Category #Newsletter

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua is a beautiful place. The local people are so genuine. I became friends with a woman named Brenda that sells bracelets and other souvenirs. We’ve talked many times in the last few weeks. Last night she hugged me and said she was sad I was leaving. Those that we met at the church are so sweet and kind. We ran into two in town yesterday and they were genuinely happy to see us. I was excited that we held our own in our Spanish conversation! I love the culture of hugs and kisses on the cheek. We’re all hot, sweaty, but everyone hugs each other anyways. There are many wonderful expats here too (mostly Canadians) and we’ve loved getting to know so many. We’ve enjoyed spending time with the pastor and his family, encouraging them in their challenging ministry to young men with addiction problems. Dennis was able to help out preaching a couple of times. Last week Dennis rescued two kids from the water that swam out too far while chasing a soccer ball. God planned all along for us to stop here, and we are thankful. We’ll miss this place and its people, but it’s time to head to Costa Rica and get this engine fixed. We’re currently planning to head back north towards Mexico after the repairs and hoping to stop here again.
One of my favorite things here is this statue of Jesus Christ above the bay, Cristo de La Misericordia, Christ of Mercy. The statue has served as my point of reference many nights when the wind picks up. By looking towards Jesus, I knew we were staying in place. Our anchor was holding.
Shouldn’t it always be that way in our lives? We look towards Jesus. He is unmovable. He should be our focal point. We know if we’re living right based on where we are in relation to Jesus. Have we moved away from Him? He’s always there, waiting for us to turn towards Him. His arms are open. Jesus is merciful. Jesus en ti confío. Jesus, I trust in you.

~Brandy

Leaving Mexico! Really?!

This week has been busy!

Things have been coming together. Lots of things have been done (and cleaned). Everything has been stowed. Everything has been tested. Both sails are back up!! We had a refrigerator guy come out and $150 later, he refreshed the freon. Seriously, that’s more than a visit in the US! Ugh. But our food is staying cold.

Seth is feeling a bit better. Micah started coughing the next day. Now Sarah has a sore throat. Thankfully it seems to be short-lived.

We sent the biggest boy, Caleb, up the mast to reconnect a few things and make sure the lights were working. He loved it and did great! 

The baby birds hatched a few days ago. We moved them tonight over to another boat. Poor Mama was fairly distraught. We’re hoping she goes over to them soon. She’s been flying around a lot.

We talked to friends in El Salvador and the sand bar is open (crossable). Weather looks good. They’re expecting us.

And now, we’re all checked out of Mexico. Three years ago we were heading south and finally, finally, we are! At this moment, the only thing not working is our satellite phone but we have been assured they’ll have it up by midnight. My mom is a bit nervous right now because that’s are only connection when we’re on the water. Honestly, I’m a bit nervous too. It would be naive to not be. We haven’t sailed in 5 months and this isn’t the easiest thing we’ve done. It’s not necessarily difficult or more dangerous, it’s just new territory. It’s also a 250 mile sail rather a short jaunt to start us off again. We need to get our sea legs (and stomachs back). So, please pray for us and we’ll check in Monday or Tuesday once we’ve checked into El Salvador. Thanks friends!

Welcome home?

