Connections

There are great rewards that come along with being a foster parent, yet there are also great challenges that make them feel depleted, alone, and discouraged.

The many burdens of a foster parent's day- struggling children, difficult biological parents, and a broken system- are only compounded by the many burdens of a foster parent's heart -confusion, anxiety, heartache, anger, and fear.

Kat and Jorge Vazquez have released a new campaign that will bring hope in a time when it's needed most.

Through their new campaign, Your Story is Not Done, Kat and Jorge are using powerful stories of redemption, healing and second chances to amplify hope. 

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues into its fourth week, more than 10 million people have left their homes and over 3 million people have left the country. 

Sasha Romancha works with a ministry in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, called Shelter Plus.

Tommy Woodard and Eddie James have been best friends since high school. They fell in love with acting in their school's theatre productions and had a knack for making people laugh. When Tommy invited Eddie to church, everything changed. 

"Our youth pastor told us to do skits for the youth group. Even back then and up to today, it's us opening our Bible and our crazy brains going, that's how I would visualize that like, that's how I would see that happening," said Tommy Woodard.

Most childhood memories involve special family moments, playful times and plenty of laughter, for Sharon Dutra, it was a very different story.

Sharon was born in Los Angles. Her mother left when she was just five years old, and her father was an alcoholic that was married four times by the time Sharon was 17 years old.

Growing up, Peta-Gay Roberts had a passion for music and dreamed of one day having a band.

In 2010, that dream came true when she along with her husband, Gerard Roberts, created an Indigenous worship band called OKAMA.

"OKAMA is a Taino word meaning listen or hear", Peta-Gay explained. "When I had that dream, it wasn't particularly an Indigenous band, because, at that time, I didn't know about my Indigenous heritage. I just knew I loved all things native. I didn't know why until I was in my 20s."

After a couple of years of cancelled tours and concerts, five-time Grammy® award-winning artist Steven Curtis Chapman is back on the road.  

"It's so good to be with people and to get to have that opportunity to have the conversations that I love to have that music has afforded me all these years," said Chapman.

 'An Evening with Steven Curtis Chapman' has been so well received that additional dates were added from March 26 through April 10.

No one wants to spend their lives being time-wasters, space-takers, binge-watchers, or game-players. We all want to be difference-makers. But where do you start?

In One at a Time, bestselling author and pastor, Kyle Idleman, uniquely reveals the way Jesus valued people and shows us the Jesus way of changing the world--by loving people one at a time.

Cliff and Wilma Derksen know all too well what it's like to receive devastating news. 

In November of 1984, Wilma and Cliff Derksen's 13-year-old daughter, Candace, was found murdered after going missing on her way home from school.

It wasn’t until 22 years later that Mark Edward Grant was charged with her murder. In 2011, after a five-week trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years without parole. The case has since gone through an appeal process, a retrial and ended with an acquittal in October 2017.

Today is International Women's Day. 

In 2021, together with six other eastern Canadian Churches of Christ, Ottawa Church of Christ hosted a special Women's Day Sunday Service.