Archive - 2026

We’ve just walked through the 18th anniversary of Victoria’s week with us on this earth (February 28–March 4, 2008). Our goodbye with her stands as a holy experience for us to this day at the intersection of heaven and earth. Our hope remains . . .

There are other goodbyes in our story to people and places that have shaped us as a family. One such goodbye was our family’s move to Pucallpa, Peru in 2014. We said goodbye to our Lancaster County family, church, and community, with a new life in Peru ahead of us. Little did we know that in 2019, we would say goodbye to our redemptive family, church, and community in Pucallpa, Peru to move to Valparaiso, Indiana. I still remember gathering in our living room with Kristin, Caleb, Jacob and Rachel to pray right before we left our Peruvian home. My prayer started with tears.

Tears accompanied these gut-wrenching departures, because the deep relationships, memories of life shared, hardships overcome, and goodness of hope experienced in each place overwhelmed us. In Acts 20, we read how Paul and the elders of Ephesus experienced such a tearful and agonizing goodbye (vv 36–38). I imagine the scene as the Ephesian leaders “were accompanying him to the ship,” remembering precious and personal moments for us shared with those who accompanied our family to our packed van or to an airport check in as we prepared to set off on our journey.

Leavings in life also shape our perspective. Where we now lack daily interaction with dear friends with whom we once shared life, we hold onto a vision of sharing together in His presence, a hope contained in the promise of a new heaven and new earth. It stands out to me that Paul’s letter to the Ephesians represents this grand vision of ultimate fulfillment, in both the cosmos and the community of Christ’s Body, the Church. Closely held community for Paul helped to cultivate the expansive vision that is his letter to the Ephesians. It raises the questions—How might lack of community hinder our perspective and lack of vision hinder our connection?

When we moved to Peru, the Lord put on my heart that Pucallpa was like an “Ephesus” for us. One expression of this is how it has shaped our perspective and hope for redemptive family. Twelve years since first moving there, a return visit is now on the horizon. This March 6–15, I am accompanying my son, Caleb, and his college soccer team on a trip to serve children in the region through soccer clinics. By God’s grace, upon returning from Peru, I look forward to exploring further Paul’s hope expressed in Ephesians. May we keep discovering together the hope of our cosmic calling as Christ’s Church.

Genesis 2:15 – “Then Yahweh God took the man and caused him to rest in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (LSB, emphasis added).

From the beginning, rest has included good work. How can we experience rest while cultivating and keeping goodness in our Good Shepherd’s pasture?

The American Psychological Association has provided examples of seven types of rest, indicating that “a multi-faceted approach to rest is key to restoring energy levels and improving your ability to function.”*

Below I’m adapting and applying examples of these seven types of rest to redemptive family realities:

Physical rest: Keeping margin in our scheduling and not overscheduling.

Mental rest: Providing times for renewing our minds together by receiving the Word and wisdom through testimony, prayer, teaching, and reflection.

Emotional rest: Keeping our communication free of obligation that feels heavy, speaking right things at right times to right people.

Social rest: Kind interactions that focus on refreshing and encouraging one another in the Lord, even and especially when facing relational and life challenges.

Sensory rest: Tasting and seeing God’s goodness through the beauty of creation.

Creative rest: Connection and collaboration that features each one’s voice, and permissions that protect each one’s power.

Spiritual rest: Safe pasture that is secure attachment to our Good Shepherd.

May we continue in pasture living that reflects such holistic rest in these ways and many others!

*Seven types of rest to help restore your body’s energy by Ashley Abramson, based on the research of Saundra Dalton-Smith, MD

Our family dog, a beagle, specializes in smelling. I enjoy watching her walk around with her nose to the ground, completely focused on tracking a scent. When we lived in Indiana, I remember taking her on a walk, and she was tracking some deer who had crossed the path. Eventually we came upon a group of deer standing beside us, but our beagle did not see them because she would not lift her head, keeping her nose to the ground.

Here are a few lines from Denise Levertov’s poem, Overland to the Islands, describing a dog’s “intently haphazard” way of following a scent:

Under his feet

rocks and mud, his imagination, sniffing,

engaged in its perceptions—dancing

edgeways, there’s nothing

the dog disdains on his way,

nevertheless he

keeps moving, changing

pace and approach but

not direction—‘every step an arrival.’ (publisher: Jonathan Williams, 1958)

In Eugene Peterson’s biography, we learn how his life reflected this poem:

     “The imagery spoke to him so deeply because he had been that dog for decades.

     His life and work had been more like tracing a scent than following a map.

     Discovery, not direction . . . Eugene had never truly mapped his future, never

     tried to lay some ordered path toward a clear career goal. Intent? Sure. But

     haphazard too. The whole meandering journey had been a dog sniffing the wind,

     the next whiff being the only real clue. And what has been the scent? Holiness?

     The Presence?” (A Burning in My Bones by Winn Collier, 60).

This experience also describes our life and ministry, including joyful arrivals at discoveries in God’s victory by His grace from week to week and month to month. As we begin 2026, may we keep finding and following His scent of tov (Hebrew word for “good”).