Thirty-Two Countries

Dear readers,

There is a number that keeps sitting with me lately.

Thirty-two.

Not thirty-two articles.

Not thirty-two subscribers.

Not thirty-two towns.

Thirty-two countries.

The Iron Quill is now read in thirty-two countries around the world, and I still have a hard time wrapping my head around that.

A little over a year ago, this was just an idea.

A blank page.

A keyboard.

A few thoughts.

A decision to start writing.

That was it.

There was no newsroom behind it. No investors. No marketing department. No big media machine pushing it along.

Just someone sitting down and putting words on a page.

If you had told me then that those words would eventually reach thirty-two countries, I probably would have laughed.

Not because I lacked faith.

Because it sounded ridiculous.

Yet here we are.

But before anyone gives me credit for that number, I want to say something clearly.

I did not carry The Iron Quill to thirty-two countries.

You did.

One person can write an article.

It takes readers to carry it farther than the writer ever could.

Every country represented in those statistics exists because someone shared an article, forwarded an email, copied a link, sent a post to a friend, or told someone, “You should read this.”

That is how this happened.

Not through advertising.

Not through some brilliant growth strategy.

Through people.

Through readers who believed a conversation was worth continuing.

That means more to me than I can properly explain.

People often think financial support is the greatest gift a reader can offer, and believe me, I appreciate every paid subscriber.

Every single one.

Every dollar represents work.

Someone got up early, worked a shift, ran a business, drove a truck, worked a farm, managed a household, or earned that money the hard way and chose to put a portion of it here.

That is not lost on me.

But there is something even more valuable than money.

Time.

Every article you read costs you time.

Time you could spend somewhere else.

Time with family.

Time resting.

Time working.

Time scrolling past everything and moving on with your day.

Once time is spent, it does not come back.

Yet day after day, people choose to spend some of that time here.

That is one of the greatest compliments a writer can receive.

When I started The Iron Quill, I thought I was building a publication.

Looking back, I was only seeing part of the picture.

Somewhere along the way, a community formed.

People began recognizing familiar names in the comments.

Emails turned into conversations.

The Telegram group became a gathering place.

Readers shared concerns, ideas, encouragement, questions, warnings, and sometimes prayer requests.

Sometimes people agreed.

Sometimes they did not.

But they kept showing up.

That is when I realized the articles were not the whole story.

They were the meeting place.

A reader in Saskatchewan can have the same concerns as a reader in Texas.

A reader in Australia can be wrestling with the same questions as a reader in Ontario.

A reader in Europe can look at the world and ask many of the same things we ask here.

Different countries.

Different backgrounds.

Different churches.

Different lives.

But many of the same questions.

Faith.

Family.

Truth.

Freedom.

What is happening?

Where is this going?

What are we supposed to do now?

The more I write, the more I realize people are not looking for perfection.

They are looking for honesty.

They are looking for conversations that still mean something.

They are looking for a place where the obvious can be said out loud.

That is what you helped build.

The number matters, but not because it sounds impressive.

It matters because every number is a person.

Every click is a person.

Every subscriber is a person.

Every comment, email, share, and message comes from someone with a life, a family, a burden, a story, and a reason for being here.

I never want to forget that.

So today, I simply want to say thank you.

Thank you for reading.

Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for commenting.

Thank you for disagreeing respectfully.

Thank you for supporting this publication financially.

Thank you for giving your time.

Thank you for helping carry these conversations far beyond anything I could have done alone.

The Iron Quill may carry my words, but its reach belongs to the readers.

Always has.

Always will.

I thought I was building a publication.

Looking back, we built something bigger than that.

Not a movement.

Not an institution.

A community.

And somehow, that community now stretches across thirty-two countries.

I still find that hard to believe.

But I am grateful.

For every reader.

For every share.

For every message.

For every person who decided these conversations were worth having.

More grateful than you probably know.

—The Iron Quill