Thoughts and stories, by Pal

This is such a dramatic example of living faith, which happened just last month during the beginning of the Corona Virus saga! In the Time of the Virus: The Parting of my Personal Red Sea By  Lynne Perry Christofferson  · April 15, 2020 Photography by John Derek Perry. There will be many stories told of this time–of the days when a powerful virus jumped oceans and swept across continents. When life as we knew it came to a shuddering halt, and we incorporated new phrases into our vocabulary: social distancing, self-quarantine. Though my own story is not earthshaking, I feel compelled to tap it out in sentences that will one day speak to my grandchildren, telling them of the parting of my personal Red Sea in the time of the virus. I awoke Thursday, March twelfth, in a hotel in Casablanca, having arrived in Morocco with my brother John just the night before. Squinting at my phone to check the time, I found a text from my oldest son: “Did you he...

Every family has a few skeletons in their closets!  If you haven't found them yet, you probably will someday .  The story below, although around 450 years old, is about one ancestor who was a pirate, and his son, who wasn't too reputable of a person either.  They are on my Pennsylvania Dutch Ancestry line.  I hope you enjoy reading about them -- Hopefully by now they have repented!                               JAN JANSZOON VAN HAARLEM                                 The Pirate King of the Barbary Coast                                    c. 1575-c. 1641       About 1575 a child christened Jan, was born in the city of Haarlem, North Holland, the Netherlands. Jan grew up an average Dutch boy, and when...