We made it back to the boat on Thursday, October 17th after a wonderful week working alongside many missionaries in Guadalajara. Our flight was uneventful, but our boat was a disaster. Some stuff is covered in mold, other stuff is just fine. There are a ton of some weevil kind of bug (looks like they hatched in our new vacuumed sealed yeast and ate their way out!). Most are dead but a lot aren’t. The batteries on the boat were completely dead. Based on some research, it seems our solar quit just 3 days before we arrived. There apparently was a small fire under our bed. The wire between the solar controller and battery bus was melted, but the in line fuse is just fine! The wood under our bed was blackened but no other damage. Our kitchen table looks terrible. We were told the damprid containers all melted (what?!) and the oily liquid soaked into the table. 
Some of the clothes in the closets are moldy. Supposedly they were emptying our dehumidifier and changing damprid bags weekly but I’m guessing not. We’ve been cleaning since we the moment we walked in. It’s coming together very slowly. The heat and humidity are still very high (90 degrees but heat index around 100). We have a lot of laundry and we still are trouble shooting the solar and batteries. The batteries are fully charged now through shore power and seem undamaged. We could have come back to nothing had the fire been bigger. We’re so thankful.
We almost have everything put away and our bags were stowed back under Caleb’s bed which actually gave us some floor space to walk around. The rain means everything has to be inside but inside is quite small while trying to unpack and put things away. We finally got to a point last night where we could have dinner (made in the instant pot bc we don’t have propane for our stove/oven yet), a time of family worship and game night. 
The work on the boat is exhausting, especially in the heat. Besides cleaning the boat and still working on everything inside that needs to be cleaned, Dennis and the kids have already cleaned and patched the dinghy. We still have to repair a tear in our sail (Dennis is working on that) before we can put the sails back up. Replace the solar wire with a new in line circuit breaker instead of a fuse. Check the engines, fill our diesel jerry cans, refill propane, figure out why the refrigerator won’t cool below 46 degrees,…the list is long. 
We’re all emotionally and physically drained, but pressing on. We all agreed we will never again leave the boat in a humid and rainy climate. We’re ready to leave here and get back on the open water (where’s there’s wind and it’s not so hot). 
Please pray for us:
-for our attitudes – a friend just reminded me that Paul had boat problems too and look what God did with him, thanks Robin!
-for our wisdom and insight to fix our solar, refrigerator and other mechanic/electrical things to continue working; 
-for us all to stay healthy (we all have heat rashes and mosquito bites, Seth started coughing last night which sounds like croup and is now running a fever but feels fine otherwise, and my back is terribly sunburned after doing laundry on the dock yesterday morning);
-for the checkout process so we can leave Mexico and sail south. The weather is still unsafe for us to head north. 
-And most importantly, for God to go before and show us where He wants us to be in the coming weeks and months ahead. 
Thank you all 😊

Strange Winds

The plan for the entire last three years has been to sail south. The first missionary contact we ever made was with a family in Honduras. An old Navy friend introduced us to them through social media. Our other missionary contacts have come through various sources – missionary member care groups, meeting one family which lead to an entire agency with missionaries all over Mexico, local churches, and new friends. It’s been a wonderful adventure, as we trusted God to lead the way. 

Wherever the wind blows…that’s the name of our website, but there’s a lot more to that, a little play on words. We live and travel on a sailboat, so yes, the wind fills our sails. Sometimes we can adjust the sails and harness the wind to take us where we want to go. Other times, the wind is against us and it’s what we sailors refer to as a bash. Loosely translated, it means absolutely no fun at all (okay, that may be my personal definition). Going against the wind is not where we want to go. The Greek word for wind is pneuma, but it has a secondary meaning. In the New Testament of the Bible (originally written in Greek) the word pneuma is also used for Holy Spirit.  We try to listen to and go where the Holy Spirit is leading us – wherever the pneuma blows – wherever God is sending us. Much of the last three years has not looked like we expected, and that trend is continuing with strange winds surrounding us, but we will continue trusting God.

Our plan was to go to Bahía del Sol in El Salvador (the white arrow). The map depicts all category 1+ hurricanes over the last 30 years in the Eastern Pacific, which clearly shows why we must have a plan for hurricane season (May 15 – November 30). Once we’re in the estuary in El Salvador we would be “stuck” there until the fall. We planned to use El Salvador as a jumping off point for land travels to visit a missionary family in Guatemala and the family in Honduras.

Well, the actual wind is not blowing us south. The swell in the Eastern Pacific has been much larger than normal for this time of year. The sand bar that must be crossed to get into Bahía del Sol has been closed for almost 3 weeks. It isn’t looking good for the near future either.

It appears that the Holy Spirit isn’t sending us south either. The missionary family in Guatemala has returned to the US. The family in Honduras is actually on the Atlantic (yes, big mistake on our part, we thought they said Pacific and we never googled their small town until recently).

We are currently in Marina Chiapas, Mexico (the red arrow on the map). It’s a nice marina with a great manager and it’s a safe place to leave the boat (plus a discounted summer rate). Yep, I said leave the boat. As much as we don’t want to leave the boat for a few months, the 90-100 degree temperatures INSIDE the boat (heat index is 100-110), no AC, swarms of mosquitoes, and daily rain/thunderstorms that require we close up the boat, just makes it unbearable. The marina is 30 minutes from town and the only thing out here are tennis courts (yeah, I don’t think so!). We’ve decided it’s best to head back to the US, take care of our yearly medical appointments, and spend some time with my parents in Colorado. We also plan to send Dennis off somewhere so he can finally finish his dissertation for his doctorate. The constantly growing list of things to fix or maintain on the boat doesn’t allow him any time to sit and research/write.  

