My mouth was dry and my heartbeat increased in anticipation and hope. For the first time in three years, I would be surprised to learn if Worldwide Challenge had won any awards from the Evangelical Press Association. After presenting the awards the last three years, I listened as my friend Paul announced the winners.

I gratefully accepted six awards on behalf of our team. We received three photo awards, one writing award and one design award, in addition to an award of merit for the magazine as a whole. Every member of our team had something to celebrate.

While the awards presentation was fun, other parts of my time at the EPA convention were more valuable. Every year that event helps me become a better magazine editor, team leader and communicator in general. Last year at the convention I heard about a ministry focused on helping orphans called Back2Back.

The current issue of Worldwide Challenge features a couple who are part of Back2Back and who adopted 34 children in India. You can read the whole story on our website at http://worldwidechallenge.org/content/out-fire.

While most of our stories focus on the work of Cru staff members, we also acknowledge the work of people who staff members influence. And Cru played a role in Back2Back’s start. Beth and Todd Guckenberger were part of Cru at Indiana University. Beth said, “I majored in Cru, which is not really a major, but I spent a whole lot more hours doing that than in any library.”

They went to Albania for a Spring Break mission trip. On the way home, they began talking about the plight of the orphans they had met. “Years later, with a picture of an Albanian orphan in our hands, we crossed the border into Mexico and began Back2Back Ministries,” Beth said. They now help with children’s homes in Mexico, Nigeria, India and Haiti.

We’re grateful to be part of an effort to take the gospel to people who need Christ, like these orphans. And we’re grateful you’re playing a significant role in our ministry. You’re part of putting the good news about what God is doing in India into people’s hands, and you deserve a piece of the awards our team won.

As you think of us this month, please pray for our communications planning, and that we will be able to find and tell great stories of God working around the world.