Some of you may not know that Tim & I have an unusual hobby - we keep bees. For the past four years we've had varying numbers of beehives on our property and most of the time we let those bees bee themselves. (Beekeepers also are notorious for lame bee jokes) But several times a year we have to put on our bee suits and check the hives; add or remove hive boxes or harvest honey. Last week the head beekeeper (that's Tim, not a euphemism for God) asked me to go out and check the hives. So I put on my bee suit late one afternoon, grabbed my bucket of tools and headed over to the hives. One tool beekeepers often use is a smoker. This is a hand-held canister with a small billows on it so smoke

The book of Revelation is like one of those well-written novels that you can’t seem to put down. Having recently returned as a reader to the book world, there have been only two novels that I’ve read in less than 12 hours: Room by Emma Donoghue and The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware. All three books have the power to pull you in and not let you go. Page turners! Throughout media there have been several movies, songs, and novels written about the end of times. While reading this book of the Bible as an adult, I got visuals of creatures that could have been portrayed in The Lord of the Rings or in The Chronicles of Narnia. I tend to not watch movies whose main focus is to tell us about w

There are many dark places in the world. One that probably doesn’t come to mind is Ukraine, where my husband sand I serve in a Gypsy camp each year. It’s a rough, tough, gritty place. People there can’t seem to grow out of the old ways. There is a ‘gypsy gene’ that keeps many from thriving- brought into existence by hundreds of years of poverty and scraping to survive. The inability to think about tomorrow and a deep seeded lack of worth is pervasive and self-limiting. A small percentage of those are taking brave steps to live outside the norm and we strive to support them. We continue to care for those bound in the cycle that will forever hold them in place as well. What brings light into t

When my father-in-law passed away almost two years ago, we set about the task of clearing out forty-five years worth of stuff from his ranch style home in Ft. Worth, Texas. We knew this day was coming, and we knew it would be sad, but I don’t think any of us expected how hard the loss of that gathering place would affect friends and extended family. In thinking back, though, I now understand that for many, 4200 Dawn Drive was a place where they were uniquely and unequivocally loved. My mother-in-law was a 4’ 11” tall entertaining mastermind. Growing up as an only child with a small family, I had never seen gatherings such as those my in-laws hosted. Every Christmas Eve, extended family an