It’s hard being a toddler. You stumble and fall regularly, you are often misunderstood, and things out of your control can incite you to throw little “demonstrations” in order to get your point across.…
CATEGORY
Cross-Cultural Living
In the Desert
A fire and a cloud.Set up like flag poles,Waving in the night,Waving under the sun.Heat in the night,Shade in the day.Lord, guide my way. “If you lack wisdom…”He says.You mean when, not if.My muscles stay stiff.Daily is my norm,Nightly is my trial.Lord, guide me all...
Where Mercy Meets Us
**This post contains heavy subject matter regarding a stillbirth. We got the call at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday morning. Our close friend Anna was in labor and needed to get to the hospital soon. My husband Kevin got up, dressed quickly, and headed out to the village where...
Namesake
Once there was a North African baby who was named after me, and before she was a year old, she died tragically. A few years later, our translator’s baby daughter — named after one of my teammates — also died. I am tempted to say this is their story, and the story of...
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...
I Am a Foreign Weirdo
Being an alien and stranger is no fun. Ask me about it. Everywhere we go, people stare at us. They grab at us to touch our skin and hair. They unashamedly point and stare at us in public. They sometimes treat us like royalty, bestowing on us white privilege...
Lesson from a Tree Frog
My husband Mike and I were enjoying a quiet evening at our home in Papua New Guinea. We’d finished our post-dinner clean up and were relaxing in our favorite chairs reading books we’d just received in a care package from his mom. Suddenly the quiet was shattered by...
Hope!
Decades ago Dave and Alice Parrish and their daughters established their home among the Mbore people in order to translate God’s Word for them. The people’s hope that they would one day have Scripture in their own language began to be realized. In the ensuing years...
How Much Sacrifice is Enough?
Moving to a new country and new culture is full of surprises. One surprise for me when I moved to Southeast Asia was that every single temple is filled with idols. There is not just one idol per temple. We once visited a temple which, when literally translated, is...
Home Hunting
Since 2020, our family has moved all of our belongings five times to five different houses, stayed in too many hotels to count, and slept on the couches, beds, and floors of all our closest relatives. We’ve been looking for “home” in one way or another for the last...
Breaking Traditions: How Matthew 15 Resonated in a Mapa Church
A whip cracked outside the wood and thatch church building. Children screamed and ran. Adults, packed onto the log bench “pews,” tensed as they turned to look toward the entryway. An old man stormed in, and his angry words tumbled out. My husband and I were still new...