Every Christian leader faces times of difficulty. Linda Gehrs, assistant editor of Building Church Leaders and a former missionary, reflects on what she learned from one such time:

I was an English teacher, living alone with one other woman in a little town in post-communist Central Europe. The only foreigners in town, we banded together like a pair of courageous mice. We prayed together, talked about the work we were doing, made pancakes when things got desperate. When my weariness threatened to overwhelm me, here was someone whose job it was to look out for me. We were a team.

But then January came. The snow fell continually. I often left for school in darkness and returned home in darkness. "This is what Narnia must have been like under the reign of the White Witch," I thought.

Then, when I thought the winter couldn't get any gloomier, my teammate fell in love, and I could tell right away the Team was in for a roster change. I took it hard. Her new relationship crystallized all my hardships ...