My Samaritan Lodge "Bonus" Daughters (Warning! Spiritual Content Ahead!)

Isaiah 54:1 "'Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child; Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed; For the daughters of the desolate one will be more numerous than the daughters of the married woman,' says the Lord."

I promised to introduce you to some of my co-workers and friends. These three beautiful women have become my dearest friends and adopted "bonus" daughters.

Natalie works in the Tanalian Dining Hall and is a remarkable pastry chef. She is reserved without being shy, calm, affectionate and funny. She is also my favorite Banana-grams partner! We greet each other every morning with an enormous and enormously lengthy bear hug. It's the best possible ritual and I don't know how I started the day without her all these years!

Natalie, Katie and Val

Katie is the assistant cook at the Bunker (staff dining) and my next door neighbor. She is a spunky, focused young woman whose dream is to serve with Samaritan's Purse full-time. She packed her first Operation Christmas Child box as a 6-year-old and determined then and there that she wanted to work for SP. She's another hugging buddy and often lifts me off my feet when she sees me. We frequently curl up on her bed or mine for a good long chat at day's end, though those have slowed down a little since she started dating one of my fellow guides Carlin!

Val's husband Jay is a resident of Port Alsworth, Alaska, and works full-time for Samaritan Lodge as a Jack-of-all-trades, though his background is in landscape architecture (Atlanta, GA). I call him our SL Transformer, for he drives all our heavy equipment as if he's part man/part machine. Val is in-and-out of the lodge along with their Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Susie Q, and has become another Banana-grams addict and adopted daughter. She has a quirky and playful sense of humor, feels things very deeply, and is a gifted artist. I'm hoping to pull out my watercolors and spend a Saturday painting with her before summer ends.

I once told God: "If I'm going to remain single, then you had better send me on Adventures." Well, He has sent me all over the world on incredible adventures. I have ridden in rickshaws and on riverboats in Asia. I have flown in rickety airplanes in Africa. I have hung over the edge of the Andes Mountains in a Toyota Landcruiser. Now, I spend my days on floatplanes and small boats in Alaska.

But, I haven't always been reconciled to my singleness, no matter how loaded with adventure. I have mourned the lack of a husband and family -- and if I'm honest, even railed at God at times. But I have grown content and secure in the knowledge that He loves me. And I know that He's good. And the words of Isaiah 54 have come true for me out here on the frontier: for though I have never borne children, I have many daughters.