We need a week or so to secure everything on our boat. Our insurance considers southern Mexico still in the hurricane zone. Even though it should be perfectly safe, we must follow the recommendations from our insurance company to protect our boat. We’ll be flying into Tijuana on June 6^thand walking across the border into San Diego. Dennis and I each have a medical appointment and then we’ll be heading to Colorado on June 11^th. We will probably fly back to Mexico (not quite sure when yet) through San Diego/Tijuana so hopefully we’ll get a chance to spend some more time and visit with more friends. 

We appreciate your prayers as we continue to strive to follow God’s leading, wherever the wind blows, in our ministry to missionaries.

Confidence

We made it to Puerto Escondido just before 8 on the morning of January 1st. Actually, we were a mile and a half away at 6am but we slowly rode the current while we waited for sunrise. This is not the kind of place you want to approach in the dark. We’re tied up on a mooring ball where we’ll be for 3 weeks.

The 21 hour passage was incredibly calm at first, and then much rougher than we like (starting just before sunset and into the moonless night). Right around 4pm, the wind kicked up, waves got big (the boat is covered in salt – maybe we should start a secondary business selling sea salt), we had to reef the sail (pull it down some so there’s less sail area), fight the waves that were pushing us to shore, and in the middle of all of this we caught a fish! But not just any fish, a Pacific sharp nosed shark! It was about 3’ long. We let it go because we really couldn’t handle a shark at that moment and no one was super excited about eating shark. We celebrated New Year’s Eve with the kids on the first, but Dennis and I didn’t make it til midnight. The long rough night just wore us out 😴

The wind began to pick up by the afternoon after we arrived and has been blowing strong over the last few days. It’s made the half mile ride in from the boat to the dock a bit wet. Tomorrow should be calm but then it’s going to rain for a couple of days. Our solar and wind power are doing great! We can spend time at the mooring ball (a quarter of the price) instead of the expensive dock.

We’re happy to be back somewhere familiar and plan to spend time with the missionaries we met here 2 years ago. We also have study and prep work to do to get ready for the conference which starts the 13th. Our cell service is limited because of these giant beautiful mountains. We’ll probably go ashore each day and get some marginal 3G network. Not completely off the grid, but close.

Please pray for us as we prepare for the January 13-18th conference. We will be leading the youth of the TEAM missionary families. The theme is Confidence in God, which has been hitting home during my personal study.

As an update to our finances, we have received donations of almost $6000 above our regular monthly support. This has helped so much!! Unfortunately, we had unexpected problems with our engines to the tune of $3000, but we were able to pay the boat yard bill and the credit card bill (which had all of those necessary boat parts on it). We are waiting to hear back again from the state of CA in regards to a settlement on our tax bill (approximately $15,000). We provided them with information on our current income and what we could pay per month. They don’t seem to be in a hurry to give us a decision.

We are still only about a third of the way to what we need to be fully funded ($3000/month) to continue to serve missionaries. We have exhausted so much of our own resources over the last couple of years, we are to the point that we don’t have much more to provide and now are becoming dependent on support. We know God specializes in coming through when we’ve reached the end of ourselves. He wants us to fully rely on Him, to have confidence in His faithfulness. Please prayerfully consider if God is calling you to partner with us in this ministry to missionaries.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Kellys!!

We finally splashed the boat on the 17th and left Puerto Penasco on the 20th. We’ve been alternating between calm 1-2 day sails and hiding from 20-40 knot northerly winds for 3-4 days. We’re taking advantage of the next calm weather window and heading to Puerto Escondido (Loreto) today. We’ll be postponing New Year’s and pretending tomorrow is December 31st so we can celebrate after we arrive. 

This year has been full of so many wonderful surprises and unplanned events – a few not so great, but it’s been wonderful to see how God turned them around. 

We are thankful for our families and friends who are like family – all those who opened their homes and their hearts for a weekend or a month, made us delicious meals, loaned us nerf guns for necessary battles, let us borrow cars, were our personal post office (our amazon account has literally almost 2 dozen addresses where we have shipped things this year), provided amazing conversations, prayers, and financial support of this ministry God has given us. 

