My daughter called the other day. In addition to the things we normally talk about on the phone, she asked if I remembered how old she was when we first moved from the Chicago area – where my husband and I grew up and where both of our kids were born – to Roanoke, Virginia, the first of several moves that eventually landed our family in Minnesota. I couldn’t answer off the top of my head, so I had to stop and do some mental [...]
Some of the things I learned during this trip to Uganda: How to say “How are you?” “I’m fine,” and “Thank you” in Luo, the language of the Acholi tribe in Northern Uganda; What crocodile meat tastes like (better than boiled goat, in my opinion, but not as good as an ostrich burger); That wading in the Nile River is both humbling and refreshing; That a puppet waving from a bus window can make even stoic police and armed guards smile. Some of the things [...]
Tabitha and I have already spent some time at the Cornerstone Leadership Academy--both the Boys' school and the Girls' school, where I did a program about finding the treasure in our gifts from God. We've been asked to develop leadership programs and presentations for other groups, so we've been working on those, too. The other night, I got a lesson and some insights into leadership in a rather unusual way. Tabitha and her husband Stone invited me for a visit in the home where they've [...]
I remember well arriving in Entebbe during my first trip to Uganda. Standing in the airport parking lot while our bags were being loaded in the van, I kept looking up at the sky and the scenery all around me, and thinking, "I'm in Africa! I'm in Africa!" It's now two trips later in just under two years, and I find myself taking it all in and enjoying the familiarity. I was welcomed as warmly as Tabitha was by her family who picked us up [...]
“Write the ending.” That was the point I took away from a blog post I read recently, by a writer whose work I greatly admire. And it’s the type of advice I especially love – simple to understand, easy to do, and it helps me not only in my writing but in other work I’m doing, and in my life in general. In this particular post, the writer said she had just written the ending of the novel she’s been working on. She pointed out [...]
“I can see I’m at the right house,” the man said when I answered the doorbell wearing a winter jacket and scarf. Our furnace went out last week, on the day the temperature was expected to get down to fifteen below zero. The good news is that a repairman was able to come over fairly quickly, and he spotted the problem immediately. The bad news is that fixing it required a part he didn’t have, and couldn’t locate anywhere in the area. It had to [...]
My brother-in-law passed away on December 23. He had been very sick for quite a while, and as Christmas approached, we learned that he wasn’t expected to live much longer. That doesn’t make it any easier to accept or to live with when it happens, especially when it’s around the holidays. “I was hoping so much that he’d be able to hang on till Christmas,” my sister sobbed when she called us from the hospital. We were prepared to drop or significantly alter our holiday [...]
It was extremely and unseasonably foggy last Sunday morning – the kind of fog that feels surreal if you’re out driving in it because at times it is so thick that you can’t see anything around you. Even the deacon who delivered the sermon at Mass commented on it, noting that he had to be extra careful while driving to church from his home that morning. “What it really did,” he said, “was make me slow down.” He went on to talk about what a [...]
As the days grow shorter, and the weather turns colder, we start winding down in anticipation of the dark, dreary winter months ahead – at the same time we start revving up in preparation for the holiday hustle and bustle to come. Although I’m busier than ever right now, I’m enjoying the “winding down” feeling, reflecting on some of the events and activities I’ve been taking part in lately. Especially on my mind are the three trips I took between late August and mid-September – [...]
The first attention I paid to Hurricane Isaac was well before it built up to its full power or approached land. It was during a phone call with my daughter. My daughter lives near Orlando. Since Orlando is in central Florida and a fair distance from either coast, it’s not in as much danger of hurricanes as other Florida locations. Still, hurricanes there are not unheard of, and the area often bears the brunt of destructive and devastating rain and winds, even without full “hurricane” [...]