I am Ally Wang, a [Chinese] visiting scholar in UMBC. Through an email from Chris and Debbie, I came to know your church. I still remember that in my first reply to the email, I cast him lots of questions, such as even, “where is the church? How far is it from my place? Could you pick me up if I want to go?” Since then, I have been going to your church and started the connection with the church. At the beginning, I had two purposes to go to the church. One is that I am really searching for something as an anchor of my life; the other is that I want to practice my English. But the pastor’s humorous sermons and his passion gave me a very deep impression. Then, many other friends through Chris and Debbie always can give me lots of encouragements. From there, I have

My First Experience Volunteering in America (Day of Hope) zōng-yàn lǐ (Lily) Today was a very important day for me. While I am not quite sure how much this will affect my life in the future, right now, I am very very happy, very very satisfied. Churches, government agencies and the police department worked together to host the event. In Baltimore, there are several high-crime, poverty-stricken areas. I have been told they are some of the worst areas in the country. What makes these places so terrible? It’s because of the drug dealers, abuses and some other bad living conditions. The purpose of this event was to tell the people in these areas that life is full of hope, that the people of this society passionately want to help them, therefore, they should not lose hope and should not fall. Our church was in charge of taking care of the

My story begins with a cookout. You have to understand that at the time I had been on a self-initiated break from attending church anywhere. That’s not to say that I was against church. Not at all. I had been going to church my entire life. But something had happened that made it necessary for me to take a step back from attending church for a while. I spent the next year seeking to heal, searching for answers and wondering where God would lead me next. And then a little notice appeared on my mailbox, inviting me to a free Community Cookout sponsored by River’s Edge Community Church. I wasn’t really looking for a church quite yet, so I put the flyer on my refrigerator and promptly forgot about it. Every once in a while, I would see it there and think, “maybe I should check this church out.” But