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    My Paradigm Shift on Christianity

    Written By Joanne S. Dionela, Philippines I was born into a fairly religious family. I attended church regularly, and participated in the same church activities as my parents did—not just in one church, but two. Nobody ever questioned the state of my salvation. Naturally, I didn’t either. In high school, however, my paradigm on faith […]

    A Father Who Runs

    Every day a father craned his neck to look toward the distant road, waiting for his son’s return. And every night he went to bed disappointed. But one day, a speck appeared. A lonesome silhouette stood against the crimson sky. Could that be my son? the father wondered. Then he caught sight of the familiar saunter. Yes, that has to be my son!

    When Death Hits Us Hard

    Written By Jes Nuylan, Philippines Just a week ago, I received a text message that left me shell-shocked. One of my friends from high school had passed away from heart failure—he was only 18. It didn’t help that my schoolmates and I were still recovering from the death of another of our friends on December […]

    What Hope is There Six Feet Under?

    Written By Amy Ji, Singapore To be honest, death really scares me, though not in the same way I get scared by horror movies and flying cockroaches. It’s the uncertainty of death I find absolutely frightening—there is no way of knowing when the “unwanted visitor” is going to come a-knocking, and no way of bolting […]

    The Mud Puddle

    My friend Ed was telling me a story about his little son. He was standing in a mud puddle, so Ed told him to get out. But instead, his son began running through the puddle. “No running through it either,” he said. So the boy began walking through the water. When Ed told him, “No walking!” the boy stood with just his toes in the water, looking defiantly at his dad. The child knew what his father wanted, but he didn’t want to do it.

    When Dust Settles in the Sunlight

    Written By Lim Lay Hsuan, Malaysia I will readily admit that my life is not an open book, free for just about anyone and everyone under the sun to “read”. Suffice to say that even close friends can be very judgmental and critical once they learn about certain events in our life’s history. Perhaps that […]

    Solid-Rock Faith

    My wife and I both have grandmothers who have lived past 100. Talking with them and their friends, I detect a trend that seems almost universal in the reminiscences of older people: They recall difficult times with a touch of nostalgia. The elderly swap stories about World War II and the Great Depression; they speak fondly of hardships such as blizzards, the childhood outhouse, and the time in college when they ate canned soup and stale bread 3 weeks in a row.

    Is Cinderella Really Just a Fairytale?

    Written by Lisa Jong, China Originally in Simplified Chinese It’s a well-loved story that has travelled through the annals of time, repackaged every so often to fit the audience of the day. Yes, Cinderella is back, this time in the form of a Disney movie. As a big fan of the fairy tale, I was […]

    The Definite Choice

    Coming from someone who used to value ancestral gods, my 90-year-old father’s statement near the end of his life was remarkable: “When I die,” he spoke laboriously, “nobody should do anything other than what the church will do. No soothsaying, no ancestral sacrifices, no rituals. As my life is in the hands of Jesus Christ, so shall my death be!”