An old man stormed in, and his angry words tumbled out. My husband and I were still new in this community and only…
CATEGORY
Cross-Cultural Living
Our Daily Bread
“Give us this day our daily bread,” we say together as a family every morning around the breakfast table. Even our little two-year-old’s voice joins in as we recite the prayer together. We haven’t always had this habit, but as the years have passed, praying the...
Thursday Prayer Focus: A Kitchen Faucet Almost Sent Me Home
The Faucet Problem I felt utterly defeated. I just lay there as water kept pouring out of the new kitchen faucet I was certain I had installed properly. I grew up with a handy dad. We fixed things ourselves whenever we could. I also worked construction and...
What? Your co-translator Isn’t a Christian?
Most people assume that the national men and women who serve on Bible translation teams are Christians. While that’s a natural assumption, it is not accurate. A significant number of Pioneer Bible Translators missionaries are penetrating areas of the world’s...
“I Have Nothing to Fear”
“Your father died?” Laynah asked as I sat with her on the bark-slat porch outside her home. Laynah had become my friend during my family’s earliest months in Papua New Guinea. Our grass-roofed hut had been right across the narrow dirt road from hers when we had lived...
First Trip to the Zoo
Our West African friends Momodou and Laye are brilliant and fun-loving men. In his late fifties, Momodou has a satirical sense of humor, which reminds me of my brother Steve. Laye is much younger, about 30. He’s a sweet and kind gentleman, like my husband Chocho. Both...
Sorrow and Singing: A Story From North Africa
The field behind our house looked like a lake, and every day we heard the squeals and laughter of village children enjoying a swim. It was rainy season, and the usually dry ground was overflowing with water. One morning we woke to the news that a child had drowned....
One Little Letter
Baby Steps A Bible translator in Papua New Guinea spends his or her early years becoming a child again. Or so it seems. Most of us arrive here having spent the better part of our lives getting an education. When we move to a rural village, though, we essentially...
Pilgrim is Tempted to Turn Back
This poem portrays a person wrestling with their calling, with the trials they've faced, and with the unknown trials ahead. Two different voices speak to the weary pilgrim: the voice of the Liar, our spiritual enemy, and the voice of the Lord. Turn back, turn back,...
Where Moth and Rats Destroy
I hate bugs. No, I’m not the kind of person who goes into hysterics every time I see a spider. I can usually keep my cool. But still — the sight of one gives me an unpleasant shudder and a wish to be somewhere far away. Somewhere where spiders never existed. “If the...
Choosing Loneliness
I was sitting on a woven mat in a bamboo-walled house with other people who were talking in a language I did not know. I had no idea what they were talking about, so not surprisingly, I felt a bit lonely. Another time I was conversing with people in a language we all...
Sent Among Wolves
I send you out as sheep among the wolves, yet take no staff And bring no sturdy sandals for this steep and narrow path. You’ll be accused, yet make no plan in your defense to speak. You’ll hunger, yet your purse and plow and fields – behind you, leave. I send you out,...