“Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10) In our little African village, I often chuckled at how the rhythms of passing news mirrored small-town prairie life back home. I woke to the morning pounding of rice, the crowing roosters, and the slap of rubber flip-flops along the dusty path. Women on their way to fetch water or gather produce called out greetings as they passed our home—sometimes stopping to chat, always

One of our Christmas traditions is reading an Advent devotional—often Ann Voskamp’s The Greatest Gift  or a Jesse Tree guide—and hanging the corresponding ornaments on the tree. The Jesse Tree traces the story of Scripture, showing how, from the very beginning, God was making a way for us. A way for His Son to come. A way for the Savior to arrive. “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse” (Is. 11:1). Before Isaiah speaks of a shoot, he shows us a forest leveled