When Hope Crosses Borders
A Prayer Request for this Saturday
Dear friends,
This Saturday, I’ll be stepping into something new.
For the first time, I’ve been invited to lead two breakout sessions at the 2025 Cultivate Retreat: Unrelenting Hope. It’s a gathering of writers, spiritual leaders, artists, and everyday people longing for healing, beauty, and courage in a hurting world.
People who are still hoping, even if it’s with shaky hands.
To be honest, I’m holding some of that same hope.
The two sessions I’ll be offering are tender and hard-won—rooted in my story, covered in Scripture, and carried by the belief that healing often begins not in answers, but in presence and courage.
It’s my first time teaching in this kind of setting—and I’m both honored and a little in awe.
The sessions are:
“Border-Crossing Grace: Gospel for the Outsider” and
“Breaking Barriers, Not People: A Hopeful Way Forward”
Both sessions draw from the lens of Woman at the Well Theology—the heart of my Substack and podcast, Meet At The Well. I’ll be sharing writing practices, stories, and Scripture for those of us who find themselves at the edges of belonging, or in the messy middle of healing.
Both are born out of lived experience and deep longing—for healing in the margins, for stories that reconnect us, for a Gospel that still has power to cross borders and speak life where it’s been drained dry.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in
John 4:
“Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…”
He was telling her something revolutionary: that sacred encounters weren’t limited to temples or traditions. That hope could show up in the heat of the day, for people who weren’t expected to be chosen. That worship could happen right there—by a well, with dusty feet and a weary heart.
I’m praying these sessions will echo even a glimpse of that border-crossing grace.
Would you pray with me?
That someone in those digital rooms might feel seen, known, and not alone.
That what we offer—words, presence, storytelling—might become a well of sorts.
That every speaker and our generous host might bring a word of Unrelenting Hope to a world aching for it.
That our sessions would offer not just ideas, but living hope.
Join me in praying over every speaker,
, , , every presenter, , , , , , and our generous founder and host, ,That our words meet hungry people in the wilderness and light the way forward.
In John 4, Jesus invited the Samaritan woman into something deeper, freer, borderless.
That time is now and it’s happening in virtual rooms and unexpected hearts.
I’m praying these sessions reflect that same kind of hope—unexpected, unbound, and full of grace.
I don’t take your presence here lightly. Many of you are artists, pastors, caregivers, storytellers. You know how much it takes to hold tension and still speak peace. Thank you for being part of this with me. Your prayers matter. Your quiet encouragement carries more weight than you know.
With hope and gratitude,
Mariana
P.S. I’ll be sharing more about the sessions in upcoming podcast episodes and reflections—if you’re not yet subscribed to Meet At The Well, you can listen here.
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