Every journey begins with the first step. I must admit I am somewhat jealous of those bloggers who have years of blog posts archived to their name. But just like me, they all started with their first blog post, they all started somewhere. I thought it would be symbolic for me to start my blogging journey on the day I began my journey here on earth forty-four years ago today.

I have always enjoyed writing. OK, now that I wrote that, I realized it might be an overstatement. Their have been seasons of my life where I have enjoyed writing. I wrote a monthly newsletter when I served for the Charlotte Eagles of Missionary Athletes International. I enjoyed sharing the amazing stories God did through my time serving in sports ministry. I enjoyed the writing I did while I was in seminary. I have plastic bins full of papers to prove my writing from seminary, and since they are all done and graded, I am going with the fact I enjoyed writing them. One of the goals I set for myself in 2013 was to start writing a blog. It has taken me five months and six days to get to this goal, but you have to start somewhere.

One of the reasons I have felt the urge to begin writing again is what God has been stirring in my heart over the past four years. In April of 2009, God rocked my world when I met a little girl in China named Zhang Xiao Xia. This little girl who I now call my daughter Hope has thoroughly changed my understanding of God’s love and the Gospel which I have always had a great passion towards sharing. The name of my blog is “Faces With Names” and expresses the longing I have to connect the reality of the faces of orphans we see in brochures, in videos and on television are real kids with real names. Psalm 147:4 says, God determines the number of the stars and calls each of them by name. If God knows the number of stars and knows their names, how much more does He know the names of every orphaned and vulnerable child who He created and designed in His image.

I completely understand the disconnect of not caring for orphans and their plight in the world. There was a time where they were a nameless face to me as well. But not anymore. Now, each day I stare into the face of a once abandoned child who we call Hope and realize God knows the names of every face, of every child. So I begin my journey of blogging to express the desire I have to bridge the gap of indifference to the estimated 153 million orphans around the world. Every face has a name! Are you willing to take the risk to ask God how you can know the name of at least one?