It's our 10th anniversary! Want to hear what happened right before the wedding?

One week prior to our big day, we were en route to a ministry retreat when rioting broke out in a community we were serving. From the road, we managed to have a Ugandan pastor moved from xenophobic uproar into the townhouse we would move into after our wedding.

We returned a few days later with massive sinus infections and discovered our pre-wedding housing would not have electricity for the week.

Tomorrow marks ten years of being husband and wife, but we joke that we should count in “dog years” for all the life we’ve lived in the last decade.

A pastor’s wife game me “The Power of a Praying Wife” by Stormie Omartian when we got married. She reads through the book every year, so I thought I’d give it a try too. It has become a powerhouse in my life! I’ve learned to pray Scripture, been continuously turned to Biblical order, and been awestruck again and again as I’ve watched God move for my husband and our family.

I go to Honest Chocolate Cafe every year on my birthday. The darling courtyard in the middle of town holds a special place in my heart. It’s in walking distance to the lawyers offices we’ve frequented - physical spaces that symbolize years of pursuing justice and breakthrough. We always stopped by Honest Chocolate for a taste of chocolate-flavored redemption after a heavy legal appointment.

As a child, I learned the stories of God on Sunday school flannelboards and the Word of God through songs. In high school, I was enveloped in a community of Godly families and a Methodist church youth group that showed me what God looks like. I went on mission trips, was introduced to Christian music, and learned to hear God's voice on a youth trip.

I'm compelled to reach out to those who sowed seeds in me that are now sprouting on foreign soil. Who could have known those first mission trips of sleeping in another church's fellowship hall and doing odd-jobs for community members would culminate as a lifetime of foreign missions?

We are so excited for September 1st! Church Home is having another gathering at Gangstar Cafe. Pray for us as we reach out and invite people. We believe God has us here to create a safe place for people to experience Jesus and His Church. We’re taking it one step, one day at a time, and seeing what He does.

I LOVE this promo video Chris made. I think it captures the heart so well. Make sure your sound is on!

I didn’t have the mental or physical bandwidth to hit my weightlifting goals this week. (And the goals are minimal!) BUT today I showed up anyway. My most important commitment was never lifting weights for 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week. It’s much more about stewarding my life well. He pre-paid for it with His Son’s. I’ve committed to God, my family and myself to keep showing up with what I’ve got. Today that looked like a short run in the sunshine. It got my endorphins flowing and reminded my spirit to keep showing up, even if it’s not the original plan…

We are doing a lot of vocabulary shaping in our house right now as our youngest boys absorb the lingo of the world around them. I'm reminded of my oldest son coming home from primary school years ago, echoing his peers by starting every sentence with, "The problem is..."

“The problem is there’s not enough…” “The problem is that he always…” “The problem is we can’t….”

Yes; there's great value in identifying problems you're trying to solve. You end up with much bigger problems, however, if you stop there.

This familiar passage in Isaiah 43 was part of my Bible reading plan yesterday. I made a note on the page on the second day of January this year.

We were chest-deep in unknowns then. It was a season of practicing daily forgiveness and trusting whispered promises in the midst of loud realities. Silencing the noise in my head was a daily discipline. The Word spoke to me that day... “Forget the former things. Do not dwell on the past.” Just a verse or two before, God was reminding us of what He had done and announcing who He is. I wrote, “Remember who God is.” It was a turning point moment for me.

My neurodivergent six-year old is into creating nonsensical trivia. A recent car ride went something like this...

Him: "What color is an oval?"

Me: "Green."

Him: "NO! PINK! How many bricks are in a wall?"

Me: "Probably 96."

Him: "You were SO CLOSE. But sorry, it's 89."

We’re going to keep saying it until you can see it. Church should be the safest place for anybody and everybody to know they matter. You don’t have to believe to belong. We’d like to invite you to just come and see.

Vision night will be an easy environment with no expectations. Bring a friend. Order a coffee on us, and we’ll spend a few minutes sharing what we mean when we say, “Church Home is a church to call home, and a family to call your own.”

