I will always remember where I was that warm Wednesday afternoon, standing in our tiny second-floor apartment in the living room of the married student housing for the University of Oregon. I had just walked in from teaching my sweet Grade 3 & 4 class at Lifegate Christian School. I Read more…
Something very new and exciting is happening at our house! We have a new arrival. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s an app! While Kent and I were cloistered with our kids during months of lockdown last spring, we saw trips and plans blow away like sand. He Read more…
The ‘Arch in the Sky’ is the way the French say ‘rainbow’. The little prop planes we took over the rainforest in Congo didn’t have instrumentation to fly through clouds and storms without visibility. So often we would get up in the air and then need to fly around isolated Read more…
Have you ever studied the Hebrew word ‘shalom’? It is a fascinating study! It means SO much more than the English word ‘peace’. It involves a wholeness, a wellness that surrounds all of the soul. My journey back to painting and the arts began in therapy in 2013. I was Read more…
Every time I get a chance to read about how my passport country is doing, it is difficult to digest. Division seems to rule the day. One friend genuinely fears for her safety as a young single mother of two, afraid to walk her city. Another friend is marching across Read more…
This is all new to me. I’ve never sent a kid to college. And certainly never sent one to the other side of the world during a pandemic! There were so many skills I felt he needed. So many supplies, life lessons. So many adult things he knew nothing about. Read more…
[Before I journal out what a typical day of Quarantine in Cameroon is like, I want to say there are some big differences between Quarantine here v. in the US with unlimited high-speed internet streaming services, curbside pickups, Amazon deliveries and Door Dash from your favorite restaurant. In Cameroon, power Read more…
When James graduated high school here in Cameroon in June, we had little reassurance that he would make it across the globe to begin college. All borders were closed. Europe was closed. The US would welcome us home, but there was no way to get there without going through Europe. Read more…
I was intrigued on this trip to see the euphemism “rough air” replace the long used “turbulence.” Probably some focus group somewhere preferred it, but anyway, I thought it was not a bad description of some of the chaos we’re going through these days —whether you see it as turbulent, Read more…
I’ve written before about triviality, but I’ve been thinking a lot lately about its application to our current times. That is, for missionaries and others working cross-culturally, there is always an element of adjusting to a new environment and culture. This includes how to find your bedroom light switch in Read more…