Retracing the steps of Tre’ Kelley’s childhood is a sobering, sometimes harrowing, task.

To start, you must visit the areas of Washington, D.C., that aren’t in any travel brochures. You must go into the neighborhoods of the Northeast where vice is readily available — where the sounds of “Pop! Pop! Pop!” and the ensuing drone of police sirens, like banshees wailing in the night, are a familiar dirge. Only a short drive from the city’s majestic monuments and stately halls of legislature, it is worlds apart. No one goes sightseeing in this part of town.

In America, we believe that we can make everything better. In fact, we relentlessly pursue improvement. And this can often be a good thing! It can make us examine our hearts and actions and get right with God and others. It can bring new advances in medicine, travel, industry and the environment. It can even help us discover and understand God in new and deeper ways.

But many times our efforts to improve on God’s design give us a far inferior result.

Last December, STV asked Leah Rush, starting power forward of the nationally ranked University of Oklahoma women’s basketball team, to give readers a peek into her daily routine by logging a game-day journal.

Rush agreed and kept a dairy on Dec. 20, the day of the Sooners’ homecourt showdown with Ohio State, which was then a match-up between the third- and eighth-ranked teams in the country. To that point, the Sooners were undefeated on the season, but the Buckeyes stunned OU that night with a 74-67 upset. Certainly this journal looks different than Rush expected, but that’s life — a day in the life of a college athlete.

Long after the last confetti streamer had fallen to the floor and the echoes of the crowd’s deafening roar had stopped ringing in his ears, Lee Humphrey felt an odd sense of emptiness.

It didn’t happen right away, mind you. After all, April 3, 2006, was the greatest night of his basketball existence. That night, at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Humphrey and his University of Florida teammates polished off UCLA with ease in the NCAA championship, 73-57. Humphrey himself had enjoyed a great game and a monster tournament, setting records and winning awards along the way.

Standing just below Jesus at the base of the mountainside were the 12 whom He had called. And so He beckoned to Him those He wanted, and they came. He appointed these 12, designating them apostles, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach the gospel to the nations.

Two thousand years later, it’s because of these appointed 12 that billions of people know about Jesus Christ. Based on that model of discipleship and multiplication, FCA’s Coaches Ministry established its model of ministry and thus created the FCA Coaches Ministry Director (CMD) School.

It would be hard for any Average Joe to keep his legs from collapsing after enduring 26.2 miles of leg-pounding, foot-smacking pavement. For elite runners, however, this is nothing extraordinary. They run long, and they run hard in order to win — either for the personal gratification of finishing the race or for bragging rights in their sport.

But, like any stereotype, there are exceptions — like the one in this story. It is the story of one elite runner who, win or lose, pounds those 26.2 miles to give the glory to someone else. That 5-2, slender figure who runs like a cheetah on the hunt is Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba, a.k.a. Catherine the Great.

Solomon knew the importance of taking care of the heart. It is not only the most important muscle in the body for physical life, but also for spiritual life. Have you ever considered that your behavior is really a reflection of your heart? We are encouraged to guard our hearts because our attitudes, our thoughts, our emotions, our words and our actions all flow from the condition of the heart. Anger, jealousy, pride, conflict — all of these reveal the state of your heart.

When STV caught up with Craig Kanada, he was shopping for shampoo at Target near his home in The Woodlands, Texas, accompanied by his wife, Brooke, and their three sons.

Nobody asked for his autograph. It is likely that nobody recognized him, even though at that time — five weeks into the PGA Tour season — he was outplaying Phil Mickelson, Geoff Ogilvy, Stuart Appleby, John Daly, Stewart Cink and many of the big names who had been padding their multi million-dollar portfolios while Kanada was piling up over 100,000 miles on a Chrysler minivan with malfunctioning locks.

He can still feel it when it storms. The occasional tingling in the right side of his face whenever the thunder rolls through Atlanta. That’s where the 95 mph fastball smashed into his cheekbone as he was squaring around to bunt in what should have been his final at-bat for the Class-A Myrtle Beach Pelicans.

Jeff Francoeur won’t forget that day.

Whether you realize it or not, you are a warrior — one enlisted in a great battle. As a Christian, the moment you pledged your allegiance to Jesus Christ and became a member of God’s Kingdom you became a sworn enemy of the devil and his armies of darkness. And every day, you wage war against those armies of evil. The question is, are you armed and ready?

You would never know it. Not by the welcoming smile or the calming spirit. You wouldn’t have a clue there was a time in Tamika Catchings’ life when she was shy, withdrawn and intimidated by the world around her. That description doesn’t fit the typical girl who would become the face of the WNBA.

But Tamika Catchings has never been one to conform to stereotypes. She was born with a mild hearing loss, which caused her to speak with an impediment and wear hearing aids (which she hates even to this day).

For years it’s been a dream, and soon it will become a reality. On Saturday, September 1, FCA will launch its new weekly radio program, Sharing the Victory, on more than 60 U.S. stations. Under the same name as this magazine, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the radio program will offer an informing and inspirational half-hour program that will air every weekend.