Kevan

Dear Kevan,

Thanks for being my friend. When I want to despair and give up, you won't let me. When I don't believe I'm doing anything good or helpful or useful in the world, you tell me that I am. When I think I'm awkward and clumsy and lumpy and crippled, you make me feel beautiful. When I am shy and insecure, you introduce me to all sorts of cool new friends. When I freak out over things that don't matter, you help me gain perspective. When I am amazed and confounded by how creative and wise you are, you say that I played some part in it. I'm challenged by you, encouraged and comforted and inspired by you. I love when we get to talk, and I love when we just sit in our wheelchairs next to each other without saying a word. I'm almost 30 years old, and I know I would not have made it this far without your strength and joy and hope. So again, thanks for being my friend... for seeing the best and worst of me, and loving me just the same.

Love,
your sis

The Women of the Hobbit Hole

Brie, Connie, Emilee, and Hannah

Meet the women of the Hobbit Hole.

This month, Brie and Emilee joined our community in a big way by moving in with Hannah and I. And now, I cannot imagine my life here without them.  We have so many good times together, watching movies, talking about Jesus, hosting spontaneous parties, cooking gourmet food...

Our most recent adventure together was designing our own live Clue game dinner party last night for some of our most dramatic friends. SO. MUCH. FUN. These girls made a culinary masterpiece for dinner, and we decorated the house and made all the cards, game pieces, invitations, secrets and clue notebooks. No one could imagine all the work that went into it to make it amazing in every way.

A casual spectator might think we are quite ordinary. We all have our "day jobs" - Brie takes pictures and works at the Red Cross, Emilee serves coffee, Hannah makes sandwiches, and I teach English. But look a little closer, and you'll find that our REAL identities are much more exciting - we are here to love and serve, to shake salt and shine light, to proclaim freedom for the captives, to restore sight to the blind, to bind up broken hearts, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and announce the coming Kingdom that will be good and right and will never end. We are creative, hilarious, passionate, dedicated, loving, gutsy, REAL women. Each one is gorgeous and unique, and brings elements - gifts, talents, strengths, delights - to the house that add life and beauty, and compliment the rest of us. And when we are together, we are more powerful - possibly even magical...? - and more incredible.

That is what happens when women let the Spirit of the resurrected and living God change and fill and move them. So pray for us, because we want to keep doing that, and holding on to Jesus as the reason and motivation for all that we do.