At the time I was talking with her, she had a woman with her who was in her early 20s who was in a wheelchair, who was about six months old developmentally and apparently will stay that way. And she said to me, “This is my daughter, and she can’t communicate with me, but she can smile a little bit, and I can’t imagine life without her.” She has to take care of this daughter 24/7, and she said, “I just thought you’d find my story interesting.” I’m kind of standing there kind of like, this is holy, sacred ground, this woman. This is counterculture at its finest. That is one of my heroes. So I would say my heroes go from this woman I just met to the British scholar N T Wright, who has really taught me a lot. And I have a friend who grew up with me in southern California who decided he was going to do something about AIDS. So this white guy from Long Beach marches into these huge shantytowns in Africa and has become something of a legend in his own time.

Is there something that brought you to this gospel of hope?

It has been a gradual realization that at the center of the Christian church for thousands of years has been this risen Christ who invites people to trust him; trust him with life, trust him

with death, trust him with sin, trust him with future, trust him with hope, trust him with every day. And that this risen Christ transcends dogma and theological systems and denominations and world views. — Beliefnet.com (Based on an interview with Rob Bell)