Marion Medical Mission

God Who Hears

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “God Who Hears” Genesis 21:8-21

Children are crying.

Children are crying in Malawi this morning. One of the least developed nations in the world, more than 70% of Malawi’s people live in poverty. 69% of Malawians have access to clean water, thanks to initiatives like the shallow well program, but the country lags woefully behind in sanitation. Only 26% of Malawians have access to essential sanitation, like toilets and sewers. Only 9% have access to resources for basic hygiene, like running water, showers, or baths.

For many children, food scarcity means chronic hunger. 37% of Malawi’s children experience stunting—they don’t receive sufficient nutrition for the development of their bodies and brains. Malnutrition affects health. 40,000 of Malawi’s children under five die each year from preventable and treatable diseases. 39% of Malawi’s children, some as young as 5-years-old, work to help provide for their families. Economic pressure means that children are pushed into early marriages. About half of all girls are married before their 18th birthday. That may explain why Malawi’s premature births and maternal deaths are among the highest in the world.

Children are crying.

Children are crying in our nation this morning. 10.35 million of America’s children live in poverty—that’s 14.3% of our children. Even more children—14.1 million—live in families that contend with food insecurity—not enough monthly income to ensure that nutritious food is consistently on the table. They depend on local food pantries and school lunch programs. Those numbers are worse here in the North Country. 20.1% of Franklin County’s children—that’s one in five kids—live in poverty.

Poverty detrimentally shapes the future of our children. They do not receive adequate medical care and have poorer health outcomes that will affect their well-being for a lifetime. 70% of fourth graders who live in poverty are unable to read at their grade level. 73% of eighth graders who live in poverty are not proficient in math. They are significantly less likely to graduate from high school. As adults, they will earn less money than their prosperous peers, perpetuating a cycle of generational poverty.

Mothers living in poverty in America often describe their struggle as a constant, invisible battle that shapes their children’s lives. In the documentary Born Poor, one mother told her 10-year-old daughter, “When we can’t afford to pay our bills, like, our house bills and stuff, I’m afraid, like, we’ll get homeless… You never know what’ll happen in your life.” Children living in poverty often know exactly when bills are due or when food is scarce. They describe “always worrying” about whether the electricity will get cut off or if there will be enough dinner. They feel embarrassed and hide their living situation from peers. They miss out on typical childhood experiences—sports, camps, and family vacations.

Ishmael was crying.

In our reading from Genesis 21, God heard the cry of young Ishmael. Just the day before, the child was celebrating the weaning of his little brother Isaac. As the firstborn son by Abraham’s lesser wife Hagar, Ishmael was his father’s heir, destined to inherit a double-share of property, possessions, and blessing. But as the family rejoiced and the boys played, Sarah, Abraham’s first wife, watched Ishmael and Isaac laughing together. One boy was already strong and bold; the other boy was just taking his first steps toward independence. As Sarah watched, jealousy like a dark beast rose within her heart. God’s promise didn’t seem big enough for both children. Why should her child Isaac, the child long-promised by God, share with the child of her maidservant Hagar? Sarah asserted her authority as first wife. Hagar and Ishmael had to go.

Scripture tells us that Abraham found the matter—this banishment and disowning of Ishmael and Hagar—“very distressing” (v. 11). A closer reading of the Hebrew here suggests that Abraham found Sarah’s ultimatum “very bad” or “morally wrong” in his eyes. Abraham knew that what Sarah asked him to do was not right, yet he did it anyway. He sent Hagar and Ishmael into the Wilderness of Beer-sheba. When the food was gone and the water ran out, Hagar despaired and Ishmael cried.

In a world where Sarah wished to claim God’s blessing for Isaac alone, we learn that God hears the cries of people like Ishmael, like Hagar, people who have been pushed out of the blessing and sent forth to live at the margins. Prof. Carolyn Helsel, who teaches at Austin Presbyterian Seminary, points out that the Hebrew verb used for “hear”—shema—describes a listening that leads to action. God heard Ishmael’s cries and took action in response, making of him a great nation. God hears, God acts, God blesses.

