Raising financial support can mess with your head.
Yes, it can feel a little…naked. Yes, it can be awkward and revealing and exhausting.
Category: missions
Dry Days, Old Books, & Jesus Trails–Or, Finding My Own Revival
Reading Time: 3 minutes
I picked it up because I was feeling dry.
The well-thumbed copy of Bruchko seemed to call my name from my bookshelves. I slid it from the shelf, must creeping to my nose with the satisfying feeling of an old, delicious story. (Wow, I realized–they left out a lot in the newer version of the book.)
Best Posts of 2020!
A Yellow Christmas: Dotsie’s Story
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Even though it was years ago, I remember it as clearly as if it were today: the year our Christmas was a sickly yellow.
It had taken me a good while to adapt to life in Ghana. After many mornings of tears–morning is when the reality of life there would hit me–I adjusted well. Life was good: The evening Bible school was off to a good start, we were getting to know our neighbors, Gary was mentoring a couple of men and I was helping Nicole, French and married to a Ghanaian, grow in her new faith.
Words: The Gift to Give This Christmas
Memos from a Christmas Robbery
Reading Time: 4 minutes
My husband and I, kids in tow, were maneuvering at a snail’s pace through a traffic jam in our trusty high-clearance minivan. Our speakers happily trumpeted the Christmas CD my mom had sent, and we chatted, our energy high for our Christmas shopping in the city and the Christmas party of our non-profit (which, with the barbecue and kids running around in shorts, tends to look a little more like the Fourth of July).
It was sometime after “Let it Snow” that our heads all swiveled to the driver’s side, where a man was banging—hard—on the outside of our van. Never a good sign in Kampala.
Advent: When You’re Not Where You Hoped (FREE PRINTABLE)
Reading Time: 5 minutes
The dust, fine and red, coated the plants lining our roads. Sweat beaded on my upper lip. As my children lay awake in bed, I stuck my head in and reminded them to keep guzzling plenty of water, after a friend of theirs landed in the clinic due to dehydration.
Unfortunately it paralleled my parched insides. So many tasks to which I put my hand seemed to droop, languishing and limp. The cost-benefit ratio of my parenting, my ministry there in Uganda, and a handful of relationships seemed tilting precariously in the wrong direction.
“Have I Ever Failed You?”
Reading Time: 2 minutes
I was leaning back in my chair at 6 AM in our spare bedroom that doubled as an office. And I was telling God how dissatisfied I was with how things were going.
I was in seminary preparing for missions. It was my second year; I loved my classes. We had spent an awesome summer in New Zealand teaching at a Bible School.
Out of Place: When You’re Not Where You Thought You’d Be
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Stuffed animal on the kitchen counter. Dirty socks by the back door. Laundry on the couch. Empty coffee cup on the bathroom counter. Wagon on the driveway. Library books on the floor.
What do all of these things have in common? (Besides the fact that they might all be true about where we are living right now.)
Go with a Mission Agency–or Go on Your Own?
Reading Time: 4 minutes
After 30-plus years as a missionary, I have seen the wide and wonderful diversity in the people God calls to be missionaries! And everyone has different expectations about how they will go overseas and what kind of mission agency or “sending structure” they will use.
Some folks are so determined to do things their way, there’s no way they will survive working within a mission agency.