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The morning after Hurricane Helene pummeled the eastern seaboard of the U.S., Thomas Witherspoon inspected the damage to his western North Carolina home. The night before, he listened to the wind whip down trees and snap power lines along the two-mile access road connecting his family to their few neighbors in Buncombe County.

Like the tens of thousands of other North Carolina residents, the power to Witherspoon’s neighborhood was completely out. It was impossible to communicate with the house down the road, let alone anyone several miles away. Unable to send text messages or make phone calls, radio became the one form of communication left in rural North Carolina. After fixing what he could on his own property, Witherspoon, a lifelong amateur radio enthusiast, began distributing handheld radios to his neighbors.

There are more than one million licensed radio amateurs in the U.S. like Witherspoon, according to an FCC spokesperson. Some amateur radio bands are short bands, reaching only small communities of people, while others cover hundreds and even thousands of miles. When communication infrastructure fails, like cellular networks, the FCC allows for amateur radio operators to assist in recovery efforts.

“Amateur radio is one of those things you get into because of your love of radio communications and the technical aspects of it or the community and the challenges that you can overcome,” Witherspoon says. “It's a lot of fun, but underlying all of that is this prime directive with amateur radio that it’s always there as emergency communications when all else fails.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

In times of disaster or tragedy, when all else fails, God is always accessible through prayer. He is attentive to our needs, possesses infinite resources, and offers comfort through his Word, as expressed in: Psalm 34:6 “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.” 1 Peter 3:12 “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer.

It would surprise many Americans, regardless of their race, to know that 2.5 million American Black men are in the financial upper class, according to an exhaustive report produced by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS):

Our new report, Black Men Making It in America, finds that despite the burdens they face—from residential segregation to workplace discrimination to over incarceration—more than one-half of Black men have made it into the middle or upper class as adults. This means that millions of Black men are flourishing financially in America. We find that slightly more than one-in-five (or about 2.5 million) Black men ages 18 to 64 have made it into the upper-third of the income distribution.

In fact, Black men have made marked progress over the last half-century in reaching the upper ranks of the income ladder. The share of Black men who are in the upper-income bracket rose from 13% in 1960 to 23% in 2016. Moreover, poverty among Black men has dropped dramatically over the same time, with the share of Black men in poverty falling from 41% to 18% since 1960. A majority of upper-income Black men in their fifties today were from low-income homes. Half grew up in one-parent families. How did they succeed?

We identified three major factors that are linked to the financial success of Black men in midlife today: education, work, and marriage. Black men who have a college degree, a full-time job, or a spouse are much more likely than their peers to end up in the upper-income bracket as fifty-something men. Included in this group are Black men who attended church regularly as young adults or served in the military. Having a sense of "personal agency" and believing they are responsible for their lives were also major indicators of success.

When the media only focuses on the negative, rather than revealing the facts and stories of accomplishments and prosperity, real harm is done. "First, it renders millions of successful Black men, and the paths they have taken to the American Dream, invisible. Second, it can lead to a sense of hopelessness for young Black men. With so much talk of 'Black failure' today, Black boys may start to feel 'why even bother when the odds are stacked against you?'”

An article in The Wall Street Journal warns: “Your 401(k) is up. Don’t let it go to your head.”

Checking your 401(k) is the feel-good move of the year. After the stock-market rally, it now feels safe to peek at your 401(k) balance again. That is a relief for the millions of people whose retirement accounts are still recovering from the bruising they took in 2022, when the S&P 500’s total return was -18.11%.

Don’t let your self-worth balloon along with your net worth, financial advisers warn. They say the overconfidence that comes with making big gains can cause people to take bigger risks with their investments. And that makes us feel like we’re savvier investors than we really are.

Neuroscience backs up the idea of overconfidence being a problem. Research on the brain has found that increases in dopamine, a brain chemical that likely gets released when you see large returns in your account, can lead to more financial risk-taking.

Possible Preaching Angle:

That’s good financial advice, but the Bible also warns that, more importantly, it’s good spiritual advice.

