The moving van pulled up to our house for the third time in twenty-one months. Without any job prospects in sight, we were moving out of the house we had been renting in Kentucky and back into the home we had been unable to sell in Virginia. The past few months had been hard. We…
Our flatlander family vacationed in the mountains for the first time this year. My prairie children, at home in the endless grass and fields of our North Dakota farm, were stunned at the height and majesty of the mountains. They exclaimed over the steepness of the trails as we hiked. Mom couldn’t exclaim; she was…
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess. 5:16-18 NIV) These verses have taken on a whole new meaning in light of our country’s experiences over the past year. We’ve experienced a global pandemic, which has been especially bad in the United…
When I was seven years old, I moved from snowy Michigan to muggy South America. My parents were headed for the mission field, and I was along for the ride. Cabbage Patch doll and Pound Puppy in tow, I boarded a plane to Brazil. At my age, I was malleable and open to change; I…
On May 6, 2013 Amanda Berry, an Ohio woman held captive for ten years, found freedom. Amanda and two other women had been abducted, starved, beaten, and raped year after year. But one night, Amanda found the courage to scream for help and was able to call 9-1-1 saying, “I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been…
No more is the 30-foot-long table of homemade dishes from turkey and dressing to casseroles to deviled eggs. Gone will be waiting to eat because of that one cousin, one of the oldest, who would roll in consistently thirty minutes late. Also missing this year will be the catching up, the reaching for the name…