The Messy Middle

The Messy Middle

One of the hardest things for me during our years in family ministry was unfinished stories. More often than not, we watched our students blossom and their families flourish, but there were times we could do very little to help move a struggling family towards healing. It’s a special kind of hard to see a train wreck coming for people you love, and having to let go and leave them in their mess. Occasionally we hear updates about former students that remind us that it can take years for the waves of sin and trauma to crest, and we ache for them all over again. We couldn’t stop their pain then, and we can’t stop it now. The reality of ministry – the reality of life – is that there will always be unfinished stories, where the hopeless mess seems to be winning. I was...

Read More

The Truth About Ministry (and Life)

The Truth About Ministry (and Life)

The anxious thoughts rolled in the morning after we got the big news. We finally had enough financial partnership to cover our budget, and we could start our next season of ministry. We’ve served with a large missions organization since 2004, and my new role in our org combines two of my greatest passions – writing and getting the Bible into the hands of women around the world. So what was I nervous about? Simply this: I might not be who my new team expects me to be. When I interviewed for this position in March of last year, they made the decision to wait on me during our time of partnership development before our organization would move forward with the initiative I’ll be contributing to. I’m grateful to have the chance to be part of strategic planning from the...

Read More

One Foot, Two Foot, Sure Foot, True Foot

One Foot, Two Foot, Sure Foot, True Foot

I wonder how they felt there perched on the edge, those men and women and little ones getting ready to put themselves between impossible walls of water. I wonder if that first step down the bank was hard, with the unnatural path ahead stretching long and dark. The line must have been slow, all those people and animals carrying everything they owned, plodding on through the night hours. There was the pillar of fire back behind, a bright and terrifying promise of rescue from an army bent on their destruction, but up ahead all they could see were people’s backs and a flood piled high on either side. Safety was still a long walk away. That night the Israelites’ faith looked like footsteps. They were scared and angry at Moses, not sure they believed that God was...

Read More

Honey, I Shrunk the Missionary

Honey, I Shrunk the Missionary

Ok, missionary friends, let’s be honest here. We’ve all done it. We’ve all told those shocking stories, the ones with giant spiders and malaria and chicken foot soup. We’ve all shown the gripping pictures of the dark-eyed babies and the work-calloused hands and the colorful city streets. And we’ve all expected appropriate oohing and aahing from the audience. The stories and pictures aren’t a bad thing. It’s good to give our churches and friends a glimpse into a world they might not get to see otherwise. What trips us up is why we share these things. It doesn’t take long for missionary newbies to learn what we missionary oldbies know intuitively: it’s effective and exciting to talk about the different and exotic. We get a reaction from stories that are outside the...

Read More

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...

Read More

The Light at the Bend

The Light at the Bend

Our road just bent in a way we didn’t expect and didn’t want. We will not be returning to our home and ministry in Papua New Guinea. This seems sudden, I know. And in a lot of ways it is. But in other ways it’s been coming for a year. Friends, we’ve just walked through a really dark season, and only now are we slowing down enough to realize the full weight of it. Much of what happened in PNG is something we can’t share, but like most real stories it’s littered with shards of broken people. It’s a hard, messy story, and we can’t pretend that away. A few months ago, a dear friend said to me, “You’ve had an awful lot of ashes this year, but I want to hear about the beauty.” She’s right. The ashes are undeniably real, and there’s no getting back some of the precious...

Read More