On any given day, there are more than 415,000 children in the foster care system in our nation and more than 2,000 children in our region alone who have been removed from their homes due to abuse, abandonment or neglect. In Broward County, at least nine children wait each night for foster home placement. And there is a great need for loving, Christian homes to take in these children.   “Last year there were 332 kids waiting for homes who did not get placed in a foster family in Broward County,” according to Tom Lukasik, vice president of community engagement […]

The high cost of living in South Florida leaves people more vulnerable to financial crisis than most anywhere else in the nation. In fact, a United Way ALICE Report found that 50 percent of South Floridians are only one financial emergency away from poverty with 3.2 million households, (45 percent) struggling to support themselves.  These are not people sitting home doing nothing. These are the working poor, who get up every day and go to work – some working two or more jobs to try and make ends meet, explained Germaine Smith-Baugh, president and CEO of the Urban League of […]

Each year since 1989, The Gathering has sponsored evangelistic outreach events for men in Palm Beach County. The Gathering has been blessed with average attendance of 550 per breakfast and many lives have been impacted and relationships begun and nurtured with Jesus. On May 12 at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach and on May 13 at the Embassy Suites in Boca Raton, former Major League Baseball four-time World Series Champion, Darryl Strawberry, will be the featured speaker for The Gathering breakfast series. I had a chance to interview Darryl Strawberry and his wife, Tracy, for a recent talk […]

Pentecost Sunday is a day on the Christian calendar observed by most Christian denominations today including Protestant, Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. This year it falls on Sunday, May 15. It is a day commemorating the initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the early church, as recorded in the Second Chapter of Acts. This was not a new feast or holy day that was founded by Jesus or the first disciples, but was actually one of the Old Testament feasts in the Levitical law as given to Moses. Pentecost, “the fiftieth [day]” is the Greek name for Shavuot (Hebrew, lit. […]

It is no secret that Florida is the lightning capital of the world. From 2005-2014, a total of 322 people died to lightning strikes in the U.S. and Florida lead the number of deaths with 47, according a study by Vaisala Inc. The worst year was in 2007 when 11 people died in Florida, six in South Florida alone.   On October 3rd, 2012, a group of sixth grade boys clad in football pads headed out to the field in driving rain. This was supposed to be another football practice for the middle school football team in Fort Myers, but […]