There is a time in all of our lives, no matter how old or young we are, that we need to stop and evaluate things—do a sort of assessment of where we are and why we are doing what we are doing. Friends said to me once they always felt kind of guilty when hanging […]

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I love missions! I love everything about missions. I love the fact that God uses mere mortals to participate with Him in His great Redemption Story. I love the joyful and miraculous idea that God invites His children to be a part of what He is doing around the world and in the hearts and […]

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A few years back I took a trip around the globe seeking the Church. I was trying to answer the question, “What is the role of the North American white male in 21st century missions?” Nowhere did this question need to be asked more than in Africa. It was July. I purchased my ticket in […]

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Trans-Siberian. Trans-Siberian. Trans-Siberian. I’ve never been diagnosed “officially” but I’m pretty certain I’m a bit OCD! Once I get my mind stuck on something, I really have a tough time changing focus. Even with that crazy dangerous Chernobyl nuclear stuff, I still wanted to go across the USSR by train. News was usually hard to […]

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Saturday night, my last night in Helsinki, I was packing and repacking and trying to sort through all my junk when Marianne brought me one ton of Finnish chocolate bars. Yes. Exactly one ton. Please note here that Finnish chocolate is ooohhh so delicious and I truly love it! But where was I going to […]

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Well Big D and I are heading to Ireland today (4/30). From Ireland we go to Lithuania. Yes! It is work. But such nice work. We get to see IICS professors. There’s Olga Artamonva teaching Russian at Trinity College in Dublin; she’s an absolute sweetheart. We’ve got Frank Peters and his amazing family living in […]

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“Monkeys will fly out my nose before I go there!” I was very serious and very firm with Daryl. He’d made an agreement with UNESCO and Afghanistan’s Ministry of Higher Education that he’d bring a team of academics to Kabul for university faculty training by March 2003. “You know I can’t go to a Muslim […]

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I was a big, dumb, white girl from Kansas living in a city of 1.5 million Chinesers. In fact, in the fall of 1983, there were only about 15 foreigners total in our newly opened city of Changchun. I was there with two other women and we were the first Americans to teach at the […]

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Second place is common in my life. I’m daughter #2 of my parents. I am wife #2 of my husband. Once I was in a competition in high school and I won…yes…second place. I wore a lot of hand-me-downs (second place clothing) as a kid and if you think about it, being a step-mom is, […]

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ABC’s hit show Lost has won four Emmys, four Guild Awards, won Golden Globes’ best TV drama three times and was voted by the British Academy of Film and Television as the Best American Import. It beat out 20 shows worldwide to win the coveted Monte Carlo International Best Television Award in 2005. According to […]

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