I preached last Sunday at All Shores (our home and sending church) about the parable of the bags of gold with a brief side step to Genesis 3.  If you want to watch, you can check it out here: Stop Hiding Sermon (All Shores 4/8/18)

If I had been a boy, my parents would have named me Caleb. My older brother’s name is Joshua; they would have named us Joshua & Caleb, like in the Bible. I was a girl so, instead of naming me Caleb,I was named Jennifer after my great-grandmother. Joshua and Caleb were 2 of the of… Read More The 10 or the 2

This morning I read Exodus 17:3-7.  It’s the story of how, while journeying in the wilderness, the Israelites grumbled, and quarreled, and tested the Lord.  They were thirsty and he wasn’t providing the water quickly enough so they got angry, and scared, and whined and yelled, and accused Moses (and God) of leading them into… Read More Rocks & Water

It turns out I’m more of a glass half-empty than glass half-full kind of person.  I am constantly striving to improve.  Seeing the gap between what is and what could be is often an important part of the improvement process and I’m really good at that part. Most of the time this drive to make… Read More Celebrating!

I’m not very domestic but I was watching this video of Mongolians cooking traditional food and  I noticed they were making their own pasta from scratch.  I’ve always wanted to learn how to make pasta and I decided Saturday night after a long day selling bath bombs at the winter market and before I had… Read More Making Pasta from Scratch

Here’s a glimpse into our real life right now because even though we’ve got this crazy “moving to Mongolia” aspect to our life we also have the very normal “raising a family in North America” thing going on too. LeYanna decided to enter her school’s science fair. She was asking the question, “Will a bath… Read More Our Little Scientist

We’ve decided to intermittently write a series in response to our most frequently asked questions.  You can read other posts in this series by clicking the link(s) below: #1 How long is your trip? #2 WHAT LANGUAGE DO THEY SPEAK? Most Mongolians speak Mongolian.  If you want to hear what Mongolian sounds like (spoken by… Read More FAQs: What Language Do They Speak?

Last week, during his sermon, our pastor mentioned that our cold days we’ve been having here in West Michigan will be warm days for us in Mongolia.  This is pretty accurate.  I literally shivered when I saw the high in Mongolia this coming Sunday and Monday (Lord, have mercy!). He also mentioned we’ve been standing… Read More The Little Things

Every now and then I use Google Translate to try to read the Facebook posts of our Mongolian friends.  Sometimes it works better than others. I thought it’d be fun to share with you a time when it did not work well.  Please enjoy this post that was recently shared about marriage, and parenting, and… Read More Rough Translation

The other day I realized we might be in Mongolia in less than 200 days.  That’s not many days.  Here are a few things that we anticipate happening first as we countdown: 114 days until Jen’s last day on staff at All Shores (April 30) 152 days until our 15th wedding anniversary (June 7) 153 … Read More Counting Down

As we’ve been shopping for Christmas gifts we’ve been asking questions like, “Is this worth taking up limited space in a suitcase in July?” or “Is the joy this will bring in the next seven months worth getting it now?” The “Is it worth…” questions are causing us to live in a surreal space and… Read More Brother’s basement, suitcase, or sell pile?