Category: Uncategorized

Folks recently mused about acquaintances who say, “I have no friends. No one invites me over. No one helps me. I never am included.” And yet quite often the complainer has people reaching out with invitations, offers to help or to simply sit and listen to their misery. What the complainers do not do is…

To date I have never pre-ordered a grocery order. I enjoy looking for clearance items to stretch the family budget. Recently, I checked the meat counter for ground beef. I did not find any. I only found three packages with two thick steaks in each package. I glanced at the price remembering the time I…

In retirement, I have purchased way more sewing machines than I need. Too many need repairs – by my hubby. He trolls the Internet for hours looking for ways to solve mechanical problems. We may have white hair and hands with brown spots, but we still enjoy the challenge of fixing one more sewing machine,…

Growing up is so hard to do. Yet, somehow we figure it all out: crawling, walking, talking, everything – including the difference between left and right. As pre-schoolers, my big brother, younger sister and I studied the flexibility of right and left and the inflexibility of north and south. Brother stood in the center of…

Through four decades of beginning new churches in central Mexico, Jacob Weibe has put up several “roof only” churches. Walls cost too much for most congregations. This summer the Huichol people, one of the poorest native groups, made and laid clay blocks for their first church on the side of a steep mountain. Jacob, 71,…

“Why must it always be us against them, neighbor against neighbor and friend against friend. Why must it always be us against them?” those lines from a song written years ago by the late Robert Hancock of El Dorado echo through my brain lately. Perhaps, it began as I read about Saul in the Bible…

“I have never seen so many dishes broken,” hubby commented. “It’s inevitable. We only use glass plates and cups,” I replied. Also, it depends on how you define ‘breaking.” English has more than 40 ways to use breaking or break. For example, breaking even, breaking a relationship, breaking the law, breaking a fast and breaking…

“It’s all part of a parent’s growing up” my mom said the first year none of her five children could make it home for Christmas. Many parents will grow up this month as their children leave for college, a new job or military training. I was reminded of this when I heard of a family’s…

My parents insisted we try new foods and eat whatever foods graced the table at home or away as company. The absolute test came a few months after we moved to Utah and a neighbor invited us to supper. That evening we girls freshened up. My brothers slicked back their hair. Then we all put…

Three wives all reached the same decision to put their husbands in a nursing home for dementia, though their motivations were varied. Firm medical advice, stress and justified fear all forced them to make the most difficult decisions of their marriages. They had each anticipated retirement years with their husbands and certainly expected physical changes…

At every reunion of the Jefferson class of 1959, folks puzzled over Wayne Hostetler. “We haven’t seen anything of him since graduation. I heard he went to Colorado.” Only speculations kept his memory alive among the remaining nine members of the original 29. Not only had the 29 alumni spent 12 school years together, but…

Hubby and I like to share experiences: traveling, ethnic meals, audiobooks, and hobbies. We didn’t exactly share sciatic nerve pain (SNP), we just both have had episodes. I began with nagging pain after years of typing at work. I tried stretching and shaking off that chronic, annoying leg pain. At a fast food joint, a…

“I did not know that,” I told my husband when I finished listening to the audio version of Louisa June and the Nazis in the Waves.” “What didn’t you know?” he asked. “That hundreds of tankers, shipping boats and tug boats were sunk by five Nazi Uboats between January and July 1942. The Germans wanted…

`“Don’t take my picture!” Mr. Aaron Skiles said, as I photographed his wife, Elizabeth Skiles while she sat working on a quilt in the quilting frame. I nodded that I understood. I hid my disappointment. I really wanted a photo of the trim, 78 year-old man with his white beard and hair, black suspenders over…

For 100 years the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery near Washington D.C. has memorialized all the unidentified soldiers who died fighting for our nation’s freedom. For 300 years, another tomb in ancient Israel memorialized an unnamed prophet’s last prophetic message. The nameless prophet arrived in Bethel one day with a message for…