Thoughtful About . . . A Family of Love

Thoughtful About . . . A Family of Love

by | Mar 28, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized

I sat here for a good while this morning debating what to write about. It’s Holy Week, my favorite time of year. I love reflecting on all He’s given us, on His amazing love in giving up His life to save ours. I think I’ve had some nice insights over the years, LOL–and I’ve shared most of them already. 😉

This year, my weekend is packed to the brim with activities, from egg hunts to a seder-style dinner tonight at church. But what I’m most looking forward to is a concert linked not so much to Easter per se as to the love it represents–and which some friends of ours are living out in the most amazing way. As I sat here debating, I realized I wanted to introduce you to Todd and Erin and their kids. We belong to the same home school group, and this past year have been attending a small bible study with them and two other families with small kids, so we’ve been blessed to get to know them. I realize most of you are too far to come to the concert, but these folks could use your prayers! So here’s an article I wrote that appeared in the local paper the other day.

A local church is
teaming up with a local family to help bring a brother and sister
home to Frostburg from Ethiopia.
Frostburg residents
Todd and Erin Vogtman are a couple with a lot of love to give.
Married for thirteen years, they met in college when both were
studying to be teachers. In addition to now being a primary school
teacher, Todd is a talented singer and guitarist. Erin, a gifted
artist, spent years as a public school teacher as well and now home
schools their four biological children.
Many see this
family with four kids already and wonder at their interest in
adoption—especially international adoption. But for Todd and Erin,
it isn’t a matter of simply wanting more children, it’s a matter
of wanting to improve the lives of children who otherwise would have
nothing. “We believe that those who have much, hold much
responsibility to give. And just living in this country puts us as
some of the most privileged people in the world,” Erin says on her
blog, One Sought Me.
“Parenting is such a fun adventure full of laughing and learning.
We know firsthand how fast time flies when watching kids grow and how
precious our time is as parents to our interesting and unique
kiddos.”
Though the Vogtmans have immense respect for those who work in the
foster care system of our country, they could not escape the
realization that even those who have the least in America are so
often richer than the majority of the people in third world
countries. And while every orphan is in need of love and protection,
those born in underprivileged nations have virtually no chance for
betterment aside from what comes in from other nations. These are
children who could very well starve and die before reaching adulthood
if no one feels the call to step in. Todd, Erin, and their kids felt
that call.
But the Vogtmans discovered as they began research into international
adoption that it’s a difficult path, especially when a family
already has four biological children. Their choices on where they
could apply soon dwindled down to a few, and they eventually settled
on Ethiopia. They have at this point been approved for adoption and
hope to have their new brother and sister with them by the end of
2013.
Adoption, however, is a costly calling, and so area businesses and
churches are teaming up with the Vogtmans on their loving mission and
sharing in the task of fund-raising. And what better way than to draw
on the talents the family already has? With that thought in mind,
Full Gospel SDB Church, located on Hazen Rd, invited Todd to perform
at their monthly Saturday Night Alive program. Admission is free, but
a freewill offering will be taken up, all proceeds to go to the
Vogtman adoption.
~*~
For those of you online and too far away to come support this amazing family, I do invite you to check out Erin’s blog, One Sought Me. If you feel so led, there’s a donation button in the right corner. Every little bit helps!
Remember When . . . Your Name Appeared?

Remember When . . . Your Name Appeared?

