Author: Chris Sikkema

Gratitude shows up here as relief—not relief from responsibility, but from the exhausting need to control everything, since gratitude means handing the outside factors over to something larger than yourself. From there it becomes a cycle: life given, service extended outward, gifts received back, each turn opening up more of God’s creation and God’s people…

Gratitude here isn’t a one-time response but a daily offering made for the small things, like sun on your face, and the deep things, like a spouse, a job change, a hard season survived. It doesn’t wait for crisis to show up; prayer and practice keep it present every day, connecting people to what God…

Gratitude rarely shows up only in the easy moments — sometimes it’s hardest-won in the difficult ones. For one speaker, gratitude is rooted in a lifelong knowledge that she is made in the image of God, a truth that has carried her even as the world has tried to tell her otherwise because of her…

Gratitude here takes different shapes—God’s guidance through generations of family, the simple richness of a long marriage and children and grandchildren, the daily gift of teaching and friendship. But it never stays purely personal. As one voice puts it, gratitude becomes something shared: blessings, grace, even tears and sadness, offered back to others the way…

ProGente serves the Brazilian American community by providing cross-cultural programming, including ESL classes for adults, Portuguese as a heritage language for children, an Orientation to American Culture program, and a newer financial literacy initiative. Staff emphasize that improving participants’ English skills builds confidence and supports both daily life and longer-term goals, with effects that ripple…

St. Stephen’s Youth Programs, a Boston-based ministry of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, builds long-term relationships with young people and their families, starting as early as age five or six and continuing through young adulthood. Through after-school and summer programs for elementary and middle schoolers, the ministry combines academic support, social-emotional development, mentoring, and intentional Christian…

MANNA (Many Angels Needed Now and Always) is a community of unhoused and unstably housed people who gather together for belonging, mutual care, and worship. Rather than offering one-directional service, the ministry centers radical welcome and shared ownership: members check in with each other, eat together, write together, and hold space for whoever walks through…