Chillin’ with My Husband: Time for a Plan
It was time: My husband and I took a night away just before the new year. We needed to pray, to plan, to think—both alone…
Author: Janel Breitenstein
Janel Breitenstein graduated summa cum laude from John Brown University and began her career with NavPress, where she worked on The Message Bible. After having four children she resumed her professional career (around her momlife) by serving as a writer for FamilyLife. Personal loans. In January of 2012 Janel and her husband, John, packed up their family of six and moved to Uganda to serve with Engineering Ministries International (eMi), an organization that focuses on poverty relief and development, providing structural design and construction management for Christian organizations in the third world. Join us as we all learn first hand, through Janel’s posts, what it’s like to go from suburban America, to answer God’s call in Africa!
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Art Lessons … From My Daughter and Her Father
Sunday afternoons at my house have had some perks lately. They have found me on my back porch with a little 5-year-old who looks a…
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Quiet Time Ideas for Moms of Littles
I’ve been there, and am still somewhat there. It’s fuzzy. Mostly for severe lack of sleep. But I remember. Some of you are still nursing…
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Faith: Small Weights, Lots of Reps
A handful of people I talk to seem bewildered—or concerned—by some strange internal constitution that would make us attempt Africa with four kids. (It seems…
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The Great New Year’s Purge
You’ve probably done it yourself before. Packing up to travel home after all of the Christmas festivities and generous gifts of relatives who—like God—love to…
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How to Help Kids Tackle Challenging Social Skills
It was a family wedding. Everyone was exclaiming over the kids, reluctantly decked out in their ring bearer getup—or happily in a flower girl dress….
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A Bittersweet Christmas
Christmas is a funny thing, isn’t it? Take the other night at my house: Christmas decorating night! We hauled out the boxes of decorations from…
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Step Five out of Angry: Times of Unique Stress
I went in for my every-three-and-a-half-months, I’ve-put-this-off-too-long, please-cut-my-hair-so-it-doesn’t-look-like-I’m-wearing-a-lampshade appointment at the hairdresser. I have a headful of decidedly curly, i.e. forgiving but frizzy hair, quickly becoming more frizzy and less forgiving. I believe the dialogue went something like this.
Hairstylist: Are you under a lot of stress?
Me: Um, well, yeah. Some.
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ADD: Our First Two Weeks After Diagnosis
It was as if I was watching a Polaroid photo develop. First, a vague figure appeared. “You know, we have a family history of ADD.”…
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Helping Kids by Telling Stories
A friend was making friendly conversation with my oldest son during that “shake the hand of the person next to you” time in church. “You…
