Hi, I'm Kristi Graham, host of On the Ground with Samaritan's Purse Podcast.

You can find us on Apple and Spotify to hear encouraging stories of how God is working.

And I'll take you to places that you can't go, like Turkey in the hours after the deadly earthquake.

As so, so hard as today was, it was really evident that the need is here and the need is great.

And I think the capacity that we're going to bring will fill a huge immediate need.

Listen to On the Ground with Samaritan's Purse on Apple or Spotify or find the link in today's show notes.

Access more!

Hey y'all, my name's Lisa Harper.

I'm a middle-aged chick, which basically means that my hair is chemically dependent and my favorite pants are stretchy.

More importantly, Jesus is my first love. He's my savior, my living hope, and my main squeeze.

Second only to my love for Jesus is my love for my daughter, Missy, who God blessed me with through the Miracle of Adoption.

In addition to being a passionate Christ follower and passionately biased mom, I'm a mediocre author, Bible teacher, recovering Pharisee, text makes food lover,

a doctoral candidate at Diversiminary, and a bonafide born and bred storyteller.

In fact, my mom, Patty Angel, yes, that's her real name, will tell you that I started telling stories as soon as I could string a few words together and only got windier as I grew up.

I've always loved stories, telling stories, listening to stories, reading stories, and writing stories, because I think human narrative is the heartbeat of real life.

More significantly as a Christian, I believe that at its core, the Bible is a love story, which leads me to a good-natured warning.

The podcast I'm about to tell you about will contain lots of stories, and the hero of every single one will be Jesus.

The reason we're calling this new podcast Back Porch Theology is because in the American South, where I've spent most of my life,

porches are comfortable, casual kind of places where you can relax and swap stories, and back porches are typically even more comfortable than front porches, because neighbors and pastors buy can see your front porch.

So we're tempted to keep those all tidy and Pinterest perfect.

But the back porch is more private, and usually can't be seen from the street, so it tends to be a little looser, a little missier.

It's where you invite close friends and family because you don't need to impress them.

...