Two decades ago, in response to Christ’s call to offer care and counseling for the suffering, I embarked on a journey of caregiving.

Let me begin with the story of two Rhodes Scholars. One is named William Jefferson Clinton. He went to Georgetown University on scholarship, Oxford on the Rhodes Scholarship, and Yale Law School. He served as the 40th and 42nd Governor of Arkansas and before that was Arkansas’ Attorney General.

Seventeen years ago, I embarked on a life-altering journey. I departed from my homeland, leaving behind my family and friends in South Korea, where I was born, raised, and spent the most significant portion of my life.

Outside my office window there is a stunning tree. Burnt-red, tall and thick, deep blue sky behind it, and on either side trees still bright green.

Twenty-five-year-old noblewoman Anne Askew (1521–1546) was accused of heresy, arrested, interrogated at least twice, tortured on the rack, and burned alive at the stake.

I was raised in a church and family that encouraged women to be all that they were meant to be.

When my children were young, Valentine’s Day was hugely exciting. We made cookies with pink icing in heart shapes.

In my first year of graduate studies at Yale University, I was asked to be a teaching assistant in a course that allowed for “the yeah, yeah experience” to arise.

Ours is not a time of rest. I need not enumerate the many troubles that we face today, but it should be uncontroversial to point out that we live in a world ever more enveloped by fear. And who can blame us twenty-first century folk for suspecting that danger lurks in the shadows of every path?