We are thankful for missionaries around the world – we were able to meet so many this year in unexpected places. We’re thankful for what they do and the love of Jesus that they show to others. 

May your 2019 be blessed beyond anything you can ask or imagine. 

Reflections on Our Summer, Part 1

     The end of November may seem an odd time for our “What we did during our summer ‘vacation’” essay, but we’re finally back home (although not in the water quite yet). Looking back at our summer, it’s amazing to see God’s plans and how they overrode our plans. We thought we were going to spend the summer getting caught up on homeschool, admin, financial reports, and blog posts 😉 Dennis was going to work on research for his doctoral project. I was going to finish my certifications in counseling. We would never have bounced over the Atlantic without the promise of a few months to be still (and access to the internet). God knew that and I feel now (it’s taken some time to get here) that He used that plan to get us to Europe. After the disastrous month in France (if you missed that blog post, you can read about it here), we were searching for what God had in mind. He seemed to insist that we keep doing what He called us to do – spend our time helping and encouraging missionaries. In fact, even while we were in France, we had a missionary family spend a few days there before they headed to language school. It was a great opportunity to share our stories and encourage each other (we sure needed it at that point!).

     We left France in search of peace for ourselves and the least expensive way back to the US. We knew our chances of getting a military space available flight during the summer were pretty slim, so we were looking for places to stay cheaply in Europe. Driving to and flying out of Paris was the cheapest option out of France. We searched for places to stay with many different ministries in Europe. We talked to quite a number of missionaries and ministry leaders in Europe during our search for places to stay. We didn’t get to meet most of them, but we’ve certainly made new friends through email. A 3 hour detour to Switzerland became the new plan when a family offered us room and board for almost a week (although I have to admit, I was hoping to get to go to Switzerland).

     On our way to Switzerland, we made our first stop at Pont Julien, a 2000 year old bridge that was only about 5 miles from where we had been working (we just never had an opportunity to leave). We spent our “first night of freedom” near the Pont du Gard. (On a side night, if you ever think staying in a safari tent sounds like fun, maybe think again. The sheer number and size of the spiders was slightly terrifying. Caleb made the mistake of teasing Hope after she screamed when a large spider came inches from her face, and he ended up having to trade beds with her. You could tell he was freaking out a bit too, but he held it together and survived the night without any screams or bites.) The Pont du Gard is the highest and one of the best preserved ancient Roman aqueduct bridges that provided water to the city of Nîmes. It was part of the 31 mile aqueduct system that was built in the first century. First century! We’re talking about when Jesus walked the earth! It stands 160 feet high and only descends 1 inch across the almost 1/3 of a mile length. The system carried 8,800,000 gallons of water a day! Mind blowing and beautiful.

Well, that WAS different.

The summer is almost over and we’ve yet to post anything. There’s much to say, but it’s been hard to relive some of the situations to put them into words. So, we just didn’t and instead we have been dreading this post. Today I (Brandy) decided that maybe putting it all down “on paper” might just be the therapy I need (and then it’s taken another couple of weeks before I feel ready to post it).

We had so many reasons to believe that spending a few months in France was a great opportunity (see our previous post about this), but as it turned out, most of those expectations were based on misinformation. This post is long, but I feel many of you may be wondering about all the details (well, I’m a detail person).

House sitting at a small AirBnB in France sounded amazing! We were told to expect 1-2 hours of work per day – “Just check to see that the rooms are ready and greet the guests with the keys when they arrive.” It sounded pretty simple. We felt this was quite fair, and was going to fit well with our needs to finish this year’s homeschooling with the kids and allow Dennis the time he needed to finish his dissertation during hurricane season. However, as it turned out, we were working 8-12 hours per day. We arrived to rooms that were not ready to be occupied, unkept grounds with 3’ tall weeds everywhere, a partially finished fountain with water and mosquitoes that had apparently been sitting for weeks.

We were doing laundry around the clock, waking to put another load in the washer and hang up the sheets and towels that weren’t quite dry after 2 hrs in the dryer. With inadequate numbers of linens, it took hours to wash, dry and iron before we could finish preparing the rooms. The one residential European sized washing machine and dryer were severely inadequate for running an operation of that size.

