Growing up as the oldest of five sisters and a brother gives you a unique perspective on life.  I don’t know what growing up close to my sisters would be like, since I have lived apart from them since I was eighteen.  Only sister number three, Diane, lived near me for a few years.  She joined me at my college during my senior year and lived nearby ( Read more... )

    The year was 1961.  It was Easter Sunday.  I was eleven years old and it was my birthday.  I had waited my whole life for this special Easter.  You see, I was an Easter baby-born on Easter Sunday.  Everyone had always told me that my birthday would only be on Easter every eleven years.  This was the year!  I was beside myself with excitement ( Read more... )

          It is the evening of November 3, 1984.  Every room in the house is lit in readiness.  The floors shine; the windows sparkle; even the freshly cut and watered grass in the yard twinkles under the outside lamp.  Company is coming-and not just ordinary company.  My sister, Diane, and her family are coming from Peru.  We have not seen or ( Read more... )

The year was 1962. My preacher father had once again loaded his family and possessions into the Village Missions moving truck and headed south to the Mojave Desert. The constant rain and humidity of the Puget Sound had wreaked havoc with Dad’s sensitive sinuses and we were heading for drier regions ( Read more... )

The year was 1963.  My sisters and I were excited about moving.  This time we weren’t moving to another state, leaving friends and memories behind, we were moving to a new “parsonage.”  The tiny desert church had been offered an old dude ranch to use to house our family.  The owners needed a presence on the place to discourage vandalism.  We needed ( Read more... )

Getting a Christmas tree from the woods usually marked the start of Christmas for our family. As the oldest of six, it fell to me to start prodding Dad that it was time for the expedition. Sometimes there was snow and sometimes it was cold and sometimes it was cold and drizzly. Dad did not enjoy these expeditions as much as we children did. But ( Read more... )

Just the other day I had a cabinet guy in to replace the bottom of my kitchen sink cabinet.  “Have you called to get an estimate on new cabinets?” he chided me.

“Not yet-guess it’s not a priority right now,” was my response.

“So what are my priorities?”  I thought.  “Is there anything that I really want?” A few things popped into my mind:  a ( Read more... )

The year was around 1997. Tom and his friend Scott were in high school and Kati was in middle school.  Tom and Scott became fans of a couple of late night DJs on a local Christian radio station.  A typical Saturday night found them in Tom’s room glued to the radio with Kati and her friend Rebekah tuned in next door in Kati’s room.

That was how we ( Read more... )

“Stillwell.”  That’s what the kids called the teacher behind his back.  They said it with disgust in their voices as only sixth graders could.  Even I was afraid of him.  He had never punished me harshly-had never punished me at all.

But I had watched countless times when someone else was punished.  If a boy misbehaved, he was ordered to the ( Read more... )

I froze.  I couldn’t answer that question.  She had never asked before.  My three younger sisters and I never made Christmas lists.  Our parents struggled to feed and clothe us.  We looked forward to the Christmas packages from our grandparents with new pajamas and boxes of homemade cookies.  But we didn’t expect anything from Mom and Dad.  Mom ( Read more... )