Children are crying.

Do we hear the children crying, my friends? It’s “very distressing,” the cries of Malawi’s children. It’s “very distressing,” the day-to-day circumstances of a country where 70% of people live in poverty, children are stunted, and basic sanitation is a luxury unknown to most households. Tyler Holm and Rochelle Holm have lived in Malawi for 14 years. They first began serving there through short-term mission trips in 2008, but they fell in love with the land and the people. They moved to Malawi permanently at the end of 2012 as Presbyterian Mission Co-workers, serving at Mzuzu University and the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian (CCAP). The next year, they adopted their daughter Mphatso, one of Malawi’s orphans. Tyler teaches at the University of Livingstonia and Rochelle manages the Centre of Excellence in Water and Sanitation at Mzuzu University. The Holms are deeply committed to making a helping and healing difference in Malawi through education and improved sanitation. They hear the cries of Malawi’s children and believe that God provides enough blessing for all people, even the vulnerable children of Malawi. Our Father’s Day offering today will support their life-changing work.

Children are crying.

It’s “very distressing,” you might say morally wrong, that in this nation of amazing bounty more than ten million of our children live in poverty. It’s “very distressing” that right here in Franklin County 20% of our kids face the everyday worry, fear, and shame that come from growing up in homes with more month than money. If we are feeling the pinch at the gas pump and the grocery checkout, imagine how families that were already struggling feel. Our friends in the Community Schools program report that the number of Petrova kids who participate in the weekly backpack program (taking home food to help on the weekends when they don’t have school lunches) has soared this school year from 49 households in the fall to 89 as the school year ends.

Can we hear the children crying? Can we believe that in this land of goodness, God’s blessing is for all children, even the Ishmael’s, even our neighbors who live in poverty? Or will we insist that there isn’t enough blessing to go around and some are meant to wander in the wilderness?

I know we believe that God’s blessing is for all. That’s why we set aside two-cents-a-meal for the Food Pantry, and we have made a beautiful home for the pantry, right here at church. That’s why we grow those healthy, organic vegetables at the Jubilee Garden and host a free farm stand in the churchyard. That’s why Coral keeps the little food pantry in Bloomingdale well-stocked. That’s why we cook for the Community lunchbox, play music at the Wednesday supper, and deliver meals for Meals on Wheels.

One of the surprising learnings of the pandemic is that we can end childhood poverty in this country—if we want to. The expansion of the Child Tax Credit in 2021 dropped the national childhood poverty rate to 5.2% and lifted millions of children out of poverty. When the credit expired, childhood poverty returned to pre-pandemic levels with growing food insecurity, housing instability, and limited healthcare. We have the wherewithal to level the playing field and change the experience of our impoverished children, but we do not have the national will.

Children are crying.

Jesus who welcomes and blesses the children, God who hears the cries of Ishmael, the Lord who continues to listen and act on behalf of those who are cast out might tell us that our complacency with child poverty is “greatly distressing.” God might even say it is morally wrong. God still listens for the voices of children who bear the burden of want and need, and God calls us to stand with them. There is plenty of love and blessing to go around, my friends. Will we hear, will we act, will we bless?

Resources

American Psychological Association. “Mental health effects of poverty, hunger, and homelessness on children and teens,” May 2024. Accessed online at https://www.apa.org/topics/socioeconomic-status/poverty-hunger-homelessness-children

“Child Poverty Statistics in US 2026 | Rates, States & Facts,” The World Data, April 28, 2026. Accessed online at https://theworlddata.com/child-poverty-statistics-in-us/

US Census Bureau. Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates, Accessed online at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PPU18NY36033A156NCEN

Unicef. “The situation of children and women in Malawi.” Accessed online at  https://www.unicef.org/malawi/situation-children-and-women-malawi