When James Free looked inside the donation bin, he saw something that he normally sees: a pair of shoes. Free was volunteering with Portland Rescue Mission, the organization that helped him to stabilize and get back on his feet after a season of addiction and houseless living. In his role helping to sort donated goods, he’d seen many pairs of shoes come through the bin. But these shoes looked different. They looked special.

It turns out, they were. They were a pair of limited-edition gold-colored Air Jordan IIIs, which were specially designed at the request of film director Spike Lee to celebrate his first televised Oscar win at the Academy Awards in 2019. Somehow, someone at Nike’s global headquarters in nearby Beaverton, got a pair of these rare shoes, and instead of keeping them or selling them, donated them to Portland Rescue Mission.

After Free saw the shoes, he alerted director of staff ministries Erin Holcomwb, who reached out to some local sneakerhead experts who could help authenticate their value. Eventually Holcomb reached out to Nike designer Tinker Hatfield, who donated an original box and several other design artifacts to complete and legitimize the shoes as a collector’s item. In their final more glorified form, Holcomb personally escorted the shoes to New York, where they could be authenticated and auctioned off by the luxury auction firm Sotheby’s.

Holcomb said, “In my seventeen years of working at the mission, this is the first time we’ve ever decided to resell a donation.” She says those Air Jordans are a great metaphor for the work they do at the mission: helping people rediscover themselves as incalculable treasures of humanity, despite having been discarded or overlooked by others.

The shoes eventually sold for more than $50,000, which was donated to the mission to continue their work. Hatfield said, “I’m thrilled the shoes ended up here. It’s a happy ending to a really great project.”

A Wall Street Journal article begins with this story about the increased debt load many Americans are carrying:

Danielle Smith and her family thought they had finally escaped the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle they had fallen into. They saved money during the pandemic while they were stuck at home. They used stimulus checks to chip away at $20,000 in credit card debt and enjoyed a reprieve from monthly payments on their $160,000 in student loans.

Lately, they have been hit with one unexpected expense after another, from an out-of-pocket MRI to a broken water heater. They also took trips with their four children that they had put off because of Covid, including to Walt Disney World, local museums, and the zoo. By 2022, their credit-card debt had doubled to nearly $40,000. Ms. Smith said, “It’s just a never-ending cycle of playing catch-up.”

The article noted that American millennials in their 30s have racked up debt at a historic clip since the pandemic. Their total balances hit more than $3.8 trillion in the fourth quarter, a 27% jump from late 2019. That is the steepest increase of any age group. It is also their fastest pace of debt accumulation over a three-year period since the 2008 financial crisis.

A burst of recent editorials have criticized AI tools like ChatGPT as a threat to educational goals over concerns that students would abuse the technology. However, educators are beginning to come around to the value of artificial intelligence – not for students, but for the teachers themselves.

Kansas high school teacher Mike Harris said that normally, designing a 16-week drama class that adheres to state standards would take him at least a full workday. He asked ChatGPT to engage the task, however, and he said he had a workable outline in a few minutes. He also used it to break down the class into daily lesson plans. The 10-year veteran drama teacher said, “To me, that’s the wonder of the tool. This is one of those once-in-a-millennia technology changes.”

Experts recommend using caution when applying AI tools to complex tasks, particularly in the field of education, because the technology is still prone to making errors. Still, many educators would rather use their time rigorously fact-checking the output of an AI rather than starting from scratch.

Sarah Alvick is a social studies teacher who says AI is also helpful for teachers having difficulty engaging students with the task of writing. She said, “You’ll have a kid who sits for a whole week, saying, ‘I don’t know what to write about.’” With AI, she tells students to use it “to assist you, not to do it for you.” She is concerned about the loss of critical thinking, but seems to feel that the positives outweigh the negatives.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Technology constantly brings changes to the way we do things. We need to wisely put it to use as a tool, without it becoming a crutch or a way to avoid hard work.

