“I left home with a heart full of expectations – mostly positive, but I also had a certain amount of worry,” said Lisa Espineli Chinn, now the Director for InterVarsity’s International Student Ministry (ISM).

I didn’t expect Jesus to show up in a bar that evening. No, it wasn’t a hipster dude with a big beard. It was at my high school reunion where I reconnected with Chris—a formerly awkward and quiet student who now sported snazzy glasses, stylishly gelled hair, and an identity as an openly gay man.

For the past six years, InterVarsity students from mostly New England campuses have been inviting their friends to join them for a week in New Orleans during spring break, where they rehabilitate hurricane-ravaged property during the day and study God’s word in the evening.

“He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid...

Every year, I have the great pleasure of presenting my favorite books. A highlight was discovering www.audible.com, a reading service that downloads to my I-Phone.

The morning’s sky was partly cloudy above the mountain trail.  Sunshine slanted between the dark clouds, creating ponds of light among the leafy elms. From the shadows I approached one of those ponds as if about to walk on water, my footsteps expectant but also perhaps a little tentative.