Ministry

   You said it with sincerity and even a touch of awe. “I could never do what you do.” The thing is, my friend, neither can I. I’m just me. A woman a couple of years from forty, doing my best to love my husband and raise our girls. I didn’t plan to be a […]

    I’m tired today.  It’s the kind of exhaustion that makes the mind numb and the bones ache. We’re on the road, seeing friends and family one last time, and some of the goodbyes we’re saying feel like funerals. It’s too much. Too much. I’m weak, weary, and completely overwhelmed. If it were just me,

  “I realized I probably could have been famous.” My friend Julie sits across from me at a coffee house table. There isn’t a hint of bitterness, pride, or irony in her gentle voice. She’s right. She really could have been. I’ve known this woman for more than ten years, and every time I’ve seen

   I have a lump in my throat. A big ol’ fat lump. The kind that makes it hard to breathe, makes it hard to say what I need to say. Because what I need to say is the beginnings of goodbye. We still have seven months before our travel weary bodies land on the

    I talk too much. My house is too chaotic. My kids are too wild, and I laugh too loud. I trust too easily. I cry too frequently. I eat too much sugar. I lose my temper too often, and I leave too many things half way done. I’m not strong enough. I don’t bite

    I haven’t written for quite a while. There’s a reason for this. I’ve started writing four times, tried to write on four different subjects, but each time my thoughts circled back around to the one thing I couldn’t talk about publicly. Until now.     We are moving to Papua New Guinea. If it all

    Smoke hangs heavy on the hills around Ukarumpa. Locals burning the dry grass, partly to clear for planting, but also to get the attention of the spirits they worship, pleading in flames and embers for much-needed rain. Dust lays thick on everything, inside the house and out. It billows from the gravel roads, blurring

    There was a time in this country, not so long ago, when airport security was a breeze, when bullies and mystery meat were school’s scariest possibilities, when no one thought twice about a misplaced backpack at a public event. For better or worse, those days are behind us. We live in a world awash

    We rolled in, dusty, hot, and weary, to speak at yet another church. I was twelve, and all I wanted to do was get on the plane and fly home to the Philippines, but we still had a month to go. Another long hallway decorated with Sunday school posters and a corkboard with our