This month, I’m pondering the meaning of home. It all started with a young man I met on my way to the farmers’ market a few weeks ago. On a blazing hot day, he stood shirtless on a street corner. A red-haired boy with a sunburn holding a sign.

Where is that boy’s sunscreen? Where’s his mom? Where’s his home?

I had to stop. “Can I take a picture of your sign?” I asked as I approached him.

“Sure,” he said with a grin and held the sign up in front of him.

After snapping his picture, I asked his name. “Zachariah,” he answered. Then I asked if he knew Jesus. The smile slid off his face. “Yes, I know Jesus,” he admitted. “Then you are not free to a good home. You have a home,” I told him.

I gave him five bucks and a motherly talk about Jesus and sunscreen, then went on my way praying for him.

The next day I saw the mule man wandering through our town. If you want to know more about him, go to 3mules.com. He’s a strange fellow walking the earth with his mules. When asked where he lives, he simply says, “outside.”

The next day, after our Saturday farmers’ market, we hit the road for Montague, a remote little town up near the Oregon/California border. My parents have a ranch fifteen miles outside of nowhere. After a four hour drive, and plenty of dirt road, we made it home. This is what we always say when we finally reach the Montague ranch, “We made it home.”

We didn’t pack much for the trip, so headed thirty miles west to Interstate 5 and the big city of Yerka the following day for church and groceries. In front of the grocery store, this guy caught my eye.

Not sure if he and his master are homeless, but they’re certainly on the road. He was tied to a post in front of Raley’s and didn’t want to look at me as I tried to snap his photo.

“Don’t get so close. He might bite you,” said my mom.

It took me getting this close for him to finally look at me. When he did, I snapped a picture and told him “thank you.”

Upon returning home Monday night after visiting my literary agent in Oregon and spending most of my day on the road, I began to plan my weekly post. I downloaded photos and titled it “Homeless.” After I downloaded my photos, Scott updated my dashboard, the thing that powers my blog, and when he did the update, he accidentlly posted my Homeless photos. Sorry to those of you who receive my blog by email. You were probably wondering what happened when you got the Homeless pictures with no story last week.

Another week spun out all crazy busy and I never got to write the words to go with my homeless pictures. By the 4th of July, we headed for family camp in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Is anyone else’s summer flying by in a haze of work and play?

When we finally pulled into the carport of the missionary house at the top of the mountain after another four hour drive, it felt like coming home.

I’d planned to write my “Homeless” post at camp, but the missionary house has no wifi and I didn’t make it down to the camp lounge to get my post done because this happened.

The ark has been found. It’s no longer a home for animals– well, maybe the Bicknell boys are monkeys– but inside the boat are three floors of classrooms where children learn and sing about Jesus in the shade of a mighty redwood forest.

After learning and singing their Jesus songs, the kids play the rest of the day. Scott and I help with the high school youth group and run ourselves ragged at camp chasing the boys around. Running ragged in the redwoods is the highlight of our summer.

Scott’s idea of bathing the boys at camp is taking them swimming. “Let’s go chlorine your stinky feet,” he tells our crew every afternoon. After swimming and dinner, we head to the tabernacle for church.

Opening night at camp began with Todd Agnew this year.

For those of you who don’t know Todd, he’s an amazing singer.

I was still pondering the meaning of “home” when he stepped onto the stage Sunday night to lead us in worship. He played a few of his well-known radio songs first, then said, “Now I’m going to teach you my new song, Home.”

Tears ran down my face by the time we finished singing about home.

Since Anna died, I’ve been reading about Anna’s new home: heaven. As Christians, we are told our home is in heaven, but I sure spend a lot of my time, energy, and resources making earth my home. Maybe you do too. When I see homeless people and pets, I feel sorry for them. Maybe you do, too.

Doesn’t everybody long for home?

When Jesus walked the earth he said, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” Matthew 8:20.

Even Jesus grew homesick for home.

Before we left the missionary house, as we were packing up, G2 said, “I’m gonna miss this place. Whenever I walk out of my bedroom I see his picture.

“When I see his picture I know I’m home,” said G2. At seven-years-old, G2 is a well of wisdom.

We stood there in the hall together staring at Jesus. Last year we picked up this Jesus picture at a thrift store near camp. We hung it over the fireplace at the missionary house and all of us love it.

“I think of home too when I see Jesus,” I told G2.

We smiled at each other, then smiled at the Jesus picture. And it hit me in that smiling moment. It’s not really heaven I long for. Home I long for. It’s Jesus I long for.

Isn’t this what makes a home really our home? The people we love live there.