Ella Knows A Better Way
Recently, I sat staring at my car dashboard in the thick afternoon air of summer, waiting for my daughter’s bus from camp. What a day… an absolute whiplash of emotion. Just a couple hours before, I was sitting with a young couple in real relational crisis. The current stress of their lives coupled with the […]
Understanding Juneteenth
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” – Galatians 5:1 What is Juneteenth? Officially ‘Juneteenth National Independence Day,’ June 19th was made a national holiday in 2021 – meaning that it’s new to some of us. This is a day celebrating the freedom of the 250,000 enslaved African Americans in Texas on […]
A Digital Detox
Me? A digital detox? I have to be honest…I loved technology as a kid. In 2006, I was following blog posts about the new iPhone that would change everything, and was counting down the days (or years) till I could get it. I knew this new device would integrate my favorite things, but I had […]
No Child Should Live Without Hope
Kensington’s own sponsorship program, NoChild, has a powerful tagline, “Because no child should live without hope.” (NoChild.org) It brings so many faces to mind: my own two kids, Eliza and Owen. I picture my nieces, nephews, my cousins’ children in the UK, the kids in my neighborhood, my coworkers’ little ones, and the smiling faces […]
A Note To Mom
Every stage and circumstance changes what it means to be a mother. Nine staff members have written these honest and vulnerable “Mother’s Day notes” below. We hope you find a note in this collection that encourages you – just where you are – this Mother’s Day. How can God possibly make good out of your […]
No Longer Clueless
One of the greatest and most painful experiences of my life has been to repeatedly discover huge pieces of the world that I had no idea even existed! My jigsaw puzzle of experiences is an incomplete picture. This was never more apparent to me than while on the Asian American Civil Rights Tour in California […]
Mental Health & Faith
We believe that God can heal and yet often we need to embrace all the human interventions and need to leave behind the stigma, too. We asked hard questions to some insightful people within our Kensington community – we hope their responses resonate and encourage. “The challenge with the idea of Christians pursuing therapy or […]
The Poetry of Easter
How do we feel it anew when the elements are the same every year? The angry mob, the beatings, the Cross, the Resurrection. I don’t want my brain to just understand the progression of events, I want my heart to feel it. Somehow, writing creatively and poetically gets my heart more involved – it feels […]
A “Banquet of Misfits”
It was a simple weekend meal of pizza and Thai food; but the guests were the ones God most wanted there. On World Down Syndrome Day, I hope that we all get a chance to experience a banquet like this… World Down Syndrome Day is here, and Julia is older now. Jocelyn and I are […]
Baptism
Baptism is a Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water.