When Bilbo Baggins asked if Gandalf guaranteed his safe return from the adventure Gandalf was offering to Bilbo, Gandalf replied, “No. And if you do (return), you will not be the same.” While short-term mission trips rarely involve the same level of peril as the reluctant hobbit faced, they certainly have transformative power. Neither my […]
When I tell people what I do for a living – “I teach communication and other professional skills to right-brained, analytic, and mostly introverted engineering students”—folks usually respond with something along these lines: “Wow. I never really thought about it, but that’s a skill they really need!” The next question, of course, is whether I […]
When I started my Ph.D. program, I overlapped briefly with a grad student named Sam, the only Christian in the department. He had overlapped with another Christian named Sean. This department is in one of the most “anti-Christian” places in the US, but Sam assured me no one would give me trouble for being a […]
I was anxious when our oldest child left for college. I was concerned about the challenges to her Christian faith that she would encounter. Midway through her first semester, she called home upset. She had an assignment that required her to attend an off-campus event whose goals conflicted with our faith. It was a required […]
In the fall of 2022, I had the good fortune of traveling to Poland and Ukraine for a short–term mission trip. I went with my good friends, Dennis and Kasia Beck, who worked with Cru in Poland during the communist years. I took the trip in part because I was on sabbatical then. But I […]
“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” – Philippians 1:6 (NLT) When I was a graduate student studying genetics, I was afraid to identify myself as a Christian. Several faculty and many fellow […]
This summer, I had the opportunity to visit Quito, Ecuador for one week with a team of Christian faculty and Faculty Commons staff. We did presentations at several universities on various academic topics. At first glance, our work did not resemble evangelism at all, but God was still working behind the scenes. My talks were […]
“Praise the LORD God Almighty!! My dad accepted Jesus today!!” I recently received this text from Elle, one of the sisters in our faculty-staff Bible study group on my campus. Praise the LORD, indeed! Elle’s dad is 90-years-old, and she has prayed for his salvation for decades and has shared the gospel with him many […]
Early each Wednesday morning, I jump on a Zoom call with a small group of incredible women from my campus. We spend 30-60 minutes sharing life’s stories and praying for each other. When we started this group, a Zoom prayer gathering made necessary by the pandemic, I would not have guessed we would still be […]
Last spring semester, I was asked by a Faculty Commons staff member if I would be willing to share about my spiritual journey for 5-10 minutes at a student/faculty lunch for mostly Christians, but hopefully with a few non-believers included. The purpose was to provide a safe place for students and faculty to mingle and […]
