ROCKWALL, TX (November 13, 2014) Todd Phillips spent the last day of July watching a country shut down. Government offices and schools closed; stores and marketplaces emptied. The Ebola outbreak had turned parts ofLiberiainto ghost towns—practically overnight. Dr. Phillips, of Rockwall County, is Executive Director of The Last Well, a ministry that provides clean water […]
ROCKWALL/HEATH, TX (October 5, 2014) Reading the book of Jonah for the first time troubled me. Not the miraculous aspect; I easily digested the man-gets-swallowed-by-fish part. But Jonah’s stubborn response to God bothered me. I couldn’t relate to the prophet’s attitude. Until the time I found myself following his example. Our church on the edge […]
ROCKWALL/HEATH, TX (August 25, 2014) Plastic folders, crayons and those timeless tools of learning, pencils and paper, currently fill store shelves to capacity. The sight makes me sentimental for yesteryear, when I had school-age children. Not that I’d like to repeat those years. But the opportunity to influence fresh hearts and minds is as precious […]
ROCKWALL/ HEATH, TX. (June 27, 2014) For several months I walked my dog along the farm road that crosses the creek bordering our neighborhood. Barricades had closed the road to traffic while a road crew worked to replace an old, unsafe bridge with a better one. Without trucks and SUV’s whizzing by, it felt like […]
WYLIE/ROCKWALL, TX (June 25, 2014) Lance Shumake wants to see students involved in missions, and more specifically, to see this generation of students living “on mission.” As President of iGo Global for 14 years, Shumake has overseen high school and college student teams travel to 21 countries to help fulfill Christ’s Great Commission to make […]
ROCKWALL/HEATH, TX (May 11, 2014) A best-selling book shows women—including moms—how to reach their full potential. But not everyone is buying it. Sheryl Sandberg’s call-to-action book, Lean In, provides steps we can take to “combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment.” Sandberg is Chief Operating Officer of Facebook and one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People […]
ROCKWALL / HEATH, TX (April 11, 2014) As a young girl I treasured a gift chosen just for me. My grandparents had given me a ring with a small ruby stone for my birthday. The ring had a real gold band that wouldn’t turn my finger green like the dime store rings I’d worn. I wore […]
ROCKWALL/HEATH, TX (March 16, 2014) The American Dream, like everything in this modern age, has grown more sophisticated. It now includes the bucket list, that personal wish-list of things we most desire to accomplish before our time on earth expires. The bucket list sounds good to me. My own list already has three items: tour […]
ROCKWALL/HEATH (February 2, 2014) Valentine’s Day offers a mid-winter respite with its images of hearts and flowers. For me it also recalls my first argument with my then husband-to-be. We both fell short of the ideal on that day of love many years ago. I was rude; he was irritable. The Apostle Paul’s words about […]
(January 27, 2014) It usually happened every year around the end of January. I had to acknowledge my failure to keep New Year’s resolutions. I’ve done much better since I quit making them. Last year I decided to forgo resolutions after considering my track record: the rabbit-like start; the tortoise-like progression; the road-kill finish. I […]