by | Mar 27, 2013 | Remember When Wednesdays, Uncategorized

I have no clue what color-scheme will used on the cover,
but for purely inspirational purposes, I made a blue title banner 😉
I’m on the downward slide (okay, so there’s nothing slide-like about this mounting battle, LOL) of Circle of Spies, and having SO MUCH FUN with these characters! But wow, is there a cast of them necessary! I’m still at that point where I doubt my own ability to draw all my character threads together in a nice little bow by the end of the book–which is also the end of the series, remember–so I’m spending some time gnawing at fingernails over here (metaphorically, anyway). And making copious notes about “Don’t forget to include Elsie at the end! Don’t forget that Barbara needs to be involved in this! Don’t forget to give Granddad Thad a role in this part!”
But one thing I’m having especial fun with in this one is using names of real people for my characters. I don’t usually do this, but as my awesome editor found a few redundant names in Whispers from the Shadows (three Henrys? Really, Roseanna??) and we started plugging in names of folks at Harvest House for these mentions, it turned into a pretty fun game. She gave me the challenge of including “Barbara” in a book sometime, and I took her up on it…which got me thinking.
Marietta, my heroine, had no real female friends. Which can work…but I already did that in Ring of Secrets. I really shouldn’t have another loner female character in the same series. So yes, she needed a friend, who could be named Barbara. But who was this woman? How does she enter the story? I decided somehow or another that she would be tied to the brother Marietta lost at Gettysburg, the one she loved above all. And then at our fabulous writing retreat, my critique partner gave me the idea of using a photograph to alert Mari to her presence in her life–a perfect solution, though that likely makes little sense to you right now, LOL. Resulting in, voila, exactly the friend I needed Marietta to have! And a lack I hadn’t realized was there until someone issued me that challenge of including a name.
So then I had the brilliance (inspired by the aforementioned critter Stephanie Morrill and her next book, The Revised Life of Ellie Sweet) of including YOUR names in this thing! Well…your spy names. =) Not that I’m going to have that many spies, but every time I need to name a minor character, I’m pulling from that list. (So if you haven’t left me a comment on my Spy Name Game with yours yet, you’d better!!) I’d already assigned one of the names to a role I needed, an innkeeper in Western Maryland. I had a decent idea of her personality and grinned when I realized she’d be saving my hero’s life at the climax.
Then yesterday I had this realization. Namely, that all my bad guys are Confederates. Yet I don’t want to paint all Confederates as bad guys! And while I know that I also have another Civil War-set manuscript here that is entirely Southern, where “Yankee” is the equivalent of a curse and the highest insult my characters can use, um…readers of the Culper series don’t know that, LOL. And I don’t want to come off as hating the South, which I most assuredly do not. So what I need is a wonderful, amazing, God-fearing, heroic Confederate character in this thing…and my inn keeper is just the one to play the part!
So when some of you ask me how I come up with my ideas…this is a new one for the list, LOL. Quite a few twists and quirks of Circle of Spies have come about solely as I contemplate NAMES, of all things! Who knew? So seriously, if you haven’t already, create your spy name!! Never know how it might inspire me. 😉
Thoughtful About . . . The Nature of Faith