Amanda Benckhuysen. “Commentary on Genesis 21:8-21” in Preaching This Week, June 21, 2020. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12/commentary-on-genesis-218-21

Carolyn B. Helsel. “Commentary on Genesis 21:8-21” in Preaching This Week, June 25, 2023. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12/commentary-on-genesis-218-21-5

Vanessa Lovelace, “Commentary on Genesis 21:8-21” in Preaching This Week, June 21, 2026. Accessed online at https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-12/commentary-on-genesis-218-21-6

Genesis 21:8-21

8 The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. 9 But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac. 10 So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.” 11 The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. 12 But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. 13 As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.” 14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

15 When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. 16 Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, “Do not let me look on the death of the child.” And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. 18 Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.” 19 Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

20 God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness and became an expert with the bow. 21 He lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

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“Entering the Mission Field”

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — “Entering the Mission Field Luke 4:14-21

Before coming to Saranac Lake, I served as an Associate Pastor in Morton Grove, IL.  Each Sunday following the service, my colleague Pastor Michael would stand at the back of the sanctuary and greet worshippers as they ventured forth.  Above the door to the Narthex of the Morton Grove Church, a banner is hung.  It says, “You are entering the mission field.”  Exiting beneath that banner was a weekly reminder that the life of faith doesn’t stop when we leave the sanctuary behind on Sunday mornings.  In fact, our work is just beginning as we go forth with love for God and neighbor to pursue our mission as Christians.

I expect that Jesus is especially fond of that banner.  Luke’s gospel tells us that as Jesus traveled the Galilean countryside, he visited his hometown Nazareth.  There, he returned to the rhythms of his growing years, worshipping in the local synagogue on the sabbath day.  In an act of respect for his growing reputation, Jesus was invited to read and teach from the Torah.  He chose to read from the Prophet Isaiah and then sat down to interpret and teach.  We didn’t get to listen in on Jesus’ whole sermon, but Luke preserved the heart of his message.  Jesus believed that Isaiah’s prophecy had been fulfilled in him.  He was the long-awaited Messiah, who was bringing good news to the poor, sight for the blind, release for captives, and freedom for folks who lived amid oppression.

Bible scholars like to suggest that Jesus specially chose these words from Isaiah as a sort of personal mission statement.  Afterall, that reading from the prophet captures the values and intentions that Jesus would make a priority in his mission.  Jesus reminded his vulnerable neighbors that God loved them and was with them—that’s good news for the poor.  He restored sight to the local blindman in Bethsaida and shocked the Temple by healing a blind beggar, who had sought alms at the side door.  Jesus set free the Gerasene demoniac, long captivated by a legion of dark spirits.  Jesus reminded his neighbors that, although they resided in the tetrarchy of Herod and were a vassal state of the Roman Empire, they belonged to a Holy Kingdom that always prevailed.

Jesus held onto that vision and purpose that he announced in Nazareth, even when it got costly.  He held to his purpose despite hostile questions from the Pharisees and open criticism from the scribes.  He stayed the course, despite coming into the crosshairs of the religious powers of the Temple and the political power of Herod.  He stuck to his mission, even in the judgment hall of Pilate.  In fact, Jesus’ mission was greeted with criticism and opposition from the start.  If I had read a few more verses, we would have heard how those Nazareth neighbors got so angry at Jesus that they drove him out of town with the intention to throw him down from a high place.  You might even say that Jesus narrowly escaped a lynching.  How is that for commitment to purpose?

This church has a mission statement.  Early in my tenure here, I resolved to read it for you each Sunday as a reminder of who we are and the holy purpose that God calls us to serve.  Some of you know it by heart.  “God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer calls the First Presbyterian Church of Saranac Lake to love and serve one another and the world around us with joy and thanksgiving.  We are a congregation that prays and supports each other and seeks to forgive and be forgiven.  We aim to share the Good News and to do God’s mission with love and compassion, both near and far.”

