2020

On March 1, while I was driving home from a church meeting, a black cat crossed my path. I wouldn't call myself superstituous, but I noticed the cat. I noted the color. And I wondered if, on some plane, it could be a bad omen. An hour later my dog got run over by a car. While driving to the veterinary hospital I told Randy: "I'm not saying it means anything, but a black cat ran in front of me while I was driving home earlier." Later I told a woman about the cat. "It's only bad luck if he is running from the right to the left." "He was," I said. "Oh," she replied, suddenly serious. We made more trips to the hospital -- both to the veterinary hospital and the human hospital -- in March of 2019 than we have in the entirety of our 5 years together. Cinnamon spent a week in the hospital, undergoing hernia surgery because her insides had more or less been torn in two. The week after she was released we were back at the h...

You may have noticed that I was a little grumpy during our last 2 legs. I certainly did. And Rand seemed a little grumpy too. When I approached him about it he said, "I'm thinking about what we are going to do when we land... where we'll live, what I'll do for work..." We hadn't been having nearly as much fun as we'd had in the beginning, and the biggest reason for that was because we were so much in our heads. Randy was thinking about how he was going to take care of us once we got to Ohio. And I was thinking about the kids we'd left behind in Mexico. We received an email in May letting us know that Mari, one of the dorm moms in Mexico and the daughter of the administrators who we worked closely with, had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. She'd lost her vision and was preparing to start chemotherapy. Our hearts broke, and mine was still broken a month later. I felt so helpless, unable to do anything for my friends, unable to ...

Arizona wasn't the only state on this trip that contained wonderful memories for me. So did Utah. Randy and I have both spent time in Utah before. We have both fallen in love with Zion and Bryce National Parks before. And so this part of the trip was a fun time of remembering for both of us. Randy remembered driving his young daughter through Zion as the sun came up. And eating the best fried chicken on the planet outside of Bryce. I remembered taking the Riverwalk in Zion and watching a family disappear into the Narrows. Then traipsing through the sandy trails of Bryce, preparing my heart for a move from California to Arkansas to live with my grandmother to pursue my dream of becoming a writer. Zion National Park is incredibly close to the north rim of the Grand Canyon, so getting there was our first plan of action. Upon arrival we discovered that all of the nearby campgrounds were full. We talked to one of the owners who directed us to a neighboring town with BLM (Bur...

I didn't participate in Lent yesterday. I was too sad. Randy and I are preparing to leave Baja. One of the catalysts for that decision was to spend more time with my grandmother. But we never got that chance. She died yesterday. And I was completely devastated by the news. I didn't have the energy to donate or write about a cause yesterday. I didn't want to hear all the Christian platitudes ("Be glad she was a Christian and is with Jesus now."). I just wanted to be sad. To cry and walk the beach and take a nap and cry some more. I woke up this morning hoping it had all been a terrible dream. You would think that you would always click with all of your family members. You share DNA. You share an upbringing. You have both nature and nurture going for you. But at times you can feel like an outsider within your own home. But I never felt that way with my grandmother. We were kindred spirits. She was an artist and a world traveler, a card player and an a...

Time for another guest blog! This one comes from my friend Jeff Laycock, who I went to high school with. When my nieces were born and spent time in the NICU, Jeff reached out to me to assure me that even though it was scary to see them so tiny, with IVs in their heads and tubes up their noses keeping them alive, it was also the safest, best place for them to be. He knew, because he had just been through it with his son, Hayden. Who has to be the cutest spokesperson for Nationwide Children's Hospital, BuckeyeThon, and ending Pediatric Cancer that I have ever seen. Here's their story: BUCKEYETHON Our story starts when my pregnant wife, Bri, and I went to her 20-week appointment to find out the sex of our baby. The excitement of the day soon turned to confusion, fear, and sadness as the doctor explained that the heartbeat of our unborn child, a boy, had dropped into the 50s from the typical 180s since the last time Bri had visited. He told us he suspected congenital he...

One of the pieces of this 40-40-40 days of Lent campaign that God is undergoing in my heart that I am so fiercely passionate about, is that as I was seeking out organizations to support, I felt a nudge to speak to people who are directly involved with these ministries. So, intermittently throughout the next several weeks I will be featuring "guest bloggers" to share their stories. Our first guest blog comes from Rachel Mills, founder and director of " PEARLS in Haiti ". I didn't know Rachel before this Lent, though I did go to elementary/high school with her younger brother, so we are from neighboring home towns in Ohio. I trust that you will fall in love with her story just like I did when she first shared it with me... PEARLS in Haiti Back in 1996 God summoned me to Haiti. At that time I knew little to nothing about the island nation, but I was compelled to step out in faith. Over the course of four months I raised two year’s salary through donatio...

Happy Valentine's Day! Happy Ash Wednesday! Happy first day of Lent! Today is DAY 1 of my 40-40-40 challenge. Of all the ministries in the entire world, there was ONE that I was 100% sure that I wanted to focus on for the first day of Lent. Shawn and Katrina McConaughey Shawn and Katrina McConaughey were recently called to serve in the Africa Ministries Office of Friends United Meeting , and are raising funds to get them to Kisumu, Kenya. If your religious affiliation isn't Quaker, you probably don't know about Friends United Meeting or the Africa Ministries Office, but trust me when I tell you that they do amazing work through schools, hospitals, evangelism, theological training, conflict resolution and more.  Shawn and Katrina share this about their call to serve: After 30 years of ministry among Friends in the Pacific Northwest, we are pulling up roots and joining in on what God is doing among Friends in East Africa! Friends United Meeting (FUM...