And speaking of size, the property was quite a bit larger than we were led to believe. There were four 2 bedroom cottages with kitchen and bathrooms plus 3 other smaller rooms with 2 beds and a bathroom. There were a total of 17 beds plus 4 towels per bed. The rooms were almost always full, last minute reservations were common (11pm) and a few times she didn’t even let us know someone was coming (they’d just show up with an email reservation confirmation)! In 32 days, we cleaned the rooms 80 times. That’s about 200 bed changes and over 800 towels in a machine that would only hold one set of sheets at a time (and that was cramming them in)! They also insisted that we iron the sheets with a small ironing board and one iron (I’ve never seen anything come out of a dryer so wrinkled)! Apparently the owners lived in 4 of the rooms and only rented 3. We also found out that they have never been there in the summer months either since they purchased the property two years ago. They had someone watch the property last summer and he refused to return this year. They had no idea of what we were talking about when we tried to explain that it was physically impossible to wash the sheets and towels and get them back in the rooms in time for the next check in. There was certainly no time to take any day trips, much less an overnight trip to Paris as they suggested back in April. We even had to carefully time the trips to the grocery store so no one arrived to check in while we were gone.

We were told there would be minimum maintenance, possibly flipping a circuit breaker or two. The gardener would be around to handle anything more involved. We saw him only a handful of times during our 5 weeks and he never finished what he was supposed to, much less help with maintenance. In just the first few days, Dennis fixed two shower doors (one was leaning against the wall when we arrived), replaced 2 toilet seats, cleared multiple clogged drains, purchased and replaced a door knob, repaired multiple sink drains, pulled and sprayed weeds, trimmed a huge bush that was hanging into the pool, killed a poisonous snake, and replaced over a dozen light bulbs.

Additionally, they told us they would provide a detailed book of instructions, where to find circuit breakers, simple tools, contact information, and all supplies for 3 months. There was nothing left for us in the way of instructions. We continually asked for contact information for the gardener and only had enough supplies for the first week. We spent approximately $200 of our own money on things such as distilled water for ironing, small trash bags, light bulbs, toilet cleaner/deodorizer, parts for shower door, kitchen sponges, door knob, toilet seat, laundry detergent, toilet paper, coffee pods, and cleaning products.

The living conditions we were given were quite lacking. The “fully furnished 2 bedroom apartment” contained a queen mattress on the floor, 3 twin beds, a futon, a desk, a table and 10 mismatched (some broken) chairs. No closets, no shelves, no drawers. The kitchen did have quite a lot of dishes, glasses, and pots and pans, however they were all broken, chipped, missing handles, etc. The pantry was left (3 weeks) before we arrived with dozens of open packages of cereal, flour, cornmeal, and the insects that hatched. We were constantly dealing with maggots and moths long after we threw everything away. The infestation of fleas (they had two indoor pets) made things quite uncomfortable. Without exaggeration, we had hundreds of flea bites. The toilets in all the rooms were full of tiny flies when we first arrived as well.

The small car in “good condition” that we rented from them (we were actually paying them!) turned out to be frustrating also, but a necessity to go purchase the needed supplies. They said it didn’t need any maintenance in the coming months, but we would be responsible should something break, “like a flat tire.” However, the tires were old and had very little tread. Add to that the window that didn’t roll down, key fob didn’t work, the only door lock mechanism didn’t turn, and it wouldn’t shift into second gear. Not exactly what we would call good condition.

We were in constant communication with the owners regarding the guests who would be arriving, however all of our concerns and questions were mostly ignored. We were never given the gardener’s contact information, they never acknowledged the fleas, the unfinished fountain and dangerous tools left out, car problems, or really anything. They failed to tell us that “our space” was the common area and kitchen that guests were allowed to use. That made more sense when we discovered that they lived in the 4 rooms upstairs and the downstairs (our space) was just the common area, extra kitchen and office. When I asked about extra linens or how she kept up with the laundry, her response was just that we’d figure it out. No options or even a thank you. When we asked for them to order more supplies and have them delivered (a few days after we arrived), they said to just go buy them at the store. We never were reimbursed for our gas for these trips. When we told them we couldn’t find the right parts for the broken shower track after 3 stores in 3 towns, she refused to order them. Instead their plan was that Dennis should just use the parts from another room that had the same type shower and move the pieces back and forth depending on which room was occupied. Besides being a horrible idea, the rooms were both almost constantly booked. She also wouldn’t block the room from new bookings until it could be fixed either.