It’s a clarifying statement of our identity, values, and vocation.  We developed and adopted this mission as we emerged from a time of deep division and spiritual crisis.  Over the years, it has served us well by reminding us each week of the centrality not only of the Triune God but also of love, compassion, forgiveness, prayer, and care for vulnerable people.  That vision for mission has allowed us to welcome new purposes over the years.  It has inspired us to care for those tiny, vulnerable infants of the Mzuzu Crisis Care Nursery.  It has engaged us in supporting Malawi’s widows with microloans, the Clint McCoy Feeding Station, and the sewing project.  It has prompted us to feed hungry neighbors with the produce of our Jubilee Garden, our monthly food offering, 2-cents-a-meal, and the Souper Bowl of Caring.  All this outreach and more may be an expression of our mission, but we trust that it is also God’s mission, an expression of our love for Jesus, and a hopeful anticipation of his coming Kingdom.

Of course, we aren’t the only institution with a mission statement.  Here is the statement for the Marion Medical Mission: “Marion Medical Mission seeks to share the love of Christ with the extreme poor in Africa by providing all in need with a sustainable source of clean, safe drinking water.”  The mission of the Women of Grace Widows Fund is to “alleviate the extreme poverty of Malawi’s widows with food, shelter, and safety and to empower self-sufficiency and independence.”  Even the Souper Bowl of Caring has a mission: their mission is to “unite all communities to tackle hunger.”  Faithful organizations and people make it a practice to ground their service to God in a pithy statement that guides their purpose and brings them closer to Jesus.

What is your mission?  Do you have a pithy statement of faithful purpose that guides your life and directs your actions?  I invite us to allow Jesus’ mission statement to inspire us to think about developing our own personal statements.  To get us started, I’ll suggest three principles that should guide and shape our individual purposes.

The first principle is that your mission must give glory to God.  Anyone can have a mission that enlarges their bank account, pads their resume, or adds to their personal power or prestige, but as people of faith we seek first the Kingdom of God.  That means that our actions and outcomes are meant to praise and honor God.  For example, when Marion Medical Mission partners with African villages to install shallow wells, they bless and seal each well with an inscription in both English and the local language. That inscription reads: “To the glory of God.”  That well, which will bless the community for generations to come, is a perpetual reminder of the Holy One who satisfies our deepest thirst.

The second principle for your mission statement is that it must follow in the way of Jesus, in keeping with those actions and values that Jesus claimed as his own when he read the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah, long ago in the Nazareth synagogue.  Does it bring good news to poor and vulnerable neighbors?  Does it offer help and healing?  Does it free us and others from our captivity – to poverty, addiction, shame, sin, anger, unforgiveness?  In pursuing our mission, would Jesus say to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant?

There is a final principle for our mission statements.  We must be guided by the ethic of agape.  Agape is the choice to love others, regardless of kinship, affiliation, or interest.  Agape seeks the best for others, even when we don’t know them, even if we dislike or fear them.  This is the love that the Apostle Paul encouraged his friends in Corinth to pursue: love that is patient, kind, forbearing, accepting, and forgiving.  It’s the sort of love that Jesus practiced, allowing him to bear with those dense disciples, care for those on the margins of society, and forgive his executioners.

What is your mission?  I invite us to take some time this week to listen, pray, reflect, and begin to develop our personal mission statements, statements that give glory to God, follow Jesus, and make the world a more loving place.  You don’t have to proclaim your mission from the pulpit like Jesus did, but you might like to share it with me, or with your beloved ones, or with a friend in the faith.  If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.  A mission statement envisioned and articulated is a promise of action that can make this world a more loving, just, and holy place.  I look forward to hearing your mission-minded musings.

This church may not have the words, “You are entering the mission field” hanging above the sanctuary exit, but we can trust as we go forth this morning, whether we are worshipping here in church or we are worshipping online, that the mission field awaits.  There’s work to be done.  What’s your mission?

