The Quilting Club

The original concept for my newly-released novel, Under the Red Spotlight, was a story I wrote as a pre-teen.  The story was called, Lionheart, and followed a team of “Sundancers”, basically enslaved acrobat teams, to perform in high-stakes competition for the glory of their owners.  The main character was a teenage girl named Aurora and her boyfriend/acrobatic partner Lance, along with their other teammate, Trent.  Aurora’s ultimate victory?  Finding freedom and having a baby. 

For any of you who have read Red Spotlight—doesn’t this sound familiar? 

   

I was fourteen when I fell in love with writing.  I was home-schooled and boy-crazy, not a very compatible combination, since the only boy around most of the time was my little brother.  Writing about romance was the closest I could come to experiencing the real thing.  After the success of my debut story,  Zack, a story about a teenager stranded on a desert island with her boyfriend (a real page-turner, you can be sure), my little sister and her quilting club requested that I write more stories for them, so I wrote Lionheart.

Oh, and yes, you read that right, my little sister and her quilting club... Remember, we were home-schooled. 

The week I finished writing Lionheart, I waited impatiently each week for all the quilters to assemble.  It took three quilting club meetings to read the entire 18,890 word tale of Aurora and her team.  My sister and her cohorts loved it.  I had them write comments on the back page of the manuscript, y’know, so I could use them as endorsements on the next novel.    

“I read your story it made me almost cry I felt as I was there It was the BEST STORY EVER!!  (I hope there’s 90,000,000 and a lot more storys).”  -- Saralyn

Comments like these spurred my young heart on to write more stories, including a sequel to Lionheart in which I killed most of the main characters and subsequently bankrupted the series of fans.  The quilters were not impressed with my calloused abuse of their hearts.  After that, all my stories had happy endings. 

Fast-forward about eleven years. 

I’d married the love of my life, given birth to a beautiful baby, and moved to Guatemala as a missionary... pretty much fulfilled all of good ol’ Aurora’s dreams.  I was in the middle of our seven months of language school and feeling a bit lost in the world of Spanish verbs and nouns and sentence structure.  Life in a different country felt hard and lonely, and I wanted to go home.  Then it struck me—it was time to write another story. 

And so, in the hours while my son napped every afternoon, I crafted a new, more realistic version of my younger-self’s attempt at a novel.  I found comfort in the familiarity of typing English words, and imagining characters and dialogue and storyline.  With each word I was transported back to the days of reading to my sister and her friends as they huddled over their little nine-patches.  Writing became my solace, my friend when I was lonely. 

Under the Red Spotlight was published in November, 2016, thirteen years after its original conception.  My next manuscript is well on its way, and will hopefully go to publication in 2017—and isn’t based on a childhood story this time.  I’m older now, and my writing has grown up with me... but no matter what changes, I will always treasure where this love of writing began. 

Thanks Quilting Club girls.  You inspire me still.   

Home

On Wednesday I will be going home again, for the second time since August.  

Last time I said the word "home", I meant I was going to Canada, the place where our families live and our passports were issued.  This time when I say "home" I mean that I'm going back to Guatemala, where we have a house full of our belongings and a room-full of kids waiting for us to teach Sunday school.  Both places feel like "home", and then again, neither does.  

I think I understand that verse in the Bible a little better now-- y'know, the one about how are citizenship is in Heaven with God.  I find comfort in the thought that there is a day coming when I will really be home, and it will feel like home, and I will stay there forever and ever.  

As our time at our Canadian home comes to a close I am overwhelmed by the love and generosity that has been poured out upon us.  It's been a time of adjustment welcoming new family members, and a time of enriching old relationships.  Our needs have been great, but greater still is the ability of God to provide in every way.  My heart is strengthened by the encouragement of our family and friends.  I am so thankful to have had this time in Canada.  So very, deeply, thankful.  

I face our imminent departure for our Guatemalan home with hope and even some eagerness.  Leaving our family in Canada is always hard for me, but I feel confident that God is with us, and we are walking in His will.  To walk in obedience to the One who loves me most, for me, must always be enough...even when it's hard to say goodbye.  

I'm looking forward to being in my own home again, in Guatemala, and waking to sunshine and avocados falling on the roof.  I'm excited to buy a papaya at the market and show the Sunday school kids the new puppets.  In not too long it will be time to decorate for Christmas, and in January we will start home-school grade 1 with Z!  So much to look forward to, and yet it's still hard to leave one home for the other.  

In all these bitter-sweet emotions I am struck with a deep gratefulness to God, that I have not one, but two places on this earth to call home.  Two places where I am know and loved.  I am blessed beyond measure.  

And so in the midst of the pain of another goodbye, I reach for my Father's hand, and He leads me home.

"All these people died still believing what God had promised them. They did not receive what was promised, but they saw it all from a distance and welcomed it. They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth. Obviously people who say such things are looking forward to a country they can call their own. If they had longed for the country they came from, they could have gone back. But they were looking for a better place, a heavenly homeland. That is why God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

 

      -Hebrews 11:13-16