I LOVE This Story

In 2008 I announced on this blog that I would be moving to Las Vegas to start a new church for people who worked on and lived around the Strip. A week later I received a letter in the mail. It was from a Jacob Sanders, who described himself as a high school senior in Kentucky who read my blog. He said he wanted to help get the new church started, and was giving all he could. Included was a check. I almost cried. It was a scary time, and this letter and check felt like a confirmation. I also wondered who this amazing teenager was.

In 2010 I received an email from a college sophomore asking if he could apply for a summer internship. It was signed: Jacob Sanders. I thought the name sounded familiar, so I opened up my file of letters, and found the one from the high school kid. Same person! I emailed Jacob and told him I didn’t believe in summer internships but only in longer internships, so no. Jacob soon emailed me back that he would take a semester off of college and do an eight-month internship. Wow! He came, and everyone loved him.

Then Jacob came back the summer after his junior year to do another internship.

Jacob just graduated from college, and … has moved to Las Vegas where he will be joining our staff full-time. Working at Verve means raising almost your entire salary, so it’s a major commitment and sacrifice, but Jacob jumped on it.

I’ll tell you what: One of the things I’m most thankful for is that God has put people like Jacob Sanders in my life, and his is the kind of story I want to be associated with, and he’s the kind of person I am proud to have on staff at Verve.