My algorithm is a hoot. I see dog memes that I share with lightning speed in my family text group. I see recipes that tempt me to be vegan that I favorite and never try. And I see the most absolutely precious pictures of old people. Old people friends. Old people in love. Old people! Some of my favorites are the kind where he’s curling her thin gray hair and they are laughing. Or two women, dressed to the nines in clothes that are just as outstanding today as they were 50 years ago when they were brand new. And they are slowly strutting their stuff, lost in conversation as they shuffle down the sidewalk.
Do you know what I love about my old-people algorithm? The smiles they give each other. Smiles that say I know you. I knew you when you were young and your skin was smooth, and I know you now when your eyes are the only thing that still shine in the same way. And the truest gift is that I lived all the time in between knowing you. I mean, right now, aren’t you tempted to google old people just to get in on this?
One of the hardest things about this cross-cultural life is feeling like you are never truly known.
Did I mean to give that part up? Did I understand that this life could mean there would be very few wrinkled friends that will even exist to look in my eyes and say I KNOW YOU?
With all the passion we can muster here, we want to give as much of that back to you as possible. You can be known… here.
Welcome to Velvet Ashes.
In this place, we get your unique life. We talk about it. We cry and laugh with you. We appreciate your eccentric dress or your faded clothes. We cheer you on when you are single and lonely. We set you straight when you say you are only a mom, but in a different country. And we create the spaces for you to be known and to know others.
When you shake your head at a Friday Funny on Instagram.
When you share with us in a community chat on the membership site.
When you connect with each other in Connection Groups.
When you gather to laugh and grow during an Online Retreat.
When your heart feels seen because there is new spiritual formation content just for you.
When you love and hate books together in Book Club.
And on and on…
No matter your sending church, sending org, team size, ministry strategy, five-year plan, level of living, or furlough schedule, we are here for you all.
As long as women are leading the way in the global kingdom movement, we will be here encouraging them and providing a place for them, for you, to be seen and known.
So if you are a veteran here, welcome.
If you have been on the edges and are just now curious about us, welcome.
And if you are mostly just curious about our weird name and have no idea who we are, you are welcome too.
All month long we will be inviting you to know us and, boy, do we sure long to know you.
Welcome to Velvet Ashes.
What does being known look like to you?
Hello, I don’t know how I came across your website. I was literally just looking up something about sheep and then a link to one of your blog entries came up from around 2017. I enjoyed it and the grace it offered me, the faith it invited me into. I am not in ministry over seas, but I’ve thought about it for about 15 years pretty regularly. There’s ways where I romanticize transplanting into a whole different culture purely just to love people. At the same time I know it’ll be harder than I know. throughout all the years of thinking, “God, help me be willing to go where you want me to go. Is it now or is it later?”, I’m currently finding myself in an environment where overseas ministry is more of a serious consideration than it ever has been in my life. While still totally hypothetical, I am presented with asking God lots of questions. One of the things he walked me through in the last year or two was realizing I had no clue how to trust him as a good, kind, tender daddy who cares about the things I care about and encourages me to maintain fascination and wonder, silencing the voice encouraging me to diminish and trivialize things I want and like because I could totally be okay without them. The reality is that I really could live a content life without a husband, or kids, or a garden where I grow my food, or a root cellar, or that I want to make and build stuff for people with the work of my hands and body, or every other thing I dream about for a full and rich life. I know I don’t need these things, but I want them. And he tells us to ask with supplication, with earnest requesting, pleadingly entrusting him with the little girl in me, in us, entrusting him with the most beaten up part of me, mostly expecting the little things that are important to me to not be all that important to him and that I’ll just end up wondering, “Well why did you tell me to supplicate when you didn’t care in the first place? It was easier to do this when I didn’t care as much. I’m content with a reality where these things don’t happen, but you’re the one telling me to legitimately ask you for these things. You’re the one encouraging me to be naked and vulnerable with you but what was it for because I feel hurt by you now?” Now, this is all an internal dialogue. I’ve actually not been let down by out daddy, but I haven’t had the doubt killed yet and I still don’t trust the guy, and maybe that has more to do with I don’t know how to be the little girl I am and actually feel safe, so my reaction is to walk trepidatiously around every situation and wonder if my heart is safe and I’m going to get burned. So, that’s a lot to talking. I just wanted to contextualize my question, which is, I’d love to hear how you have navigated trusting God with the desires of your heart and really really leaning into being a little child with him, which means validating the little things you like and want more than you ever had before? When you move to go serve and love overseas do you carry your wants and desires with you to that land, than the homestead you’d been dreaming of might actually happen “over there”, or the community and home you’ve been lonely for and praying over for over a decade might happen “in that place”? Do you take the bare minimum of your dreams over there, to be the best little missionary wife you can be, or do you take your whole self with you? What was is like thinking about these things before you transplanted versus after however many years you’ve been transplanted? These are questions I’m asking him and myself, and I’m really interested in hearing about the experiences of people who have actually walked that path. Really, the root of this is I have no idea how to even be myself because I’ve tried for so long to take up very little space on this planet. I have no idea how to take up space, and I don’t know how much he actually wants me, all of me, and that he goes out of his way to make a home for me, his bride, and to hear and do something about the desires of my heart. Do any of you relate to this? Well, this is a lot of writing. I don’t feel like I’ve conveyed myself as accurately as I want to, but I don’t want to make this any longer. Thank you for taking the time to read this.