Resources:

Carol Lakey Hess. “Theological Perspective on Luke 4:14-21” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Ernest Hess. “Homiletical Perspective on Luke 4:14-21” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Linda McKinnis Bridges. “Exegetical Perspective on Luke 4:14-21” in Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 1. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009.

Elisabeth Johnson. “Commentary on Luke 4:14-21” in Preaching This Week, Jan. 23, 2022.  Accessed online at workingpreacher.org.

Luke 4:14-21

14Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. 15He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone. 16When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, 17and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: 18“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” 20And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21Then he began to say to them, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Image source: Marion Medical Mission https://www.mmmwater.org/

Crazy Math

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Sabbath Day Thoughts — John 6:1-14

We are well acquainted with miracle stories.

A thirty-five-year-old nun, serving as the principal of a girl’s school in Calcutta, heard Jesus’ “call within her calling:” to abandon her teaching and go forth into the city’s slums to tend the poorest and sickest of people. She completed a six-month course in basic medical care, traded her nun’s habit for a sari, and left her convent behind so that she could be the hands and feet of Jesus for those whom she saw were unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. She tended lepers dying in the street, fed maimed children who begged for a living, and cared for women forced into lives of prostitution. All that need of the streets of Calcutta plus one poorly trained nun should have been a formula for failure. Yet by some crazy cosmic math, two years later Sister Mary Teresa was joined by twelve like-minded nuns and together they launched the Missionaries of Charity. Today, there are 5, 167 sisters of the Missionaries of Charity, serving the poorest of the poor in 758 communities in 139 countries.

In 1990, Tom Logan was visiting Dr. John Knowle’s, a missionary doctor at the Ekwendeni Hospital in Malawi. The two men came across the pump and raw materials to build a shallow well, delivered by the Malawi government years before but never installed. Knowing that waterborne disease from foul, open, community water sources was the leading cause of death for Malawi’s young children, the two men were shocked and angered. “Why don’t you install it?” Logan wanted to know. Dr. Knowles responded, “Why don’t you install it, Tom?” And so was launched the shallow well program of the Marion Medical Mission. That first year, Logan installed thirteen wells. Marion Medical Mission now installs more than 3,000 wells each year in partnership with local villages and leaders. Thirty years after Tom’s bold question, “Why don’t you install it?”, four million people in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia now have safe, clean drinking water, thanks to the shallow well program.

Millard and Linda Fuller were self-made millionaires before they were thirty. Instead of retiring and living large, the Fullers sold most of their possessions and moved to Koinonia Farm, the Christian community founded by pastor and Bible scholar Clarence Jordan. Aware of the need for adequate housing for the poor of rural Georgia, the Fullers teamed with Jordan to develop the concept of “partnership housing.” Those in need would work side-by-side with volunteers to build decent, affordable homes. The first partnership home built was for Beau and Emma, who lived with their five children in an unpainted, uninsulated shack without any plumbing. Two years later in 1976, the Fullers founded Habitat for Humanity, International, which now works in all fifty states and more than seventy countries. Habitat has helped more than thirty-five million people achieve their dream of “safe, decent, and affordable shelter.”

We are well-acquainted with miracle stories. Today’s reading may be the best-known miracle story of all. The feeding of the 5,000 is told by all four gospel writers. Today we get to hear it from John’s perspective. Jesus had been teaching his disciples on the hillside above the Sea of Galilee when he looked up to see a huge crowd on the move. They were in need of his wise words and healing touch. It was also late in the day, and there were no resources at hand to meet their physical hunger.

To test his friends, Jesus asked how they could feed the multitude. Philip surveyed the throng and knew that their need for bread far exceeded the financial resources they had on hand. Andrew did some reconnaissance and came up with five small loaves of barley bread and two little dried fish—resources that weren’t even his to share. The other ten disciples were silent, clearly thinking that they were powerless in the face of such need—there was nothing that they could do about it. The twelve disciples likely expected that would be the end of the discussion.

