An Open Letter to My Fellow Up-ended Missionary

An Open Letter to My Fellow Up-ended Missionary

Dear Friend, First I want to just sit with you for a minute. I may not know what’s happened for you, but I know the ache. I am sorry you’re in this place. So, so sorry. It’s ok to feel breathless. Life just knocked you onto your back. And it’s right to grieve. You’ve lost something precious. Maybe your dreams, or your security, or your innocence. Maybe relationships, or your ministry, or even your home. Maybe, like us, you’ve gone over and over what you could have done to keep that Thing from happening (or what others should have done). But that road’s a dead end, because it happened. It’s done. And this place is where you are. I know how hopeless this place can feel. It hasn’t been too many months since my family was struggling to regain our footing in the wake...

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Lighten Up

Lighten Up

I just turned forty, and it feels like a deep sigh. There’s something about beginning a new decade that hits a reset button. My thirties were a time of gathering – living new experiences, picking up pieces here and there to build a life and make a home for my family, taking hold of my own identity and passions. As I’ve entered my forties, I’m finding that it’s a time of laying down – a time of sorting through my possessions and heart to put aside extra things that weigh me down. Having given away or sold most of what we owned before we moved to Papua New Guinea for a time that ended up being much shorter than planned, my family has had a chance to start fresh. When we moved back into our house last month, beautiful people came around us like a rising tide and...

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