Join me in a conversation with Deb Weakly from Help Club for Moms. Deb is a long-time friend, and she invited me to share about my journey in special needs parenting to offer encouragement to moms all over the world. I’m very much still in the trenches, learning the hard way, and even shared that I had completely lost my cool on Benjamin an hour before we started recording! But we so often find God together, and in those valley lessons of learning to worship anyway.

Maybe this is a chat you can relate to, or maybe it’s one to share with a friend who can.

I remember what it felt like, years ago, when I first felt life inside of me. Every kick and hiccup of the child within re-proclaimed God's design for us as co-creators. I quickly realized both big and small decisions are weighed on different scales when you understand you are doing it with Christ.

Now, we are stepping into a new season of co-laboring with Christ. We are launching a new church in Cape Town! In some ways, I've felt the familiar weight of a new parent. We dream of a place for people to feel at home with Jesus and their neighbors, no matter where they've come from. We believe His House should be the safest place for a person to become their whole, dearly-loved self.

🌸 Your Purpose Is Not in Your Perfection 🌸

I've got another Bible reading plan on YouVersion Bible app to spur on the other moms out there! This 5-day plan started as a Maundy Thursday teaching I did with Help Club for Moms on Benjamin's 1st Birthday! We were in COVID lockdown, and I had never done an international teaching online.

It's so cool that, five years later, it's accessible for people all over the world in another format! I hope it points you to Jesus' love for YOU just as you are.

My husband and I went on an evening walk a while ago. We rehashed a painful season we'd traversed in the previous months and marked how God had used it for our good. The conversation went deeper as we turned a familiar corner in our neighborhood. Yes, we have successfully navigated external hardships... but what about the ones woven into our family DNA? My husband worried aloud,"Your personality has changed. You were so bubbly... laughing all the time.. and now I can see how heavy life is on you." I conceded that the relentless spiritual warfare, crippling corruption, decade of distance from family, and special needs parenting has dug deep, rugged trenches in my formerly light disposition.

Share Life. Find God. This is what it’s all about.

Watch this quick video for an encouraging story from this week.

AND MOMS! Search “Called to Worship” on the YouVersionApp’s Bible reading plans for a free 5-day devotional from me and Help Club for Moms!

I’m working on the edits for the Friday Call to Worship to become a book! It’s been more encouraging than I could have imagined to go back through the past years, walking week by week with the me who didn’t know a pandemic or special needs parenting was coming. I’m preaching to myself and, once again, in awe that God stays the same while I wobble through the weeks.

We are giving the e-book version of “Called to Worship” as a gift to our friends contributing to our fundraiser…

Five years ago, I stepped into our front garden with a baby strapped to my chest. Rented tables with homemade placemats were set for 60. We served an American Thanksgiving dinner to our South African guests, choosing to give thanks while we didn't know our family's next steps. My husband and I relished in a garden full of laughter and warmth that day, never pausing to even taste the meal.

We ate leftover pumpkin pie in our garage late that night. It was a delicious and sacred moment, our own Thanksgiving faith-building feast when we didn't know what tomorrow held.

“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing.” -Charles Schaefer

The Ladd family adults have had a heavy week. I haven’t been showing up for my kids the way I want to. So today, we play. Sunshine, peanut butter sandwiches, bodies in action. I don’t need to wait until it feels better.

We’re picking some of the BIG topics that we all have to address with our children again and again through every stage of life. It is so, so empowering to sit with other women around God’s Word, share stories, and let encouragement build up in the presence of worship, the Word and women. Please pray for me as I prepare a teaching on body image, purity and pornography. See the video and info below for more details. If you’re in Cape Town, PLEASE COME!

I've lived in Cape Town for almost eight years. That's the longest I've lived anywhere since I was 18. We got dealt a few hard blows upon arrival in the city we left everything for... so hard my stomach twisted in knots at the sight of that big, beautiful Table Mountain.

Eight years later, I've learned to love this city through the lens of special needs parenting and "a church to call home, a family to call our own". I know how the weather changes based on what side of the mountain you're on, to check tide times and wind speeds, and how to navigate the traffic.