Monthly Archives: December 2019

Christmas Joy: God is with Us

Christmas Joy Offering The Gift of Being With What was the most perfect gift you ever received? A bike or doll when you were a kid? A video game, perhaps? Maybe it was the day you met your husband, your wife — or looked into the eyes of the newborn baby that someone laid in your arms. For… Read more »

Christmas Joy: From Homelessness to Hope

Not Another Statistic As a high school senior, Devon Kelly had no place to call home and little hope. Beginning at age 14, he slept wherever he could find a place to lay his head. He stayed with cousins, friends, his grandmother, and his aunt. Sometimes he spent the night outdoors on a park bench…. Read more »

Christmas Joy: Living with Joy and Dignity

Facing Financial Hardship Grocery shopping had become an anxiety-filled experience for the Rev. Gloria Casasus-Urrutia. Ten years after her 2006 retirement as organist at her church,  Porta Coeli in San German, Puerto Rico, she found herself thrust into severe financial hardship. “I had to write down the price of each item and add everything up… Read more »

Christmas Joy: Menaul School Puts Children on New Path

The Struggles of New Immigrants Tony and Lilia Acabal carried deep memories of the struggles they faced as new  immigrants years ago. Tony’s family escaped violence-riddled Guatemala in 1987 when he was 15. A  decades-long civil war, which claimed the lives of 200,000 people, posed danger at every turn. Lilia’s family came to the United… Read more »

Christmas Joy: It Made a Huge Difference

Car Accident Brings Woes After her car went flying off the road and rolled over in a stubbled cornfield, first responders believed the accident had taken the life of the Rev. Shelley Wiley. She had fallen unconscious while driving because of an epileptic seizure, a condition that had been diagnosed years earlier and, until her… Read more »