The big news story of the week is the remarkable heroism of Capt. Tammie Jo Shults—the Southwest Airlines pilot who calmly landed a heavily damaged jetliner with a single functional engine and a hole gaping in the side of the plane.

Sadly, one passenger died after an engine exploded in midair during the Southwest flight on Tuesday morning. Jennifer Riordan didn’t survive the blunt impact of debris that broke a window, despite the efforts of passengers who pulled her away from the hole and tried to revive her.

Following the bad news coming out of China sometimes leaves me feeling hopeless, as the clampdown on freedom seems to grow day by day. In those times it’s helpful to recall the radical, powerful testimonies of how God has turned hearts toward Him. In 2016, I sat down with Christy and Nathan Chester (engaged at the time) at a Beijing Starbucks to hear Christy’s testimony of how she went from being a girl in a town of 3,000 to one of the top female weightlifters in the country to a child of God seeking to use her talents to share the gospel.

A couple of electrical circuits in the basement of my house were acting up, and the nagging reality hit me: It’s time to call an electrician. No, Joel, I argued with myself, you can do this. It’s an obvious do-it-yourself assignment. But that’s when my visiting brother-in-law settled the matter. “Joel,” he said with finality, “it’s time to call an electrician.”

On the surface, Japan is the miracle of Asia. Recovering from the destruction of World War II, the country rebuilt itself into the third-largest economy in the world, known for its high-quality products and vibrant and influential culture. Bright signs light up the busy city centers, the antiseptically clean subways are always punctual, and the Japanese people politely welcome foreigners.

KAZEMBA, Zambia—Theology student Isaac Duwa’s typical day starts at 5:30 a.m. in a poultry house. There he refills water dispensers, restocks feeders, and extinguishes charcoal braziers that keep the chicks warm at night. Sometimes he spends the whole night keeping watch over the very youngest chicks.

Europeans, I hear, have some very distinct opinions about Americans. We’re brash, overconfident, self-indulgent, and often rude. And we speak only English. So whenever we find a European who also speaks English, we’re too inquisitive. And after engaging in conversation for as little as five minutes with a native, we’re likely to ask, “What do you do?” Meaning, of course, how do you earn a living?

Eighth in an occasional series of short short fiction ...

When Martin Branch retired as Senior Chemist at DuPont Company headquarters in Delaware, his co-workers feted him at a gold watch luncheon. When they asked him to say a few words, Branch spoke of how he felt his whole life had been predestined. His Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Delaware fed him into the DuPont pipeline. There he had remained for 35 years, working on making better bullet-resistant fabrics. And now he had ample cash for …