In all my years at this desk, nothing gives me more pleasure than to hear from one of you readers with a report on how you, after reading in our pages about some worthy enterprise, went out and imitated what you’d read here. The writer of the book of Hebrews calls that “provoking” each other to good works.

So it was a delight last week to hear from Joan Allmendinger in Fort Collins, Colo., who had been reading—and taking seriously—a ­column featured here in our Sept. 17 issue. A group called Marketplace Chaplains had helped place thousands of trained personnel in the corporate workplace to provide spiritual and emotional counseling.

“That story,” Joan told me, “encouraged a couple of moms [and me] here in terms of learning to live out their Christian lives in a terribly secular culture. As a Fort Collins mom with a freshman at our hometown college, I recalled an acquaintance telling me how she had helped set up a ‘Moms Listen’ table on a campus near them. With several friends, I pushed the idea a bit to become a ‘Moms Listen and Pray’ table at the local [Colorado State University] campus.”

I’m personally grateful that Joan was ready to respond when our pages nudged her out of her comfort zone.

Joan reports that “kids were disarmed. The combination of homemade brownies, New Testaments and other basic literature, along with personal prayer support proved appropriately winsome.”

This excited mother provided specific details: “We put a hand on students’ shoulders and prayed on the spot for their requests. I nearly choked up wondering how many of these kids had never had someone pray aloud for them and with them.”

That was just for starters. Two weeks later, the women were back on the CSU campus. This time, Joan had begun comparing their efforts with the details WORLD had reported concerning Marketplace Chaplains. “We were making Jesus approachable to a population of whom few probably had a connection to a caring church. We were giving hope, care, and love. And we were sharpening our evangelism skills in a setting that normally can be hostile to the gospel.”

Among those who stopped at the table on the moms’ third visit to CSU were Saed, a native of Saudi Arabia, and Ee-Ha from China (“My phonetic spelling,” says Joan), who wanted to discuss the report she had heard that the Bible is cruel. Ee-Ha took a New Testament with her when she left. Jeff asked the women to pray that he would be more joyous. And a fellow attending an adjoining table simply and sweetly asked for prayer for his parents, whom he missed.

“We’ll try,” reported Joan, “to be on campus one more time before the snow flies.” It’s not always easy to get approval from university officials for table space. Popular as it might be, homemade candy is now forbidden and has been replaced with a prewrapped variety that has passed county health standards. “We’d love to find an indoor venue,” Joan says.

And Joan makes this important point: “I surely don’t consider evangelism to be one of my strengths. I also have MS, which at times makes my voice gravelly, weakens my volume, and limits my mobility. But late this past summer, I was reading Taking Men Alive: Evangelism on the Front Lines, by Jim Wilson—a book I learned about by reading WORLD’s book reviews. The book boosted my courage and inspired my heart. God added a dose of compassion.”

And I’m personally grateful that Joan was ready to respond when a couple of diverse items in our pages nudged her out of her ­comfort zone. It’s a role WORLD is eager to play for all its members.

———

IF OUR NATION at large and the Christian community in particular need profound healing over the next few months, the process won’t be any easier following the death of WORLD’s friend John C. Neville Jr. He was 88. A member of WORLD’s original board of directors back in 1986, John was a man of deep Biblical principle who always honored even those who disagreed with him. I had opportunity to watch him in one fracas after another—and couldn’t always tell whether the glint in his eye was a sparkle of fire or a twinkle of delight. A gifted storyteller, he was never without a tale to edify or entertain.