By James E. Copple When the world seems big and the problems seem bigger, look to the people like Karen and Inez in Honduras, who remind us that the bridge to hope is a promise built locally on the premise of one and the commitment of individuals to make personal, meaningful connections to people, one […]

Voices from the Night: The Power and Promise of Community Change is now out there for everybody to see and read. It is a “story book.” I am a story teller! I have had the opportunity to be a witness to so many events in so many environments. Whether it is the preacher in me, the teacher in me, or the advocate in me, or all of the above, I cannot tell a story without applying a lesson.

by James E. Copple In February of 1966, my father announced to the family that we were moving from Kansas City to Seattle. I was sixteen-years-old and a Junior in High School. This was devastating news in so many ways. I was new in the faith, a football player in the local high school and […]

Sitting in a classroom at the African Inland Church school in Kibera, the world’s second largest slum, I was impressed by the young people making presentations outlining their business plans.

Blue Cross Kenya sponsors a group of moms and their children living in the Korogocho Slums in Nairobi who have given up distilling home brew alcohol and abusing their own product. Recovering moms and their children live in the worse poverty in all of Africa. Yet, part of their work and ministry is called Hope Raisers and in […]

I had the good fortune of working for and studying with the late Timothy L. Smith, Professor of Religious History at The Johns Hopkins University. I was his Associate Pastor when he was Pastor of the Wollaston Church of the Nazarene in Boston and I was his doctoral student in American Religious History at Hopkins. […]