by Kate Kooyman

I do a lot of speaking in churches about immigration — and I often get a question about assimilation during those talks. Why does it seem like immigrants these days aren’t “becoming American” like they used to? Steve Mathonnet-VanderWell’s post about Iowa churches burning to the ground, The Hollander Fires, is something I’ve retold so many times by now, I really wish I could give him a kick-back.

I remember reading Deb Rienstra’s post about Zechariah and Elizabeth and silence and emptiness and the incarnate word, No Words Fall, because a friend had shared it on Facebook. It went straight to my heart, and straight into the sermon I was writing for that Sunday. It was divine intervention.

I tried to hide the fact that I was crying at my desk when I read Jane Zwart’s amazing Lenten Prayer, but by the time her commencement remarks, In on the Miracle, was posted a few months later I just embraced the tears and told everyone to drop what they were doing and read it immediately. I shared them both with pretty much every human I know.

As I reflected on why The Twelve blog matters, I kept thinking of specific posts that have stunned me, changed me, bugged me, or rooted me. I kept thinking of how grateful I am to have a window into the hearts and thoughts and prayers and insights of so many faithful folks I respect so much.

I bet your list of stand-out posts are different — but I bet we share the same joy at the amazing resource this blog has become for us. I hope you’ll join us in celebrating that by lending The Twelve your support. No kickbacks for me (or Steve), but your support will go a long way to ensuring that I can keep blubbering at my computer for years to come. I’d be grateful.

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Kate Kooyman is a minister of the Reformed Church in America who serves in the Office of Social Justice of the Christian Reformed Church, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.