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 …

The planet may be warming, the seas may be rising, and my nearest theater showing Al Gore’s apocalyptic and self-described “nature walk through the Book of Revelation.” But here in my 0.95 acre of the world the summer has been dreamlike.