I grew up on a farm in western Kansas. My family were believers in Jesus and regular church attenders. When I was eight years old, I accepted Christ as my Savior after watching a Billy Graham movie. Even at a young age, after completing a New Believer class, I understood the gospel and got baptized.
Every summer, I spent time with my grandparents, who lived about an hour away on a ranch. My grandmother had suffered a stroke years earlier, so she wasn’t physically active, but she was very intentional with me. She would give me lists for cleaning, cooking, caring for the home, and I didn’t realize it at the time, but she was teaching me how to be faithful in ordinary things. Years later, I learned that during that season, my grandparents had come to know the Lord personally. Their lives changed, and watching that transformation had a deep impact on me.
In high school, I knew Scripture and was involved in church, but I wasn’t really walking with the Lord during the week. I was following in a destructive direction with my friends until the spring of my senior year. Without my knowledge, my grandmother had submitted my name to a Christian college in Oklahoma for a senior visit. When the invitation came, my parents were willing to take me on the 7-hour trip to check out the campus.
That weekend, staying in a dorm with some of the Christian college girls, I sensed the Lord clearly saying, “This is my best for you.” I applied, was accepted, and started that fall. Looking back, that decision was one of God’s most important defining moments in my life. My college roommate quietly modeled a daily walk with the Lord. I watched her get up every morning and spend time in the Word, and over time, the Lord used that to shape and grow my own faith.
During that first year of college, I met Steve. We were from the same small Kansas town, but didn’t really know each other growing up. He was finishing law school and preparing to join the Navy. The following summer in Kansas, we became good friends, spent time with each other’s families, and one day, my dad asked me, very simply, if I would marry Steve if he asked. I hadn’t even thought about it before that conversation. So, I began praying about if that could be the Lord’s direction for me. A month later, Steve proposed. We were married that fall before he entered the military as a Navy JAG.
Military life took us far from Kansas and into communities we never would have known otherwise. Everywhere we went, the Lord placed people in our path of different cultures, backgrounds, and stories. Steve and I felt called to hospitality early on, and we wanted our home to be an open door to everyone. That often meant hosting missionaries, international students, family, or anyone needing a place to land for days, weeks, or years.
Over time, as we welcomed four children into our family, our calling expanded as our children were included and involved and became a huge part of our life-on-life ministry.
Our home became a place where people gathered regularly for meals, worship, conversation, and prayer. Many of the international students we spent time with had not experienced an invitation into an American home. Some couldn’t work or attend school, especially the wives on student-spouse visas, and they often felt isolated and alone. We became family to one another—celebrating births, sitting in hospital rooms, finding used furniture since they came with nothing, eating meals together, and sharing everyday life.
Eight years ago, everything changed. Steve was diagnosed with cancer and passed away seventy days later. It was unexpected and devastating. During that journey, Steve often said that if we were praying with and for the doctors, nurses, and many who crossed our path, then we would know we were exactly in the center of God’s plan.
The night before Steve died, a doctor from a Caribbean country came into the room and asked to hear our life story. After listening, she gently told us that this would be his last night here on earth. She took our hands and prayed a prayer that sounded just like something Steve would have prayed. In that moment, I sensed the Lord saying, “I know you don’t understand, but this is my plan, and it is good.”
Since then, grief has tenderized me. I have learned that healing doesn’t follow a timeline and that family and community matter deeply.
Several years ago, two of my four adult children moved to Dallas and began attending Watermark, and they encouraged me to consider moving from Kansas. When I visited Watermark, I saw familiar patterns: hospitality, international ministry, and community rooted in faith. I jumped in and joined the Legacy group, volunteering at Women’s Bible study, began serving with international students, and started an international women's group at UTD. And one of the most precious things is that I get to share in all of this with my family here and beyond, being intentional in their lives just like my grandmother.
What I’ve learned over the years is simple: there are no coincidences. God works through open doors, faithful presence, and ordinary obedience. He keeps shaping and growing us season after season and invites us to join him in what he’s already doing.