Kristen Sosebee

PARIS (BP) – Right now, more than 10,000 athletes are gathering for the start of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. They are accompanied by coaches, spectators, vendors, journalists, media professionals and volunteers. It is estimated that 15 million visitors will pass through the French capital this summer, people from nearly every nation on earth, in one place, at one time.

Every morning when she opens her eyes, Erica Patrick thanks God for life and breath and another day to serve Him.  

Countdown to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris is on!  The city is abuzz with shops and merchants in full prep mode for an influx of 15 million visitors — athletes, spectators, media professionals and volunteers — strolling along the Seine, clamoring for sights of Paris’ legendary art and architecture, and sampling local fare (pain au chocolat, anyone?).

SOUTH ASIA (BP) – Lorie Delk started a business in response to one of the most unusual experiences of her life. The certified speech language pathologist said she knew God was telling her to work with missionary children around the world. She was caught off guard by such a specific call – especially since she did not personally know any missionary children.

Campbell and Elizabeth Bach dream of seeing the peoples of South Asia reached with the Gospel. They serve as leaders on a small team responsible for sharing the Gospel and planting churches among tens of thousands of villages, encompassing many millions of people, and spanning hundreds of miles. Many people groups in this region remain unreached and unengaged with the Gospel. Their task is immense.

Forty International Mission Board missionaries gathered for IMB’s annual Celebration of Emeriti and lifted their voices in praise to the God they have spent a lifetime faithfully proclaiming. They sang a song their lives have embodied as they served around the world entreating the nations, all tribes and peoples and languages, to come and behold our God – the only One worthy of adoration.

Sonya Herron stood beneath a small tent among a group of people with leprosy as well as others from the village and shared the Gospel with boldness. She called people to walk in the light as Jesus is the Light and challenged them to be fully committed to Christ. Afterward, an older man, missing one leg, came forward on crutches. He declared his allegiance to Christ in front of the entire group and put his faith in Jesus. The man, who suffers from leprosy, is one of almost 50 lepers in the village.

Manith Sanchez, a Cambodian refugee who fled Pol Pot’s brutal dictatorship in the late 1970s, had never heard the name of Jesus. But as she recalled her escape, the evidence of God’s provision for her was unmistakable.