15 Jan

When to speak? When to keep silent? Social media has demolished all notions of sensible boundaries. It's no longer uncommon to see people putting their opinions where they don't belong. Do you ever wonder why? I wanted to share a rule I try to live by when considering whether or not to comment, write, or speak out. My rule is this - I ask myself, do I have the authority to speak in this place, specifically, into this person's or these people's lives? Have they given me the right to speak over them about this particular thing? What is authority? An easy way...

17:16 / Featured / Heart Things / Instagram
06 Nov

2020 has been a year of transition for our family. For our friends and loved ones who have been following along with us on this journey, you know that we had been building a cabin retreat in the mountains of Colorado for a while now. When we first began to build the cabin back in 2018, we didn't know that we would be moving to Colorado. It was to be our gateway to the mountains, to the wilderness of God's glorious creation. The more time we spent visiting Colorado to work on the cabin, the more we felt the calling to...

22:25 / Featured / Instagram / Our Journey / The Cabin
04 Nov

My brain was going just about as fast as my minivan was down the Kansas interstate, which was roughly 80-85 miles per hour (the speed limit on I-70 is a wonderful 75mph). I was trying the best I could to not think about next year, about our building plans for our future home, all the things we'd need to do to get our small farm bed & breakfast up and running. Ideas, lists, to-do's were swirling through my head. So many ideas, and yet, an inability to start on any of them, because we are still in the period of...

19:49 / Featured / Instagram / Rest
08 Oct

I feel like someone somewhere once said "It doesn't matter if you start small, just start." Part of my dream is to have our own small farm - with a focus on soil health, species diversity, and natural systems. I want to have sheep, cows, pigs and chickens, all working symbiotically together. I want to build a passive solar greenhouse so we can grow our own fruits and vegetables through all four seasons at 7200 feet (2200 m) above sea level. We're not there yet. But I've been encouraged to start small. So this past growing season, on the tiny deck...

16:47 / Featured / Instagram / Land / Stewardship
29 Sep

If you believe something to be true, does it make it true? If you can identify it as a lie, is it possible to still believe it? Whether we like it or not, chances are, there are lies that we believe. There may even be lies that I can identify as a lie, and yet, I still believe it. How does this happen? In the Restoring the Foundations ministry, we call the lies that we believe, "Ungodly Beliefs". Because anything that doesn't align with God's truth, is simply a lie, whether someone believes it to be true or not. We may know the...

16:21 / Featured / Healing / Heart Things / Instagram
22 Sep

I feel like someone out there needs to hear this today - Just because you are in a period of waiting, does not mean that nothing is happening. I was reflecting today on how differently my life looked a year ago. Nick and I were at a point where we knew where we wanted to be, where God was calling us, and the dream He had planted was burning inside my heart. But we were just...

21:53 / Featured / Heart Things / Instagram / Our Journey / Rest
22 Sep

The Backstory After we moved back to the United States from Hong Kong, I started noticing that drinking milk made me feel uncomfortable. It progressively got worse to the point where I would get bloated and be in pain. I decided to give up drinking glasses of milk or eating bowls of cereal with milk, but I still wanted to have milk in my tea and coffee. So I tried the alternatives - almond milk was fine, oat milk pretty good. But in the end I went with lactose-free milk because I still wanted the milk taste. We also went with...

09:36 / Featured / Instagram / Stewardship
17 Sep

I compiled this list of things I didn't used to know about chickens. For most of my early life (i.e. before Nick), all I knew was what I saw on my plate. But my in-laws have had backyard chickens for about 15 years, and I have learned a lot from them. I've helped care for their flock and even brooded a few chicks myself, which we moved to my their coop when they got bigger. Now, I am a huge proponent for backyard chickens. We currently rent a house where the HOA restricts livestock & chickens, but I look forward...

22:45 / Featured / Land / Stewardship
10 Sep

Over the summer, I was able to tackle one of the projects that I had been wanting to try for a while - building an at-home vermicompost bin. Vermicomposting is the process of using worms to naturally turn our organic garbage (kitchen scraps) into nutrient rich compost that is one of the best possible fertilizers for gardens. Background I first heard about vermicomposting in one of my favorite movies, The Biggest Little Farm. The film features the beautiful story of Apricot Lane Farms, a regenerative, biodynamic farm based in Southern California. When the owners, John & Holly, were first trying to...

15:19 / Featured / Land / Stewardship