The Hellos, Too
I lost my grandfather last week. He was a quiet man, gentle and calm. He worked with his hands, and he could fix just about anything, from a leaky radiator to a hole in the wall (like the one put in his basement paneling by yours truly 27 years ago). The last time I saw Grandpa, he was stooped low, the weight of years on his frail shoulders. Even with pain and age shadowing his face, he looked so much like my dad that it stole my breath. Just for a second, even as I was saying one last goodbye to my grandfather, my mind fast forwarded to a time in the future when my dad will be the one stooped and white. One goodbye hanging like a cloud over the other. That’s the thing about goodbyes. They never stand alone. They resurrect past farewells and herald the ones to...
Read MoreWhere the Refrigerator Clucks and the Coffee Moos
Within a few hours of moving into the house we’ve been renting, we discovered something unique about the refrigerator. It sounds like a chicken. It squawks and clucks and murmurs like a worried hen. The other morning I pushed the plunger down on my coffee press, and it moaned like a pitiful cow just as the refrigerator began another round of its fowl chorus. My teenager looked up from her breakfast and said, “I didn’t expect to live in a barnyard!” We heard it over and over before moving here – Papua New Guinea is the Land of the Unexpected. The thing is that life here is unexpected in ways that, well, I didn’t expect! I haven’t been surprised by the sickness and power outages and sudden changes of plans. What has caught me off guard are things more like this: I...
Read MoreFive Things Missionary Kids Need to Know About Their Feet
Let’s face it, MK friends. Most of you have feet that wouldn’t win you any foot modeling jobs. (How do people get into that line of work anyway?) But your feet are my favorite kind in the world. And here is why… 1. They are dirty. Gloriously gross in the most grimy-toed, stained-soled, freedom-proclaiming way. Your bare feet are unafraid of mud and rocks and rain and dust, and you just GO, feeling the warmth and texture in every step. 2. They are knowledgeable. Your feet navigate airport security lines and busy city streets as easily as they carve a path between market stalls and run up the road to a friend’s house. They know the world really is a small place, because they’ve stood toe-to-toe with precious people from all over, people you couldn’t imagine your...
Read MoreHere and There
There’s something about the way this afternoon is spread out all grey and misty over the valley that makes me homesick. Maybe it’s the mountains sitting silent behind the fog, so different than the rolling plains of the central Carolinas. Or maybe it’s just that we’ve been in Papua New Guinea for four months now, the longest I’ve been outside the States since I was fourteen. Whatever the reason, I’ve felt all day like I can’t take a full breath past the lump in my throat. And it’s not a day I could hide away from people. First a worship service, then a birthday party for a good friend’s son. Smile. Small talk. Try to will the eyes to stay dry. And then the moment when someone asks if I’m glad to be here. Yes, friend, yes I am. There’s not a shred of me that...
Read MoreOf Blue Tongues and Blending In
“What did you eat for breakfast?” My friend Gina looked quizzically at my mouth. We had arrived at church a little early, a rare occurrence, clean and combed and dressed in our best for our first Ukarumpa Sunday service. The day before I had bought a bag of mints in town, which was my first mistake. It should have been a clue that the ingredients were listed in Indonesian, and two of the few English words on the package were “Cool Blue”. Not wanting coffee breath to be my first impression on all our new neighbors and coworkers, I had popped one in my mouth as we left the house. The results were not very cool, but very definitely blue. Very, very blue. My tongue was a brilliant shade of turquoise. This, of course, was the Sunday they ask all the recent...
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