April 2020

A few Sunday mornings ago, we went out to see our friend, Betty. Betty is 89 years old and has lived in Boulder since her 20’s. 

Betty was a teacher in the Boulder Valley School District for many years, and she lives in an old stone house in the middle of Eldorado State Park — a lovely canyon made famous by rock climbers and pristine bottled-water.  

We met in October when we both went to the Boulder Humane Society looking for new dogs, and we’ve been close friends ever since. Betty knows Jesus — boy, does she love Jesus — and Betty has been praying for the people of Boulder for years. When Betty heard our story of how Father brought us to Boulder to plant a church she had a Holy Ghost hoe-down! 

Betty and I often pray together, and she has introduced me to every person she can introduce me to. I know God gave me Betty to be my friend and partner in the spread of the gospel. 

I can’t actually spend the same kind of time with Betty right now, but last week we decided to go out to her place and worship with her outside — with 12’ “social-distancing.” We read the Word together, worshipped and shared communion. 

I am so thankful for Betty and her years of interceding for the people of Boulder. She believes, as do we, that we are here in answer to her prayer. 

We are praying that God will use this crazy turn of events (the pandemic) to soften the hearts of the people of Boulder and cause them to see their need for Him. He didn’t cause this but he sure can use it. Blessings and stay healthy! 

April has found our whole world living a new normal. When our friends in Beijing, China began to face this new predator, we were watching and praying. I would venture to say that it may have felt a bit closer for us than most Americans — knowing that so many dear Beijing-friends who were affected, talking to them as they made adjustments to their lifestyle, praying as they faced major decisions so suddenly, and imagining the world we’d lived in and loved for so many years suddenly locking down.

We’d been through SARS and swine flu — but it somehow seemed like an ‘over there’ problem. Those kinds of things don’t happen in the USA. Maybe that’s why we didn’t prepare by buying masks, gloves, toilet paper, hand-sanitizer, noodles and cleaning products, etc. 

It seemed so sudden how everything changed. Suddenly my college student son (Noah) was being sent home from Minneapolis — bringing his fiancée with him so she wouldn’t expose here parents in Kodiak Island, Alaska, to the virus Besides, the young couple would probably only be back for a few weeks anyway, right?

Then we started to hear how Israel was aggressively locking down their borders to inhibit the spread. Sophia was only in the middle of her second season of volunteering in Israel. She had bought plane tickets for the end of April, with a week-long transfer in London to visit her dear, church-friend, Sarah. Daily the news changed and morphed — Sophia bought new tickets and left the country the morning the military took charge keeping people from going out. She’s been home for two weeks now, our whole family voluntarily quarantining with her so that we could be together.  

Our home went from 5 to 8 in a week — and I feel so blessed to have all my kids with me under one roof.