In the dead of night at the heart of the Colombian jungle, army radios crackled to life with the message the nation had been praying for: "Miracle, miracle, miracle, miracle." The military code revealed that four children missing in the jungle for 40 days had all been found--alive.

The youngsters, all members of the indigenous Huitoto people, had been missing since the light plane they were travelling in crashed into the Amazon on May 1, 2023. The tragedy killed their mother and the two pilots and left the children--aged 13, nine, four, and one--stranded alone in an area teeming with snakes, jaguars, and mosquitos.

Rescuers initially feared the worst, but footprints, partially eaten wild fruit and other clues soon gave them hope that the children might be alive after they left the crash site looking for help. Over the next six weeks, the children battled the elements in what Colombia's President Gustavo Petro called "an example of total survival which will remain in history."

If there were ever children well-prepared to tackle such an ordeal, the Mucutuy family were the ones. Huitoto people learn hunting, fishing, and gathering from an early age, and their grandfather told reporters that the eldest children were well acquainted with the jungle.

Speaking to Colombian media, the children's aunt said the family would regularly play a “survival game” together growing up. She recalled, “When we played, we set up little camps. Thirteen-year-old Lesly knew what fruits she can't eat, because there are many poisonous fruits in the forest. And she knew how to take care of a baby.”

After the crash, Lesly built makeshift shelters from branches held together with her hair ties. She also recovered fariña, a type of cassava flour, from the wreckage of the Cessna plane they had been travelling in. The children survived on the flour until it ran out and then they ate seeds. The fruit from the avichure tree, also known as milk tree, is rich in sugar and its seeds can be chewed like chewing gum.

But they still faced significant challenges surviving in the inhospitable environment. Indigenous expert Alex Rufino said the children were in “a very dark, very dense jungle, where the largest trees in the region are.” In addition to avoiding predators, the children also endured intense rainstorms.

John Moreno, leader of the Guanano group in the south-eastern part of Colombia where the children were brought up, said they had been "raised by their grandmother," a widely respected indigenous elder. He said, “They used what they learned in the community, relied on their ancestral knowledge in order to survive.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is the duty of parents and the church community to train up children to survive and thrive in the hostile environment of the world. It is literally “a jungle out there” for our children and they must be prepared when they are young.

Every year, about 1500 "thru-hikers" set out to walk the entire Appalachian Trail in a single season. Only 10 percent complete the 2,160 miles of challenging terrain stretching from Georgia to Maine. One reason some people drop out early is that they haven't learned to travel light.

A friend of mine launched his thru-hike carrying a seriously overloaded backpack. He had an audio player loaded with bird calls, an air pistol to keep the varmints away, a camera, a radio, and an alarm clock. "If it ran on batteries," he said, "I had one in my pack."

At his first stop, an experienced hiker helped him go through his pack and decide what to keep and what to send home. Each item was placed on a gram scale with the question, "Is it worth it? Do you want to carry this for the next 2,000 miles?"

My friend discovered that his biggest problem was an accumulation of little things. Most of his extra weight was in ounces, not pounds. He didn't need half of what was in his first-aid kit nor the extra tube of toothpaste. His heavy multi-tool knife was replaced with one weighing only an ounce. A metal knife-fork-and-spoon set gave way to a single plastic spoon. He sent home 26 pounds of unnecessary weight.

Possible Preaching Angle:

How many of us are trying to walk the trail of faith in Christ weighed down by an accumulation of things? Some of these might be an accumulation of possessions, our worldly habits, expensive hobbies, or sins, such as anger, bitterness, grudges, or lust. Instead of enjoying the beauty of life with Jesus, we complain about how hard it is to follow him. What do you need to unload today?

Many Americans struggle with clutter. This is one reason for the popularity of the simplicity movement. And it’s why books like Marie Kondo’s, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, become popular bestsellers.

Researchers from UCLA visited the homes of 32 typical American families. They wanted to look at how people interacted with their environments, at how they used space. They went through each room, closet, and shelf in the home and systematically documented the stuff people own.

