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Meet debut novelist Katherine Scott Jones

Today, I’m happy to introduce Katherine Scott Jones, KJ as I call her. We found each other nearly a decade ago at my first Christian writer’s conference in Denver, Colorado. We have been sweet friends and writing pals ever since. KJ’s writing skills are top-notch and her wisdom is well beyond her years. Probably because she grew up in cities on every U.S. coast and overseas due to her father’s Navy career. Seattle became her home when she married her husband twenty-seven years ago. Together, they have two teenage children and their family hobby is world travel. This summer, KJ and her […]

By Paula September 12, 2017

A tractor, a rocking chair, and a little green monkey

This picture is a little hard to make out because of the bright sun rays, but this is the day we loaded the tractor, the rocking chair, and the little green monkey. As the truck with the shipping container departed down our long, country driveway, I wondered if the little green monkey would crawl out of his box, jump into the rocking chair, and then up onto the tractor, proclaiming, “Finally! We are on our way to Africa!” Kind of like Toy Story where all the toys come alive when everyone leaves the room. The little green monkey almost didn’t […]

By Paula September 5, 2017

Sandals for Africa

When I was little, I wasn’t a big eater. Finishing my food seemed impossible at every meal. My parents never made me clean my plate, but my grandparents did. Grandma Helen liked to make oatmeal with butter and salt. Not only did it not taste good, it didn’t look good either. One summer morning, I sat in Grandma Helen’s kitchen crying over my oatmeal. “Children are starving in Africa,” said Grandma Helen. “You are lucky to have this oatmeal. Now eat it.” “Can we please send my oatmeal to Africa?” I asked Grandma Helen on the end of a little […]

By Paula August 15, 2017

A Tractor for Africa

A tractor for Africa wasn’t my idea. I was minding my own business in the United States when a writer from Canada I didn’t really know contacted me out of the blue on Facebook. It sure seemed out of the blue the night Emily Wierenga’s message hit my inbox. I loved Emily’s novel: Atlas Girl, but we’d never met in person. “I see you are a farmer in California. Is there any way you can help us get a tractor for a farm in Sierra Leone?” Emily messaged me that night. I didn’t even know where Sierra Leone was, but […]

By Paula July 28, 2017

Are Screens Hurting Your Kids?

I was surprised and proud when our littlest sons were students of the month last January. In December, I’d finished writing a novel, and all I wanted to do was spend time with my kids and be a mom for awhile instead of working. In the afternoon, when the boys got home from school, we played together. At night after dinner, we practiced reading and did homework. The extra attention especially helped our youngest son, a kindergartener, do better in school. By mid-February, I was falling back into a new novel, and life was getting busy again, but we still […]

By Paula July 18, 2017

When life doesn’t go the way you planned, yet you still catch a rainbow

I gave up planning my life about the time these little boys jumping off our cabin dock came along. I didn’t plan to give birth to more babies in my late thirties and early forties, but these sons came anyway, and I can’t imagine life without them. Nearly all the best things that have happened to me, I didn’t plan at all. Nor did I plan the worst things. All have come uninvited, like guests to a dinner party that sometimes bring their own food, and share it with you, and it tastes better than the food you had, or […]

By Paula July 7, 2017

Don’t Just Make A Living… Make A Life.

I know we look like dorks in our matching yellow shirts at our cabin last year. Thirty years ago, when we were young and cool, we never would have dressed this way. I like us better now. It’s funny how often Scott and I end up in the same color tops. Every once in awhile, on a Sunday morning before church, I change my blouse because Scott and I are twinning. We’re still raising kids, and I don’t want to embarrass the boys with how goofy we’ve become as we’ve grown older. Sometimes Scott and I just sit and laugh […]

By Paula June 30, 2017