When I was pregnant with my second child, I went in for a routine doctor’s appointment at 19 weeks. I was stunned when the doctor came back and told me our son would be born with a cleft lip and possibly a cleft palate. I instantly became a pool of tears. The doctor really didn’t know how to handle such a diagnosis. He told me to pick a strong name for my son and then hurried me out the door. Our family was shocked. I felt alone and desperate. I could only focus on the television images I’d seen where… Read More
Overcoming Obstacles
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My husband Jimmy and I have been working with a prison ministry called “Malachi Dads” for the last five years. It is different from other prison ministries in that we meet as couples with men in the prisons who have children. Our weekly discipleship program starts with the salvation message, and then focuses on the verse in Malachi 4:6: He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers. We teach the men about healthy marriages and how to be good fathers to their children, encouraging them to write to them… Read More
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Unfortunately, I have become an expert on the side effects of chemotherapy since I’ve had 35 brutal rounds. I know firsthand what this does to your body. I’m now trying to use this knowledge to help my fellow cancer patients and make Jesus known in a unique way. I was a healthy 27-year-old when I was first diagnosed with colon cancer. Then the wonderful world my husband and I had built was suddenly rocked to its core. Surgeons removed a foot of my colon and all of the nearby lymph nodes after a colonoscopy revealed a “mass” blocking most of my transverse colon. When… Read More
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We started teaching fitness classes designed for individuals with developmental disabilities such as autism, cerebral palsy or Down syndrome. Our goal is to help them increase strength, motor coordination, social skills and overall wellness. And we can surely see God’s hand in all this, especially how He brought us together and made this happen so seamlessly. We worked in the same school district as contract speech-language pathologists. We were frequently moved from school to school and didn’t really come in contact with one another, but in August of 2020, we ended up assigned to the same school. We found ourselves bonding… Read More
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On December 30, 2021, the Marshall Fire ripped through my neighborhood in Boulder County, Colorado, with winds recorded at 115 miles per hour. The devastation was catastrophic, with over 1,000 of my community’s homes completely destroyed. My husband and I were watching the news, and it grieved me to see what had happened to our neighbors. We had previously lived in an area where friends had lost their homes, so we knew how devastating this was for a family. I prayed right then, asking God how I could help, how to make a real impact in this disaster. And I got a… Read More
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Seeing children without a father in their life absolutely breaks my heart. I wanted to do something to help those kids in my area. So I started an organization that takes underprivileged kids on all-day fishing trips out in the Gulf. And we’ve now touched the lives of 2,500 kids during the past 11 years. It all started with my 8-year-old neighbor. I noticed he was an angry, frustrated kid. I didn’t know why until I found out he didn’t have a father in his life. So I asked his mom if I could take him fishing one Saturday. We went… Read More