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My sisters, Katharine and Denine, ask: “Where are all the men?”

I second that emotion.

Sometimes the hardest place to live in peace is around your own family. A friend and I were talking about that recently. We love our families (both immediate and extended) more than anything other than Christ, and they inspire our deepest and fiercest loyalties. But they can also make us madder and more frustrated than just about anybody else on the planet. (And this is all vice versa, because we know they always love us but are completely exasperated with us sometimes, too.)

Read more on To Live At Peace…

“They shall call the peoples to the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness; for they shall partake of the abundance of the seas and of treasures hidden in the sand.” Deut. 33:19

Read more on Treasures in the Sand…

Poor people have long struggled to pay the rent. Now in some places, middle class people can’t find affordable housing, either. Moving the problem up a social class has also turned up the media attention, as well as efforts to find solutions.

Read more on Empathy v. Sympathy: Affordable Housing Woes…

Pastor Tom Barron is back home in High Point after a ransom was paid to secure his release from Haitian kidnappers. And speaking of his ordeal to a News & Record reporter, Barron says: “I prayerfully believe this is of the Lord. God didn’t let this happen; this was of evil. But God was there to rescue and protect us from evil.”

Read more on Released Pastor Speaks: “God Was There” in Haiti Kidnapping…

Driving home from a meeting this morning, I heard this gospel song:

“What God has for me, it is for me. I know without a doubt that he will bring me out. What God has for me, it is for me.”

Read more on “For Me” (And You, Too)…

A new comment prompted an update to an older post about advocates’ battle to serve meals to the homeless in Asheville.

A similar situation cropped up recently in Orlando.

The City of Orlando has banned Food Not Bombs from feeding homeless folks in downtown parks, citing safety and sanitation concerns. FNB vows to continue anyway. Read more here. (Link to Washington Post article; also found in today’s News & Record, print edition, but article not posted online.)

Greensboro’s Food Not Bombs chapter feeds homeless people three times per week: at the Central library on Mondays, and at St. Mary’s House on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Read more on Orlando Says “No” To Feeding Homeless in City Park…

I talked to Beth McKee-Huger from GHC earlier this week and she was excited about this. At long last, “the baddest hole in Greensboro” is becoming a(n unpleasant) memory…

The News & Record offers advice to missionaries on how and where they should serve God in an uncredited editorial on 07/24/06 (not found online):

Barron, pastor of a High Point church, and Seastrum, a member of his congregation, went to Haiti to do mission work. Many other Americans go to the impoverished Caribbean nation for good reasons. But the risks are too great. They should find safer places to serve and stop bringing business to Haiti’s criminal gangs.

The words of a martyred Christian missionary and the Word of God offer a strongly dissenting opinion:

Read more on Safer Service? The Paper Said What?…

Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name.
– Psalm 86:11

I long for an undivided heart…

Read more on Undivided…

Doing homeless outreach, I spend a lot of time thinking about where folks reside. And then God reminds me, it’s not about where you sleep at night, it’s about where you dwell.

Read more on Residing v. Dwelling…