It seems like I blinked, and 23 years have passed.
As of this year, I have spent exactly half my life in the AFM ministry family, poking, prodding and polishing the epic stories of God’s goodness and greatness that flood in each month from my missionary colleagues on the front lines. But what I could not have imagined 23 years ago is
how much those stories would poke, prod and polish me.
Do you enjoy reading Adventist Frontiers? If so, then maybe you can imagine the joy and awe I have felt each month as I savored the privilege of first readership. Such amazing content! Have the decades of reading jaded me? On the contrary, every month as these stories parade across my screen, I still find that at least one of them (and often two or three) bring me to tears of sadness, sympathy or joyful praise to God. In the AFM office, I edited with tissues handy to preserve a sense of workplace decorum. But in the past year of COVID-19 closure, working from home has allowed me the privacy to drip freely and unabashedly.
In fact, I’m doing it right now. But this time it’s not the influence of a particular story; it’s all of them. Thousands of stories of God’s grace and power are flashing through my mind’s eye. Why? Because this is my final magazine read-through as Adventist Frontiers editor. After 23 years, I have seen clear signs of God’s leading, and I am turning over a new page of life and ministry. My heart still belongs to AFM’s end-time work, and I wave farewell with such deep respect and admiration for all our missionaries, staff and volunteers.
And so I look forward to next month’s Adventist Frontiers stories, which I will enjoy as a reader instead of an editor. Though I may be done changing and refining them, I’m certain they aren’t done challenging, changing and refining me.
