Dudley and Anna Parr sat inside the Overflow Café in Cambridge, Md. The small café was empty except for two workers and a lone customer, Eddie. Rain drizzled down its large windows. Dudley’s cell phone rang: “Hey, bud, what’s up?” He listened for a moment, then asked, “What do you need?” Another pause. “Call the Salvation Army directly and ask them.” He hung up and looked at his wife. A man wanted to borrow a dress shirt, but Dudley is the wrong size. 

Such calls are routine for Dudley Parr. 

Refugee Hope Partners occupies a small rectangular building in the middle of an apartment complex in Raleigh, N.C. Shaded by tall pines and a red awning over the door, the building doubles as a community center and one-room schoolhouse. Inside, volunteer Mary Maierhofer explains areas and perimeters to a class of seven students. She points to a shape on the classroom whiteboard and asks if the students think its area is greater or less than another shape.

When no one answers, Maierhofer says, “Just take a guess. It’s OK if you’re wrong.”

Dr. Tom Blee, wearing teal green scrubs, receives smiles from staff members as he walks the stark hallways of Regions, a major hospital in St. Paul.

The Minnesota trauma surgeon discovered that healing involves more than stitching up gunshot injuries or resecting a damaged colon. After professing faith in Christ in 2014, he began pointing patients, their families, and co-workers to the True Physician. He also co-founded LIFEteam, a ministry to bring lasting hope to the young gang members who often end up in his operating room with bullet or knife wounds.

Staff members at Watered Gardens homeless mission in Joplin, Mo., hung blue tarps between rows of cots, in case residents coughed during the night. 

Thirty-eight black metal cots, topped with blue blankets, lined the large room where men can sleep. During the day, residents earned their stay in the mission’s Worth Shop where they could grind coffee, break down donated items to recycle, or craft blankets out of plastic bags. 

If I’ve asked a dozen people, I’ve asked a hundred. “So what,” I inquire again and again, “does this current crisis remind you of? The recession of 2008? Sept. 11? The Kennedy assassination?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. This is so totally different.” 

And the response has been unanimous. Even a few of my oldest respondents—maybe in their 80s and 90s, and old enough to remember the Great Depression or World War II—join the chorus. “This is radically different,” they say. “This is profoundly different.”

What makes them think that? 

Mark Stinnett has Philmont Scout Ranch in his blood. 

As a youth, he became an Eagle Scout and member of the staff of Philmont, Scouting’s premier high adventure camp in New Mexico. While on staff, he met the young woman, Carol, who would become his wife. After graduating from college and law school, he became president of the Philmont Staff Association, an alumni group made up of thousands of former Philmont staff members. He took a position on Philmont’s Ranch Committee, an oversight board charged with making strategic decisions for the ranch.

The Salvation Army struck gold over the weekend. Bell ringers found a gold bar worth almost $1,500 inside a red kettle for donations in Kentucky.