A few facts about me:

I raised 4 kids. They experienced the gamut of schooling choices: public, private, and homeschool. By God’s grace, (and I mean that!) they all became balanced, light-bearing citizens of the kingdom of God. In spite of my flaws as a parent, they play well with others, and are not in jail.

My husband and I are non-card-carrying members of the vanishing “Married-over-50-Years-and-still-in-Love” Club. Again, solely by the grace of God (let me emphasize that)! It is a privilege to live each day with my guy.

While I’m talking of gifts of grace, here’s another: When I was 16, God gave me a love for His Word. In the last 50+ years, I estimate I’ve amassed at least 20,000 hours in personal study. Probably closer to 30,000. God’s Word is an ocean, and I the happy explorer of its depths. I have learned so much! I have so much yet to learn!

Which brings me to the purpose I have in creating this website–I want to share the amazing riches of God’s Word and the lessons God has taught me. With anyone who will listen! The site has a dual purpose: to store my newsletter articles, (which I hope will be going out to many mailboxes!) and to serve as an author site.

Why an author site? I have always written–stories, and journals and letters and papers of various kinds. I don’t have much to impress anyone with, unless you count the gold stars I got in school, the one or two writing awards I won along the way, or the few magazine articles I sold when I was a young mom.

But now, in my later years, I am launching an email newsletter. I’ve been working on a book as well. It still needs some work, but I’m sharing that journey here. Please take a look–because I could use the encouragement!  

During my youth, I lived in:

• Texas—which I don’t remember
• Germany–where I met gypsies with a painted wagon and a one-eyed horse
• England—where sunny days were so rare, that if one occurred, the newspaper headline read, “Old Sol Shines Today”. I remember two such days, and spent the rest sitting in our bay window, watching it rain
• Illinois—a wonderland for a child. Red galoshes and yellow raincoat in the spring, croquet in the summer, crunchy oak leaves as big as dinner plates in the fall, and, most delightful of all, in the winter, an empty lot right by our house, where the air base plows piled snow cleared from the roads. In it, we kids made a maze of tunnels and carved seats and stairs and pathways.
• Texas (again) where I learned to sell Girl Scout cookies, and that you’d better hold on to your report card when the wind was high.

As a preteen and teen, I lived in Okinawa, where the well-to-do really did live in houses with sliding doors made of rice paper, and tatami mats on the floors. The not-so-well-to-do lived in hovels made of cardboard and tin that they often had to rebuild after typhoon season. In this sub-tropical paradise, I explored the empty beaches and sea caves, learned to scuba dive, and discovered that Hondas lurch forward when novice drivers start them. Ahem.

As an older teen: We went back to Texas. This time, not the rolling hills of Austin, but the flat-as-the-moon high plains of the panhandle region. Where the view is so unobstructed that they say you can watch your dog running away—for 3 days.

My husband rescued me from this and swept me away to:

• the New Mexico desert.
• Oklahoma, (3 different times) where the wind does indeed come sweeping down the plains
• Michigan, where I learned if you’re not Dutch, you’re not much
• Calgary, Canada. I spent the most magical Christmas of my life at the Banff Springs Hotel.

I’ve visited many places besides. Notable among them:

• Romania, where I learned that, as messed-up as our medical system may sometimes seem, socialized medicine there was infinitely worse
• Ukraine, beautiful land of orchards and crops and rolling hills and mountains. A bread basket that its neighbors covet. Pray for my kids, who are missionaries there. For more of their story, click
• I won’t speak of Poland, or oh-so-lovely Slovakia, or the Czech Republic—except to give a few hints: it is not-so-wise to jump off moving trains, and if the lights won’t come on in your hotel room, put your key card in the card-shaped holder next to the door.