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...
Category: Life Overseas
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....
When You Can’t Be Together
It was Christmas Eve. I sat on the floor next to my 10-year-old grandson in his family’s near empty apartment to say goodbye. They were leaving early Christmas morning....
The Heirloom Shoebox and Other Things in Checked Baggage
We left our home – the second time (or maybe it was the third) – on Christmas Eve. After an unplanned two and a half years back in the...
Ornaments of the Heart
The holidays are often bittersweet for me. Between the candy canes, sparkly lights, and tasty desserts, my childhood memories of Thanksgiving and Christmas are riddled with flashes of family...
