Serve by Design

After years of ongoing substituting at her favorite neighborhood school, Mimi will be sitting out this school year awaiting a much needed vaccine. T he "Number One Substitute Teacher" of our family has been sidelined due to precautions over pre-existing conditions and being in a higher risk age-group. Yet, we still have three active teachers in our family fully engaged in their academic trenches. These educators are leading their classes by remote. Remote Learning Fox Valley School District School definitely has a different look during this Covid-19 Pandemic! It has a different language describing it, too! The other evening, I opened up the note's application on my phone in order to record some of the words our teacher daughter was using as she shared about her day with her mother. I couldn't believe how strange it sounded to hear her speaking the "language of Covid."  Within a couple of minutes of conversation, these tech-specific words and phrases swiftly ...

There is an old West African proverb: “When you pray, move your feet.” I have said something similar in a little different way: “Be careful in your praying. You may be (and often are!) the answer to your own prayer.” Others see this almost as a command to “Put feet to your prayers!” What do we mean by these various sayings? Prayer is not just an important spiritual discipline for the Christian, it often leads to an “in the flesh” response and connection between the pray-er and the prayer request. Prayer and Action! pngimg.com While prayer is one of the spiritual disciplines, this doesn't mean it is just an academic, theoretical or forensic exercise! I have heard it said, "God inhabits the praises of His people." This suggests that it blesses God to hear the praise of His people in prayer. I believe that the Lord gets an even greater blessing when our praying is “incarnated” in devotion, commitment and service for Him. Our best efforts at praying involve action plans to ...

There have been a couple of seniors who have gained recent notoriety for their efforts during this season surrounding Covid-19. Captain Tom (now Honorary Colonel) Moore, former British Army Officer during WWII, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. At 100 years of age, he has raised over 40 million dollars for his country's national health system by walking laps in the backyard of his home. The other inspiring story has come from 94-year-old Maye Krier, who as a teenager, worked at a Boeing factory making war planes during the same global conflict in which Captain Tom served. Maye and other young women who worked alongside her received the nickname, "Rosie the Riveter!"  Krier would be in the news again 75 years later for her mask-making efforts during the Pandemic. She had already made over 300 protective masks for family and friends when she received an order for 1000 more and had to request help from others. When she posted her need for cloth and elastic on social media, th...

I love this time of the year! It is "peach season" in Illinois! I grew up with peaches from Centralia and Kell. Each August, Mom would turn these into cobblers, jars of freezer jam, and then would save back sliced peaches for the morning cereal, afternoon snacks and to accent bowls of homemade ice-cream while we listened to baseball games on the radio! I am in "peach heaven" this time of year! I'm thinking and dreaming peaches! Why, I'm even punctuating the comments of family and friends with sayings like, "That's peachy!" and even throwing in the superlative for emphasis on occasions, "That's peachy keen!" Yes, it's true, I'm crazy about the peach whatever the variety: yellow, white, freestone or cling! It is one of my favorite fruit! Oh! For the Love of Peach! 😋   The family "love affair" with peaches continued during our fifteen-year sojourn in Texas. Our middle son was born in the "Peach Capital of Texa...