On a recent Sunday morning in Krugersdorp, South Africa, people slowly filled the green cushioned pews inside the multiracial Christian Heritage Church. Many smiled at each other, a few others hugged, and even more greeted each other with elbow-bumps to avoid handshakes. 

At the foot of the pulpit, Mei, her daughter, Joyce, and at least 18 other people joined a South African Chinese Outreach Network (SACON) mission program.

Evenings find Paul Leclair cleaning the university campus in his custodian job in Bloomington, Minn. But Leclair, age 55, has another vocation: reaching the Hmong for Jesus.

He’d never heard of the Hmong until 1996, when he spoke to a co-worker from a group of foreigners whose home country he couldn’t place. He’d noticed how diligently and quietly they worked, but how lively they acted together at lunch. Leclair bluntly asked, “Who are you? Where are you from? Why are you here?”

A while ago, I was having dinner at a Japanese izakaya with one of my best friends when we began talking about Islam. 

A little context: At the time, I was pretty obsessed about Islam. After reporting on Islamism in Southeast Asia and reading former Muslim Nabeel Qureshi’s books, I concluded that Islam is a dangerous religion, one that’s fundamentally violent in its goal to function as a political system. Meanwhile, my friend—let’s call her Jane—is a liberal freethinker who looks out for oppressed minorities, and to her, Muslims belonged to that group. 

Seventy-five years ago on June 6, the Allied invasion of Normandy—D-Day—marked a turning point of World War II. It was also a turning point for Ken Jacobs, an American soldier in the second wave hitting Omaha Beach, code name for one of the five sectors of the invasion.

The first time I tried to visit Pastor Gustavo Banda’s church in Tijuana, my local guide and I got lost driving around and around the steep canyons in pitch darkness. Eventually, already two hours late, we gave up. The second time I tried to visit, Pastor Gustavo sent a text dissuading us: The winter rains have made the roads here too terrible for travel, he said. Best if you don’t risk it. 

New York City’s metropolitan area became the world’s first megacity in the 1930s, when its population passed the 10 million mark. By 2015 New York City had fallen to No. 9 in a rapidly urbanizing world with 30 megacities. By 2018 there were 33 such cities, and forecasters anticipate 15 more megacities by 2035—perhaps six within the next decade. A World Bank report of a decade ago was right to pronounce urban growth “one of the most important challenges of the 21st century.”

Gospel for Asia agreed last week to a $37 million settlement with donors over accusations that the nonprofit mission group mismanaged funds. The agreement brings to a close a three-year legal battle, in which donors said the organization misused funds it promised would go directly to mission work in South Asia.