Andrews University has a long history of sending out students as missionaries. This week, for our blog, I invited one of AU’s currently serving student missionaries to write a guest blog. Margaret Rogers is serving for the 2025-2026 school year on the island of Palau as a middle school teacher. 

The Most Reluctant Missionary: My Long Road to Yes

Pioneer Memorial Church is delighted to announce the selection of Celesta Babb as the new Pastor for Children + Family Discipleship starting April 1, 2026. Celesta, her husband Zackery, and their son Eben are excited to serve the Pioneer Memorial Church community and join the church family in this new role. Please join us in warmly welcoming and supporting them.

It may have been quite a while since you read this particular Bible story, but you undoubtedly remember the story in Genesis 3, right? The scene is the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve are responsible for caring for the garden, which they do. In the evenings God comes to spend some time with them, maybe to hear from them all they had learned that day, perhaps to answer any questions they may have had throughout the day. And then one day when the snake, coiling around the branches of The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, initiated a conversation with Eve.

Reading the Bible each year is a meaningful practice. It often brings us back to passages we might otherwise overlook or move through too quickly. While there are many reading plans that can guide this journey, this reflection is not really about the plan itself, but about something I noticed along the way.

There is a quiet reality on our campus. Students who attend their classes but skip their meals.
Families who stretch one box of cereal across a week. Graduate students who carry family expectations and hopes in addition to their full course loads and empty pantries.

Food insecurity is not somewhere else. It is here. On our campus. In our classrooms. In our pews. And that should matter to us.

In Luke 3:11, John the Baptist said, 

“Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”