Thoughtful About . . . The Nature of Faith

by | Mar 21, 2013 | Thoughtful Thursdays, Uncategorized

The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer, painted 1883 by Jean-LĂŠon GĂŠrĂ´me
My church has been doing a study of the book of 1 John leading up to Easter. It’s such a rich little book, full of the foundations and mysteries of faith. And as I read it and study it out, it does indeed make me pause to examine what this thing is that fills me.
This past week we were on chapter 4, and as we discussed it, we got on the subject of searching for proof of faith…and by contrast, the extreme doubt of everything that entered with the modern period. And I began to wonder if the two were related.
In the late 19th century, science was expanding by leaps and bounds. Discoveries were made constantly, technology was rapidly evolving, and even literature was responding with amazing, fantastical books that explored the what-ifs of this changing world. What if we could travel to the center of the earth? Or under the sea? Or back in time?
Fueled by this new understanding, religion began asking the same questions. What if we could prove life after death? What if we could call up the spirits of those gone before? What if we could cross that veil? Cue the Spiritualism movement, with its tea party seances and knockings and rappings and rather frightening invitations, like when they would produce a child who couldn’t read or write and invite a spirit to use his body to convey a message with a pencil. Yikes!
I can understand why the idea of proving faith would appeal. Just think–it they could produce scientific evidence of heaven and hell, of the spiritual world, then who could possibly doubt them??
And yet directly after that came the skeptics. The movement that not only questioned faith, questioned God, but questioned their own existence. As a professor at my college said in a seminar one night, “I just can’t talk to you anymore if you’re going to say such things.” The skeptics took questioning to a whole new level, literally doubting everything. How do you know the sun will rise tomorrow? You can’t prove it will. How do you know you’re still you when you sleep? Are you still conscious of yourself? (Insert Roseanna replying in that seminar, “I’m not conscious of any moments when I’m not conscious of myself” and earning riotous laughter…)
Now I can’t say that these desires to prove and to doubt are actually linked, but I’m going to speculate. What if they are? What if, by searching for that proof of faith, we remove all certainty? What if when we question that most basic human yearning for something greater, we end up knowing nothing at all?
Questions are natural. Doubt is natural. The seeking of proof is natural. But the more I ponder it all in relation to faith, the more I think faith is not meant to ever be proven. Because faith is the proof. It’s the evidence of our hopes. It’s the substance of the unseen. Faith is itself a thing, a force, a form, an ideal. One of the few things that can exist purely within us.
Yes, people can question its existence. Just like they can question love, life, their very existence. They can question anything. But just because you doubt the laws of physics doesn’t keep them from operating. Just because you doubt yourself doesn’t mean you wink out of being. And just because you questions faith and God doesn’t mean they’re not real.
Some things demand proof, yes. And some things are the proof. I’ve come to the conclusion that faith is often miscategorized. Don’t ask me to prove that an apple will fall–take it instead as the proof of gravity. Don’t ask me to prove faith is real–take it instead as the proof of our hope in the Lord.
Remember When . . . People Moved Fast?

Remember When . . . People Moved Fast?

by | Mar 20, 2013 | 17th-19th Centuries, Remember When Wednesdays

Between Ring of Secrets and Whispers from the Shadows there’s a gap of 34 years or so. Substantial when you consider how characters age, but in terms of changes in the world itself between 1780 and 1814, it’s fairly simple. Fashions changed quite a bit (bye-bye powdered wigs! LOL), language became slightly more modern. But technology underwent no huge changes. They still traveled by ship or horse, and that was pretty much it.
But between Whispers from the Shadows and Circle of Spies, I have a gap of 51 years. And it was a busy half-century! I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the differences of this world, the world of 1865. The world where we now have telegrams to communicate so very quickly. Still not as fast as cell phones, granted, but a message got to someone within a day rather than weeks or months. For that matter, people got themselves moved in a day instead of a week or month!
As I was reading a diary of someone involved in intrigue during the Civil War, that hit me over and over. That this guy just hopped a train to New York from Washington at the drop of a hat. That a trip to Canada was no big thing. That it wasn’t any more difficult to go from Baltimore to D.C. then than it is now. (Maybe easier, given the traffic these days, LOL.)
In terms of my story, this means I have the ability to make it cover more distance more easily. That I can send my villain out and about for a week and then back when I need him. That messages can come on the day of an event without it being coincidence. Though not quite instantaneous like our world so often is today, the pace of 1865 was so much faster than in previous generations–and that’s both overt and subtle. I’m have a lot of fun trying to integrate the mindset that came along with it, too.
The realization hit me pretty solidly at the tail end of my writing retreat, when I paused to think, “Hey, my family in this thing owns a railroad–I should probably incorporate trains!” And when I sat back to think How?, oh the images that came! So we’re looking at a showdown on the rails. Not Western-style, with gun-slingers jumping all over the cars and dodging tunnels, but the climax is going to be on a train. And someone’s going to get tossed out of it.
And he-or-she is only going to survive it because of a friendly local who helps out. Which brings us to a fun bit. 😉 Have you generated your spy name yet? YOU SHOULD!! I’m going to be pulling from this list of names to name some of the minor characters in Circle of Spies, and you might just see yourself in there! Not necessarily as spies…but you never know. =)
Cart
Checkout - $0.00
  • 0
  • 1