personal :: a church story

if you've read the "about" section of my website you know that i'm married to a pastor, who is the overseer of a small prayer community in a neglected neighborhood in our city. together we've lived here 4 years (though i lived here before marrying him, too). it's home. our work here looks many days like simply living here and showing up and trying to show our neighbors -- whose families are mostly all so broken and painful -- what the Family of God is like, and to be sure they know that they're invited into it. no matter how they look or what they've done or who they are, the Father calls them Home to himself. that's the good news of the gospel of Jesus. 

and in the last few years we started to see that some of the neighbors we've been walking with so long at our weekly community meals (and in other interactions throughout the week) are calling their gatherings with us "church," and are hungry to know more about who Jesus is and what it means to follow him. so we started something a little more like a church meeting, which means it includes some pre-planned worship, a time to hear a teaching or participate in a round-table discussion of a part of the Bible, and some time to pray for one another. we'd been doing it in our three-stall garage, which we converted into a permanent prayer room and meeting place several years ago. but this year, we felt nudged to move it to the same polish hall we rent for our weekly community meals (called Love Feasts), and to a Wednesday night (instead of Sunday), so that more folks might find it accessible and welcoming. 

this past week we held our first church gathering in the hall,  on a wednesday night, immediately before Love Feast. i was happy to see that several friends who haven't joined in the church gathering in the prayer garage chose to take a seat in the circle up in the hall before love feast, where they worshipped, and listened, and even wept. 

i invite you to come along with me to the first gathering of the stockbridge boiler room church family... on a wednesday night.. in a polish hall... followed by a shared meal around the table. 

note: because we meet in a polish hall and this gathering happened on the eve of Pulaski Days, there were many beer banners being hung on the walls as we met. :)

mini-session :: my babies

i'm a storyteller and photojournalist. and i will always prefer the unposed, imperfect, gritty reality in photographs over the smiley, directed, or styled shoots.

but sometimes there's a field of wild flowers and lovely light and it just calls your name.  and sometimes you really want just a few shots where your kids are looking at the camera, and maybe they are dressed with a little more care and attention than usual, even if you didn't get the grimy hello kitty tattoos washed off your daughter's arms ahead of time and your son has untamed hair.

yup, there's a time and a place for smile sessions and mini-sessions. :) get in touch if you need one of them, too. 

personal :: up north (part II)

as promised, here is the second chunk of photos from our amazing week Up North. 

in this chunk we visit sutton's bay (again), northport, the grand traverse lighthouse, empire, and glen arbor, as well as our "own" little house and campsite. you'll also get to meet our friends ryan and alicia and their girls, lilia and elayna. 

personal :: up north (part I)

hello, friends. 

i've been quiet in this space. see, we had a bit of a sabbatical, as we do every august. the sabbatical was mostly from our ministry work, but i also managed to take about a 2 week break from photography. 

for one week, we unplugged entirely. here in michigan we have what everyone calls Up North. it refers to any place north of where you live in the lower pennisula. the further Up North you go, the more wild and fresh and free it becomes. we went pretty far, to the Leelanau Penninsula, where we rented a little house to use as our home base. from the little house were were a mere 10-20 minutes away from several quaint and quirky villages like leland, suttons bay, northport, and lake leelanau (the village). we were close to Lake Michigan (oh blessed fresh water ocean) as well as the long and clear Lake Leelanau, and of course we waded and swam in both. 

we adventured every day between gus' naps, frolicked in fields, prepared and enjoyed simple foods (including giant plate-sized pancakes almost every morning), took naps, stopped into local shops, had ice cream daily, and visited many beaches on the lakes. 

our final two days we spent with friends in empire and glen arbor, just a bit south of where we'd stayed in the little house. we tried out tent camping with them, which was a first for us but a well-travelled road for them. don't know if we could have done it without them and their gear. 

i don't know if one can ever be ready to leave Up North and return home again. i certainly wasn't quite ready. 

here is a selection of images from our trip, in roughly chronological order. these photos feature Fishtown in Leland, Sutton's Bay, and Lake Leelanau (the lake). this is half of what i'll share on this blog. the other half will be coming up in a couple of days!

personal :: these summer days

mild and lush.

watching my children become friends. 

eating food from "our farm": more delicious than i could have anticipated. 

most meals outside. 

water for playing, swimming, drinking.

slides. lots of slides. 

a quiet season with my little family. 

grateful as can be. 

personal :: the cottages

i grew up going to our family cottage, which was built in the 1930s by my great grandparents. we spent chunks of every summer there, playing with cousins, being parented communally by grandparents, aunts, and uncles. i remember waking up each morning to the sound of the water lapping at the sea wall, the tinging of the lines against the mast on the sailboat, and the smell of bacon, eggs, and bakery bread cooking downstairs. i remember being in a swimsuit all day, playing in the dirt, swimming until our skin was prune-like, rowing around in the small row boat with cousins, reading books on the couch you could just sink right into, exploring the cavernous "down below" (cellar), catching frogs and toads... the list could go on and on. i remember the aesthetic and feel of the place, with all its vintage furniture, dishes, and decor mingled with more modern contributions from the more recent generations. i can still smell the place. 

it was (and is) my happiest place. and every summer since we sold it, i grieve its loss afresh. 

so, when my amazing brother and SIL arranged for us to spend a few days in her family's 1930s cottages near to the lakeshore, there was no answer other than "yes! a thousand times yes!" this is my SIL's happy place. i imagine she feels similarly about it as i do about my own childhood cottage. and though it isn't my precious cottage, the similarities were plentiful, and it felt a bit like going back in time. i had always dreamed of taking my own husband and children to my family cottage, which won't be possible... but this might be the closest thing. 

my mom and her partner also joined us for the first two days, so this was great family time. we ate delicious meals brought together by our combined efforts and lots of farm-fresh produce and grilling, played at the beach for a chunk of time each day, read and chatted inside when there were storms, had adult conversation over chilled beverages after kids were in bed, did some fire works on the beach, released paper lanterns, visited a park/playground, and much more. 

i'm so grateful to be living closely and raising my family alongside justin and marguerite. and so grateful that hazel and gus get to grow up knowing and playing with claire and anja. and so grateful to have a mom who is so active in our lives, and her partner who jumps in on all the crazy. 

here's a small (okay, it's actually sorta big) sampling of images from the 4 days we spent in this tiny heaven. 

i have a few regrets about how i photo documented this trip. i sorta stopped two and a half days in. i didn't document in the indoors stuff, which there was plenty of because of the storms. i didn't document transitions or much of the beautiful food we prepared and ate. and i didn't take my camera down to the beach in the afternoons, because i was nervous about sand. 

at the same time,  i guess maybe having a semi-vacation from being "on" constantly as a photographer was probably needed. so, it is what it is. :)