After a week of this drama (yep, week 1), we let them know that we could not stay the entire summer in this type of situation. We agreed to stay a month because we knew it would be a hardship on them to find someone else (although practically 100 others responded to the same post I did). We told them we would continue to work hard to make sure the property was clean and the guests were comfortable and happy. We did our best to keep things cordial and polite since we knew we had another 3 weeks.

During the remaining weeks, Dennis reattached screens on every window, replaced another toilet seat, fixed outdoor chairs, defrosted refrigerators, fixed air conditioners, We had one night that the hot water was out on one room (with the rudest guest we had) and our kitchen sink. The 2 water heaters were working fine and the owners weren’t responding to our questions. Finally after almost 2 hours of trial and error and walking the property, Dennis found a gas water heater in the gardener’s tool shed that the pilot light was out. He relit it and half an hour later, at 11pm, we were back in business. Finally around midnight the owners responded that we should check the gas water heater. Dennis refused to take care of the roof leak and the owners still hadn’t addressed it when we left.

We also emailed them to discuss a payment for our work, reimbursement for the supplies we purchased, and especially no charge for the car. We found out through a guest that they charged a cleaning fee. They again completely ignored our email. Dennis did some research on the average minimum wage in France (for a 35 hr week and we were working more like 50-60 hrs/week). We also looked up the cost of a furnished apartment in the area. Just counting the two of us (not taking into consideration the work our children were putting in), we should have been paid about 6000 euro/month ($6970). The average rent was only 500 euros. We asked them for a payment of $1500 (the cleaning fees for the number of rooms we cleaned) to help cover our travel expenses, plus reimbursement for what purchased for their property. Nowhere near what they would pay actual workers (it worked out to about $1/hr) but still a bit to help us.

After a week, we sent another email, requesting acknowledgment that they received the first email. They had, and said they would get back to us soon. We continued to ask them every few days with the same response. We were also informed that they couldn’t have anyone arrive until Monday, the 9th, 3 days after we said we were leaving. That added another extremely difficult weekend. We agreed to stay if they would pay us what we were asking. On Saturday, the 7th, Dennis sent another email asking for a decision on the money or we weren’t cleaning any more rooms. We did clean the rooms though, and had them ready for the next round of guests, so I guess this was just a bit of an ultimatum to get them to give us an answer. I sent another message stating the rooms were clean and ready but we really needed an answer. Well, about 9:00 that night (the whole day passed!) the answer we got was that someone was coming to collect the keys, we had less than an hour to get out, and after the property was inspected for damages, he would reimburse us for the supplies we purchased!

What?! Damages?! We were shocked and angry. How many things had Dennis fixed?! Our reimbursement was long overdue and shouldn’t have been held ransom anyways. He said if we weren’t out that night he would charge us 225 euro (if I remember correctly) to stay at HIS AirBnB since we weren’t working. He completely ignored the fact that we were, in fact, still working! We hadn’t packed because we were cleaning all day, still doing laundry and awaiting another guest. I had made a reservation to pick up the rental car on the 8th so we couldn’t leave anyways. He said we could stay if we agreed to clean all the rooms on Sunday. We felt so bullied! But we did it. That property was cleaner the morning of the 9th than it had probably ever been! We were reimbursed for our purchases (not for gas) and given about 400 euros ($464, not even a third of what we asked). It didn’t even cover half of our flight to France.

The kids said they learned a lot from the summer, mostly that the world is a contrast of people. We met people from 6 continents while we were there. So many countries and languages came to our doorstep, including a young US missionary family serving in Africa. Some of our favorites were from Sweden and Russia. We had people stay 15 hours and use every possible towel, bed, bar of soap, steal toilet paper!, leave dirty dishes on the counter, trash everywhere but the trash can and expect someone to clean up after them. Others would stay 2-3 days, use one towel each, wash every dish they used and even take the trash out themselves. I know our kids will always be the latter because they know that behind the scenes is someone who does the cleaning. They certainly learned that their actions affect others.

We learned there are those that will bend the truth, take advantage, and bully to get their way. But there are many more who are kind, friendly, and love to share their lives with those they meet.

Thankfully, this was only the first part of our summer. Our God can and does make beauty from our ashes, and those stories are still to come.