I’ve been overwhelmed for so long that I was beginning to forget what it feels like to just be whelmed (if that’s even a thing). We have spent the last two months feverishly working to get things out of our house and finish renovations in order to prepare for an international move. We haven’t been…
Well, now what? John quit his job and we moved out of our house and sold most of our stuff. It’s time to go back to full time mission work, which in this case means finishing the school we started building in Malawi. Only we can’t move back there just yet because of finances and…
photo: Sonny (dad), Gina, Janette, Billy, Joanne (mom), John John’s dad William Jewell passed away in March. We just had his funeral yesterday. At his military service, John read this article I wrote: What do you say when someone dies? The good stuff. You talk about all of the fun memories you shared with that…
(Picture: This magnet is on my friend’s fridge, and I can’t think of a more appropriate image for this post.) Two years ago as John and I we were on a road trip to visit our son in the military, we took advantage of the time by planning and organizing the HUGS for Tomorrow…
The school we’re building in Malawi now consists of preschool through the fourth grade and educates 150 students. As this year wraps up for summer, we have the wonderful problem of figuring out where to put our fourth grade students next year. You see, this group is the original preschool class of 2018, and…
Just before the last presidential election, I had to scramble to renew my registration in order to vote in the Biden-Trump showdown. We move so often I almost always have to do that. It’s a chore that gets lumped in with setting up utilities and finding local services like medical care and hair cutting. But…
Our supporters are amazing, and we want to thank you as we celebrate you today! Just before Christmas I received an email from DonorSee, the crowdfunding platform we use to fund a good percentage of our entire feeding program and school in Malawi. They said they were hosting a contest, in which they would award…
In the villages of Malawi, sometimes it’s hard to know a person’s age. Even parents don’t always remember the date their son or daughter was born. There are no filing cabinets with birth certificates or even a calendar on the wall, but they do usually remember if it was during the rains or not and…
When I was a kid, I was good enough at my sport to make the local all-star team. I honestly have no idea how stiff the competition was for that spot, but I thought it was kind of a big deal to be the illustrious first pick. I was quick, accurate, and tough, but I…
Some of our kids at HUGS for Tomorrow are sponsored, but for the most part we raise money every six months to feed each one and keep them all in school. We do this for a few different reasons, including the constantly fluctuating food costs and the opportunities it presents for our supporters to get…