If you are anywhere near the town of Exeter, be sure and stop in at the Cappella Coffee House. When you walk in you are greeted with the heavenly smell of coffee and a cozy atmosphere—requirements for any great coffee house—and chances are if it’s on the weekend there will be live music as well. And not only do they serve coffee and pastries, but also an all day breakfast and lunch menu.
When Jesus’ disciples, the men who travelled together with him for three years to learn under his tutelage, asked him to teach them how to pray, he gave them a very interesting model prayer. It’s one that has been prayed by many throughout the centuries, though I fear that many pray the words without really grasping what they mean.
Each week we’d hear the same tune through the 80s—-the theme song for the TV show Cheers, set in a Boston neighborhood bar that functioned as a "third place” for its regulars, a home-away-from-home and a place away from work where they could hang out and be accepted. A place where they are known.
Fourteen years ago, Gail Harder’s son announced to his mother that her help was needed for a fund raiser at church for Community Youth Ministries in Reedley. It involved the annual sale of the sweet treats.
Her son came home from church and said, “Mom, they need babysitting.” Gail answered the call and one thing led to another. Before she knew it, she was mentoring a young mother who later grew up to be a CYM volunteer herself.
This week we have the privilege of another guest post by local writer and Fresno Pacific Student Kurt Willems. It was originally published on Kurt's blog on October 24, 2011.
February 19 through 26 has been declared Freedom Week: End Slavery in the Central Valley by local organizations and the City of Fresno. Along with Central Valley Justice Coalition, its co-sponsors, Faith.Hope.Love, EOC Sancuary Youth Services, Central Valley Freedom Coalition, and We Are One, a growing number of groups and churches are partnering together to educate, inspire, and mobilize people in the Central Valley to address the issue of human trafficking, or modern day slavery, in our communities.
Interviewing different bands exposes me to local artists that I otherwise would have remained oblivious to and one such band is Saving Temperance. This band out of Kingsburg brings a mix of faith with rock. Although this is not something new, the band’s mix of alternative rock music and lyrics about faith, mercy and so on carry the weight and well of the emotion of the words written.
I was reading over people's statuses on Facebook lately and was amazed at how much hate and bitterness I saw. I read statements by conservatives expressing their disdain of liberals, statements by liberals expressing their disapproval of conservatives, statements by independents claiming the moral ground over both parties, Christians talking down on non-Christians, non-Christians talking down on Christians, and the list goes on...
If you are looking to make a difference in the lives of the hungry in the Central Valley this holiday season and beyond--this article highlights many opportunities!
In the richest agricultural county in America, families go hungry every day.
With every cup of coffee, there is a story. There is the story of the people and situations in which the coffee beans were planted, cultivated, sold, shipped (usually thousands of miles away), roasted, and eventually bought, brewed, and placed in the hands of the coffee drinker. When it comes to Lanna Cafe coffee, that story is one of a transformative partnership that spans an ocean, including tribal villages in Thailand, and Fresno’s Brian Acosta and Kyle Kennington.
