My mom, Jean Barnes, died on June 30, 2025, at 91 years old, after a long, scrappy fight with dementia. She was a live wire, living a great story from beginning to end. If you ever met her, you didn’t forget her. She didn’t just believe in Jesus—she danced with Him through the wilderness of life and into the next.

Born into the vastness of the old West, she was shaped by big skies and open prairies. But her story truly ignited one summer in Yosemite, when she met my dad. That collision of spirits launched a marriage and a family. Soon after, I was born.

In 1960, the Army sent our family to Italy, and something in Mom awakened. She shed the confines of her upbringing and embraced the world with both arms wide open. Whether sitting on a piazza eating gelato, watching opera in the Roman colosseum, or skiing in the Alps, she discovered that life was a gift meant to be unwrapped boldly.

But her greatest transformation came during a more painful chapter—when Dad was deployed to Vietnam. Alone with two young children, Mom wrestled with her faith and came out changed. A friend shared with her that Jesus didn’t come to give us rules, but relationship. That truth broke open her heart and reoriented her life.

From then on, she was all in. She lived her faith at full throttle. Tracts in her purse, she shared the Gospel with parking lot attendants and waitresses. She led Bible studies in the parts of town others avoided. She prayed early and often, on her knees, crying out for her husband to know the Jesus who had turned her inside out. And eventually, he did.

At 60, when many start to slow down, Mom and Dad launched into their greatest adventure yet—becoming medical missionaries in Kenya and Vietnam. From their remote base in the Gila Wilderness, they poured out their lives for people who had no doctor, no help, and sometimes, no hope. They helped rebuild hospitals, but even more, they helped rebuild lives.

When Dad died six years ago, Mom kept going. Though dementia dimmed her mind, it couldn’t extinguish her spirit. She smiled. She danced. She cracked jokes and loved the Jesus of silly hats and charades and watermelon teeth.

Mom believed in a God who loves extravagantly—and that’s how she loved people. She made the mundane sparkle, the forgotten feel seen, and the broken feel chosen.

She lives on in the memories of those who were lucky enough to meet her, and in the lives she touched—scattered like seeds around the world. Her faith, vibrant and fierce, is my greatest inheritance.

Mom, thank you for the color, the courage, the laughter, and the prayers. You showed us all how to live a life that interrupts the humdrum with heaven.