From Beracah

Union Co-Laborers,

I have the privilege of serving on the leadership team of the Union with my wife, Rachel. As we have been wrestling with the changes in the Unionand in our lives over the past few months, I just wanted to share some of the reasons why I am here and what I am learning in this season of life.

For those of you who don’t know us, we have two kids, Liam (4) and Keavy (2) with another one arriving any day now. Both Rachel and I work outside the home, and we have full lives. We are involved at church, but it’s hard for us to find like-minded people that really want to care for the people around them and grow to maturity in Christ. I guess that is the biggest reason I am here… to connect with and hear from people who are out there in the arena of life, battling it out (and sometimes feeling alone) to live lives where they are growing in character and loving the people around them toward maturity in Christ.

As Rachel and I have embarked on this journey with the Union, it has not been easy. Sometimes we look at each other and ask, “Why are we doing this again?” It takes some time, at least a little bit to read some emails and connect with other people, and our lives are really busy… but then I read an email about how others of you out there are viewing your lives, loving people around you in often slow and hard ways, and it reminds me why I am here.

Reading your stories, and having Kyu Ho or others remind me of truths about who God is and what He wants to do in and through our lives, gets me off my you know what and helps me actually engage the people around me.

The work is often slow… but I see my friends who went from saying they were “skeptics” to embracing relationship with Jesus and starting to learn how to read the Bible, and I see another friend who has struggled with mental illness but now, on the other side of a dark place, says he understands for the first time what it means to be born again, and it gives me hope.

I struggle a lot. I am selfish naturally and don’t want to talk with my neighbors that I think are annoying or reach out to friends after a long day at work; but connecting with you all in some way helps me, at least some of the time, view things differently. My life is not about being successful in the world’s eyes or about having things easy… it’s about knowing Jesus, growing in character, and using what God has given me to build a small but ever growing Kingdom that will last forever. Hopefully the Union can be a place that reminds us all of this truth!

In Him,

Beracah