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Dear blog community,

My thoughts are with each of you. I would like to continue to splash encouragement your way (and ideally, help create a community in which we can encourage one another!)  However, after all the work that went into bringing Life, Faith, and Saltwater Taffy to press—years of study, creativity, thought, prayer, writing and much re-writing—I was drawing a blank. No ideas. I kept thinking of Forrest Gump’s statement (in the movie of the same name), “And that’s all I have to say about that”!

Well, finally something arrived in my mailbox that gave me an idea. Most of us are pretty tuned-in to the news cycle, and it is awful. Would you agree that most of it is discouraging and stressful? What if we balanced things just a bit with some good news? And what came in the mail was good news.

I received the magazine from Canine Companions for Independence, an organization that breeds puppies; sees that they are raised to be healthy, socialized, and obedient; then trains them to work with a variety of people in need of assistance. The story that grabbed my attention was about a group of unusual puppy-raisers—a group of inmates at a prison in Oregon. Clearly, developing a relationship with, and taking responsibility for, the puppies was good for the men. When I shared the story with a neighbor, she commented that some of the men may have never experienced the kind of unconditional love a dog can give. How true. Prison is also an environment in which the inmates are not supposed to touch… but that did not apply to their interaction with the dogs.

The hardest part of puppy-raising is saying goodbye to the pups as they move into the next stage of their training. Surprisingly, these prisoners developed enough trust among themselves that when the time inevitably came, instead of hiding their grief, they were able to support one another. While the rate of recidivism (relapse into crime and subsequent incarceration) generally sits at about 50%, among these men the vast majority never returned to the prison system.

And the dogs? Well, I’m sure they were well-cared for. After further training, each dog who was ready went go on to be paired with an individual and change that person’s life. One dog might calm an autistic child or a veteran with PTSD, while another might pick up items dropped by someone in a wheelchair. Yet another might alert a deaf person to the doorbell, a ringing phone, or a fire alarm. And the dogs love their jobs. One person commented it made her laugh to see just how eager her dog was to obey commands!

I love this story. Nothing to debate. Just a win-win situation for everyone—the prisoners who raised the puppies, the people who would depend on these dogs, and the canines themselves. (Go to cci.org for more information about this organization.)

Do you have an encouraging news story to share? If so, please share it below.

Announcements:

For those of you in the Seattle area… You’re invited to a book event at 9:35 AM on April 24 at Sammamish Hills Lutheran church. The event will feature two authors (I’ll be there with my book, as will Pastor Larry Thomas with his). Jenny Shute, my illustrator, will also be there. Ask a question, purchase a book and/or get one signed, and enjoy a piece of saltwater taffy!

Reminder: If you plan to order a copy of Life, Faith, and Saltwater Taffy, the special discount available through the publisher will expire soon. Just go to wipfandstock.com and put in the code Taffy40.