A Chance for Kallie Mae is the fourth book I’ve set in the Eastern Kentucky Appalachian area. I like going to the mountains for a story. And I liked researching about the people who love those mountains. Along the way in my research, I’ve come across a lot of the superstitions the mountain people, at least some of them, passed down …
1st Sunday Devotional – A New Year Awaits
“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”~Edith Lovejoy Pierce It’s the first Sunday of the first month of a New Year. 2022. All those twos. In a couple of hundred years people will be able to …
1st Sunday Devotional – In Storm or Sunshine
The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. …2 Corinthians 3:17 (NIV) Back when I posted the first of my 1st Sunday Devotionals, I told you how I had once upon a time thought about doing a Hiker’s Devotional. At the time I had maybe fifteen devotionals I’d written when I was …
Slingshots and Giant Killers
September 14, 1966 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. Dad preached yesterday about David and Goliath. I’m sure you know the story. I certainly do. I’ve been hearing it ever since I can remember in Sunday school and Bible School. But I can’t remember Dad ever actually preaching a whole sermon on it. When I asked Dad about that, …
Faith, Courage and Baptism
Do you remember when you were baptized? Different denominations have different ways of accepting members into their fellowship and different baptism traditions. The church I attended sporadically as a child was a Baptist church so once a person made a profession of faith, baptism followed. I remember going to Sunday school when I was young and to Bible School, but …
The Widow’s Oil – A Miracle of Faith
June 17, 1965 Jocie Brooke here reporting from Hollyhill, Kentucky. I love summer, don’t you? No school. Time to read. No school. Wading in the creek. No school. Picking raspberries. No school! We did just have Bible school, but that’s a fun school time. I love Bible school. Dad followed up the idea of learning about the Bible Sunday in …
A Beautiful Day for a Homegoing
A beautiful day for a funeral – you might be wondering if you read that wrong. But that’s how the preacher started the funeral service for Darrell’s aunt today. Annie Pearl needed a few more weeks to reach her 96th birthday. This picture was taken when she was 91 on one of her rare visits to our house. She was …





