There are people with pets and there are pet people. Anyone who knows me knows I am, indeed, a pet person. In my family, pets were always family members, children—more than just side characters in our day-to-day lives—taught best by my grandparents who always had six,...
What does it take to parent children who have been in the foster system? Tears. Prayers. A support system. Patience. And a new level of trust in God. We spoke with two First Free couples who have been foster parents and who have adopted children they had been...
Paul and Diane Geddes never really imagined themselves as snowbirds. Now that they’re both retired, though, you won’t find them in Illinois during the dead of winter. The past three winters, they’ve used the month of January to head south—not to beaches or golf...
Don Oleson was still principal of Rockford East High School when First Free sent its first mission team to Czechoslovakia in 1992. He watched with interest and thought, I could do something like that after retiring. But he had no plans to retire any time soon. God has...
John and Linda Brennan’s stories – separately, then together – could fill several books. Both are Southern California natives. Both suffered broken marriages – John two, Linda one. Both of their lives were once derailed by addictions—John’s by his own drug use and...
Editor’s note: On the morning of Oct. 14, 2023, Kaylin Carlson ran the Country Sole Half Marathon along Chicago’s lakefront. What should have been a gorgeous fall morning was instead something like an inland hurricane. In this, the second of two parts, Kaylin recounts...
