even if we have just been annoyed with someone, we will feel new joy in them as soon as love rules in us again. We will overcome our personal disagreements and joyfully acknowledge the working of the good Spirit in each other. — Writings 

Only those who look with the eyes of children can lose themselves in the object of their wonder.

Truth without love kills, but love without truth lies.

Even the sun directs our gaze away from itself and to the life illumined by it. — Salt and Light: Talks and Writings on the Sermon on the Mount

We must have the love that exists among children, for with them love rules without any special purpose. — Salt and Light: Talks and Writings on the Sermon on the Mount

The whole world is shaking at its joints. We have the frightening impression that we stand before a great and catastrophic judgment. If this catastrophe does not take place, it is only because it has been averted by God’s direct intervention. And the church is called to move God—yes, God himself—to act. This does not mean that God will not or cannot act unless we ask him, but rather that he waits for people to believe in him and expect his intervention. For God acts among us only to the extent that we ask for his action and accept it with our hearts and lives. This is the secret of God’s intervention in history. — Salt and Light: Talks and Writings on the Sermon on the Mount

We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots and executions. We kill every time we close our eyes to poverty, suffering and shame. — Salt and Light: Talks and Writings on the Sermon on the Mount

We must live in community because we are stimulated by the same creative Spirit of unity who calls nature to unity and through whom work and culture shall become community in God. — Why We Live in Community: With Two Interpretive Talks by Thomas Merton

More

Biography and more: [EberhardArnold.com]

The Bruderhof website [link]. Bio from the Bruderhof [link]. History of the Bruderhof [link].

One of five interesting videos on Bruderhof history. Here’s one on Arnold:

What do we do with this?

Arnold was a deep thinker who was open to the movement of God’s Spirit. He did not just think, he acted. His life was an incarnation of his convictions. He formed communities that had an influence much greater than their size might justify. Let his example inspire you to express your own faith and devotion in your troubled day.

You can visit the Bruderhof https://www.bruderhof.com/connect

Escaping the Nazis proved fatal for Arnold. They were cast out of England and had to go to Paraguay. The trouble seems to have galvanized the Bruderhof’s convictions. What does the coming decade portend for us who love Jesus in troubled times?