Sweat, Spit Up, and a Time to Ask
Sweat and spit up. Those are the two scents that mark my memory of that summer. That summer of a newborn baby, a two year old, and two puttering AC units that barely made a dent in the muggy Chinese air. My baby cried and spit up, cried and spit up, and insisted on being […]
Why Doing It On My Own Was The Way To Go (Wrong)
If you asked me to describe myself, I would go with the adjectives strong and independent. I like to blame this on my German-American heritage and my Western culture, but the truth is that at the deepest level of my heart, it is rooted in pride and an unwillingness to rely on others. When my […]
A Season of Dependency
Dependency. It’s one of those buzzwords people involved with our line of work are throwing around a lot these days. Books like When Helping Hurts and Toxic Charity have become staples to any cross-cultural worker’s library. We are all learning, through trial and error, that empowering trumps charity; investment beats handouts; and that long-term solutions don’t often […]