Researcher Jeanne Arnold said, “Contemporary US households have more possessions per household than any society in global history.” Her colleague Anthony Graesch notes that our homes reflect this material abundance. “Hyper-consumerism is evident in many spaces, like garages, corners of home offices, and even sometimes in the corners of living rooms and bedrooms.”

The researchers continued, “We have lots of stuff. We have many (ways in) which we accumulate possessions in our home, but we have few processes for getting rid of them … The United States has 3.1% of the world’s children but consumes 40% of the world’s toys.” Children’s toys and objects spill out of their bedrooms into living areas, kitchens, and bathrooms. The push to become consumers, to value stuff, starts at an early age.

Why do modern kids have so many toys? It may be because there are so many playthings available, so cheaply. There’s more stuff available for kids than there was fifty years ago, and that stuff costs less. Plus, priorities seem to have shifted. Modern parents see spending on kids as a priority; parents fifty years ago did not.

You can watch the video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Is clutter a uniquely American problem? Probably not. But because of our sheer material abundance, more of us struggle with clutter than folks in other countries. But this is an area in which we can take charge of our lives. As we purge stuff from our lives, and take control of our spending, we can gain a sense of satisfaction and self-control.

John de Graaf and his co-authors report in their book, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, that four million pounds of raw material, such as mined metals and oil, are necessary to provide for one average American family’s annual consumption. Americans spend more on trash bags in a year than 90 of the world’s 210 countries spend for everything.

Consumption is a major component of the gross domestic product. So, it seems undeniable that Americans, including Christians, will eventually have to learn to live with less. We will have to treat our gifts from God—whether natural resources or material well-being—with reverence rather than abandon.

Ray DeMonia needed intensive care for a cardiac event, so naturally, his providers wanted to place him in the hospital intensive care unit. Unfortunately, there were no ICU beds available at his hospital--or at any of the surrounding areas. Hospital officials contacted 43 different hospitals across three states before they found an open bed where they could send him--170 miles away, in Meridian, Mississippi.

Unfortunately, that’s where DeMonia died. Even though his illness was not a result of COVID-19, the severe shortage of ICU beds that fatally delayed his treatment was a direct result of so many people needing treatment for COVID-19. Despite a readily available vaccine that prevents the vast majority of hospitalizations, local ICUs were--and continue to be--full of mostly unvaccinated patients dealing with severe coronavirus infections.

Dr. Don Williamson, head of the Alabama Hospital Association said, “Every day hospitals are trying to find a place to transfer patients, and it is very difficult. We’ve had patients transferred to Georgia, to Kentucky, to Florida.”

After his death, DeMonia’s family made a simple request to the general public: “In honor of Ray, please get vaccinated if you have not, in an effort to free up resources for non-COVID related emergencies. He would not want any other family to go through what his did.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is wrong when people in need go without help because of the selfishness of others. Even the choices that we consider to be personal still have ripple effects that affect the community as a whole.

Author Lillian Guild tells an amusing story of an occasion when she and her husband were driving along and happened to notice a late-model Cadillac with its hood up, parked at the side of the road. Its driver appeared somewhat perplexed and agitated.

Mrs. Guild and her husband pulled over to see if they could offer assistance. The stranded driver somewhat sheepishly explained that he had known when he left home that he was rather low on fuel, but he had been in a great hurry to get to an important business meeting so he had not taken time to fill up his tank. The Cadillac needed nothing more than refueling. The Guilds happened to have a spare gallon of fuel with them, so they emptied it into the thirsty Cadillac, and told the other driver of a service station a few miles down the road. Thanking them profusely, he sped off.

Twelve miles or so later, they saw the same car, hood up, stranded at the side of the road. The same driver, even more agitated, was pathetically grateful when they pulled over again. You guessed it: he was in such a hurry for his business meeting that he had decided to skip the service station and press on in the dim hope that the gallon he had received would take him to his destination.

Possible Preaching Angle:

It is hard to believe anyone would be so stupid, until we remember that that is exactly how many of us go about the business of Christian living. We are so busy pressing on to the next item on the agenda that we choose not to pause for fuel.