We're the Weyel family. I'm Gary, and I get the privilege of introducing our clan.
My wife, Carolyn, and I met in college and married shortly thereafter. We're one of the fortunate few who have been able to stay in our little university town on the Central Coast of California. San Luis Obispo has been named one of the happiest places on Earth, which is one of the first things you'll probably hear if you meet anyone from our city. I'm sure it makes us all insufferable, especially when we talk to our Midwestern friends in the dead of winter ("20 below? Really? It's sunny and 72 degrees here today!").
We have two children—our daughter is eight and our son is five. There was a time when our eldest was the easy one, but things have pretty much evened out now. They're good kids who like going to the library on Saturday, visiting their cousins, and singing silly songs.
Why Choose Good Dirt for Families?
Carolyn and I were both raised in Christian homes and attending church every Sunday. While my family has a faith tradition rooted in American evangelicalism and Carolyn's family is Lutheran, much of our world view was shaped by our time together at Intervarsity Christian Fellowship in college.
We've had a few fits and starts with family devotions at our house. To be honest, most of it has to do with laziness on my part, but I've also struggled with finding material that is appropriate and teachable to kids with a three-year age difference and vastly different maturity levels. Plus, finding a time we can consistently meet has also been difficult.
Despite the roadblocks, we really want to have time together as a family in God's Word. The Good Dirt family devotion is a way for us to call out our lame excuses and commit publicly to a year of family devotions. Or at least to TRYING to have family devotions for a full year. Because I know there are going to be days when I'm in a bad mood, or the kids are fighting, or we really need to be somewhere else, or whatever. But we're going to try--we're going to show up and do it wrong and feel uncomfortable sometimes and that's OK, because we're in it together.