A Slow Burn
Like many of you, my story-- my overseas story-- is full of complicated layers of stress, hope, survival, endurance, and resolve. There are highs and lows. We get tired,...
Category: Life Overseas
Burnout Came For Me
Burnout came for me about six years into living overseas. It grabbed me without any warning. Sure, we’d had family stresses, team changes, moves, a medical evacuation, changes in...
The Resolve of Staying
September 4th, 2001. Just 10 days a newlywed, I sat on that plane with my hand tightly sandwiched between by his. I could barely breathe. My mind was somewhere...
Gimme a Break
A man’s perspective on rest, healing and renewal I was 42 years old and had been serving internationally for nearly 20 years before I took a...
Holding On To Hope
The tiny foot path was dusty. There was a hot wind blowing my hair across my face as sand pelted my skin. The day was going to...
Party to Celebrate Community
When’s the last time you went to a great party? I mean, a really great party? One you spent weeks preparing for – thinking of what to wear, picking...
Embracing Christmas with Your Team {The Grove: Team Traditions}
Growing up, my large family Christmases were bursting at the seams with people, food, noise and fun. I don’t feel like I’m celebrating without at least twenty people simultaneously...
Holiday Camaraderie + My Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
For the 7 Christmases we have spent on the field, we’ve always been part of a team. Usually small enough for everyone to fit into one home, but big...
Diving Hard Into Mooncakes
“You’re more Chinese than we are!” That’s not the reaction I was expecting when I told my Chinese friends that I’d made lotus paste mooncakes from scratch. They were...
The Best and the Worst
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Perhaps Charles Dickens was living his first Christmas abroad when he wrote those words....
