The past few weeks have been a whirlwind for me. I first spent a week in Honduras visiting with the mission team of Mission UpReach, a church planting organization located in Santa Rosa in western Honduras. Mission UpReach has a God-sized goal: to plant one church in each of the 2,000+ villages surrounding Santa Rosa…in THIS generation. Some of our best friends have been serving to accomplish this mission and it was great to visit with them for a few days. (For more information, visit the Mission UpReach website.)

I spent last weekend speaking at a youth rally hosted by the Cheyenne Church of Christ and I had a blast! It’s been a few years since I’ve spoken exclusively to teens, but it’s like riding a bike; it all came back to me pretty quickly! Cheyenne has hosted this particular youth rally for at least the last 25 years. It’s probably been longer than that, but 25 years is as far back as anybody could remember. I was so blessed by the attitude and spirit of these teens who were passionate about living for Christ. I had a great time visiting with some new friends from Wyoming, Kansas, and Colorado.

In between these trips, I officiated my grandmother’s funeral. In fact, I received a phone call on my way to the airport at the end of my time in Honduras. It was Sunny; my grandmother passed away around midnight. I was really fortunate to share this news while I was in the presence of our good friends. They let me share my memories of my grandmother for most of the remainder of our ride.

These past few weeks, I’ve been blown away by the outpouring of love our family has received. We miss my Grandmother — she was a very special lady — but we have been so encouraged by the knowledge that we aren’t walking through this season of grief alone. A few years ago, after the death of Sunny’s father, our mail carrier actually stopped her route to ask us if we were okay. We weren’t exactly sure what she meant until she said, “Y’all have received so many cards over the past week; I just knew it had to be bad news.” The same has been true now as we’ve entered into grief once more. We’ve been overwhelmed with expressions of love and concern by our friends in Christ.

We’re so thankful for the relationships we enjoy in the body of Christ. God is so good and His faithful love endures forever. Tonight I’m praising Him for the way that love is expressed to us through so many godly people in our lives.