In my limited experience, there’s nothing more humiliating than trying to write a book. Like most people, I don’t like humiliation so I’ve gotten good at excuses. I’m not really a writer. I’m a mom, an English teacher, an international development worker, now a farmer (of all things!!) and I dabble in writing periodically. But … More Imposter!
This is a log cabin from the 1850’s. It just looks like a regular farmhouse from the outside, but inside–wow, it’s a stripy masterpiece of massive logs and chinking. In 2011, the previous owners of the cabin, Ruth and Timothy Jost, stripped it down to it logs, squared it up, and completely remodeled it. The … More Home Again: A Brief History
Amani Gardens Inn on Church Road in Westlands, Nairobi, used to be called The Mennonite Guest House. For decades–in fact, since 1964, as anyone who stays here and logs on to WiFi knows, this remodeled British military barracks has been where Mennonite-affiliated missionaries, church workers, and NGO types wash up between assignments. It’s where they … More The Peaceful Place
It’s been snowing a lot lately. It’s been eight years–nine years!! since we’ve seen any snow, except for a shrinking glacier when we climbed Mount Kenya right after Christmas in 2015. While we lived in Kenya and Ethiopia we usually went to Mombasa over Christmas, but that year we must have been particularly desperate for … More Winter Systems
I think I’ve been inside a hospital 30 times last year, and I didn’t even have COVID-19. Actually, I did get COVID, but I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t gotten tested. Which is a good reason to get tested and mask up because so many people are walking around with an asymptomatic virus that … More Goodbye 2021–A Year of Hospitals
A year ago, Bruce and I were about to move from Ethiopia, our home since 2016, to Virginia. In the middle of our preparations, I tested positive for covid. I had only the slightest of symptoms–a telltale fever of 99, a hint of a headache, a bit of GI discomfort. I went to bed for … More Goodbye, 2021: Coffee With a Friend. Remembering Birtukan Sinshaw.
When my first husband died in 2005, I boxed up some of his things for the boys when they were older. His hospital ID, pager, and stethoscope. His wallet and all of its contents (driver’s license, about $40.00, an expired Blockbuster membership card). And a bunch of his T-shirts. Reuben was a big man, and … More Same Dress, Second Husband
Last Sunday our service was about the Israelites complaining in the desert. After they couldn’t take the wilderness one more day, they began to romanticize about their captivity in Egypt and actually longed to GO BACK. Go back to being slaves in Egypt! Like a bad breakup you can never quite get over. It wasn’t … More Quail and Manna
The end game for these birds was always there, waiting. I knew it would come. I found other things to do–I cleaned out all the quail pens, moved birds around. I made a fancy quail cage to help with moving them so they didn’t fly away. That’s beautiful, isn’t it? I made it up right … More Tails About Quails Continued
We’re up to our eyeballs in quail. I love it. I can’t get enough of these amazing birds. The sound of the tiny crows from the little roosters who stand up straight and tell the world how big they are. The blustering flight of a fat hen out of the cage when I open it … More Tales About Quails
Grace and Grit: HomeAgain Farm 