Jesus confounded those expectations. He took their meager provisions, blessed them, and shared them as if it were Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma’s house with all the fixings. Then, by some crazy and holy math, five loaves plus two fish equaled enough to feed 5,000 men and their families, with leftovers to spare. That vast, hungry crowd was miraculously fed in body, mind, and spirit. Praise the Lord!

Well-acquainted as we are with miracle stories. We are also familiar with times when we have felt like we needed a personal miracle, like when we lost our job, like when our marriage was on the rocks, like when the doctor gave us that scary diagnosis, or like when we were lost in grief. Given the history and crazy math behind faithful people who accomplished extraordinary things with the Lord’s help, we might think that when life gets overwhelming, or crisis strikes, or the rug is pulled out from beneath our feet, we would have faith and trust that the Lord will make a way and see us through. But we can tend to be a little like the disciples. Like Philip, we can only see all the ways that we are woefully inadequate to meet the moment. Like Andrew, we hope someone else can provide what is needed to fix our problem. Like the other ten disciples, we shake our heads, we throw up our hands, and think it is hopeless. The need overwhelms us. We want to give up. We want to run away. We want to crawl into bed, pull up the covers, and retreat into denial. There may be miracles out there, but we cannot imagine that any amount of multiplication or distribution could meet our need. We say, “Jesus, where is my miracle? Jesus, where are my loaves and fish? Jesus, where are my leftovers to spare?”

Miracles often begin with the smallest of faithful acts. A thirty-five-year-old nun with inadequate training decides to go out and help just one leper, one child, one woman, one person at a time. Tom Logan and his friends install a long-forgotten shallow well. The Fullers help their impoverished neighbors build a concrete block house with indoor plumbing. Jesus says grace—he blesses five barley loaves—the bread of the poor. He prays over two salty, dried fish. It starts small. It starts with just one simple faithful act. We can do that. We can launch our hopeful intent into that impossible void. We can place our little bit into the hands of Jesus. We can trust that some crazy math can begin to unfold. Somehow, with the Lord’s help, we find that we have what is needed to face the impossible. Really and truly, it is a miracle.

We know that’s true because there are miracles who walk among us, people who have defied and confounded every expectation. The widow, who wakes each morning to an empty house and the pall of grief, yet finds the courage to set that aside, smile, care for her family, and help her neighbor, she is a miracle. She and Jesus are doing some crazy math. The youth who rises above the dysfunction and alcoholism of his parents to get an education and forge a professional identity, he is a miracle. He and Jesus are doing some crazy math. The impoverished neighbor who finds ways to share with others and be generous with family and still put a little something in the offering plate each Sunday, they are a miracle. They are doing some crazy math with Jesus. Thank God, everywhere we look, miracles of multiplication and blessing and abundance are unfolding if we will only have eyes to see.

So maybe this week, in that best-known of Jesus’ miracles, and in the stories of Teresa and Tom and Millard and Linda, and in those indomitable spirits who live next door or bump into us in Top’s or sit next to us in church, we can find a little hope. We really are well-acquainted with miracles. We can find the courage to stand on our ground. We can throw back the covers and get out of bed. We can take the first simple step. We can place our little bit in the hands of Jesus and trust in the crazy math to come.

Resources:
Bryant, Robert A. “Exegetical Perspective on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009.
Yust, Karen Marie. “Pastoral Perspective on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009.
Johns, Cheryl Bridges. “Homiletical Perspective on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56” in Feasting on the Word, Year B, vol. 3. Louisville: John Knox Press, 2009.
–. “Mother Teresa” in Biography, Feb. 24, 2020. Accessed online at biography.com.
–. “Habitat’s Story” in Habitat for Humanity, International. Accessed online at habitat.org.
–. “Who We Are: The Beginning” in Marion Medical Mission. Accessed online at mmmater.org.

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