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Environments of Grace: what do they look like {for those coming home}?

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My friendship with Shannon started with an email about how and where to get your hair highlighted in Uganda — you know, the important details about missionary life. We started emailing each other as her family prepared to move to Uganda at a similar phase of life as we did. They seamlessly connected to the people and culture, and continue to live and work within a ministry they are passionate about. Any length of time living in another culture changes the way you experience your culture of origin. There’s an awkwardness, a re-adjusting, a frustration, a comfort, as you engage […]

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Preparing your Heart and Home for Christmas {An Advent Devotional}

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It really is the most wonderful time of the year! After a national chorus of gratitude, we slip into the magical days of Christmas. When the music we play is delightful. And the spirits of people are more cheerful. When our thoughts are turning toward others. And hope seems a little closer to reach. The world may think it’s mere tradition that infuses these days with joy. But we know better. No matter how hard it is to find baby Jesus in the stores we frequent. No matter how much the American consumer culture tries to dominate. When God’s people […]

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Sanded Through

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I’m recreating a piece of furniture I purchased on Craigslist for $20. It’s a classic colonial dark pine buffet and hutch, something similar to what my mother had in our dining room in the 1980s. As I sand by hand every inch and crevice, exposing new surface and leaving some old, I consider how even our furniture can reflect a little bit of who we are. We are a people continually being made new. By the very hands of our Creator who makes us more like him. By the experiences that round out our edges. By the people who enhance […]

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Heart Exposed

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I have had to overcome a grumbling heart during our kitchen remodel. I simply do not do well in situations where my house is a disaster, my routine isn’t possible and my normal tasks of feeding and washing are made difficult. These days have taken me back to Uganda when the power would go out. Or water was scarce and I was forced into a place of discomfort and inconvenience. Mark and I would react very different to these times. Mark would do what was needed to push through the moment. He would except the challenge and put in the […]

When where you are is not your home

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You live different. Your patterns change. You’re forced to adapt the way you eat and move about. This is good for me to experience. The instinct of my flesh is to settle, root, even in places where I can’t imagine it possible. Like here. As the orange dust gathered at my feet, I watched the Lord build a home for our family. And this house of grace is how he sustained me. It’s where I carved comfortable out of insecurity. Where the unknown became familiar. Even in the harsh realities of Uganda, the Lord was generous to shape for me […]

The Pearl of Africa {and of my heart}

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I was told my nose might not survive this place. That the odors themselves might send me running home. Thankfully, God let me breathe in grace. And it covered the biting smells near impossible to escape. The suffocating smoke of burning trash lingers down every road and travels through the open windows that invite the outdoors inside. And then there’s the unfamiliar body odor of a people with different customs and diet. And the periodic whiffs of urine from casual uses of the roadside as a lavatory. And the tangy scent of jack fruit that permeates the air when it’s […]

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Departure Thoughts

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I’ll never forget the moment when I stepped foot off the plane in Uganda after visiting Michigan for a few months and thought I’m home. I genuinely never thought I would feel that way about a place so different than what I was used to. A place so dirty and stinky. A place where I was noticed everywhere I went. A place I didn’t always understand. A place where death seemed too real. When was it? I remember thinking.  Was it when the children started asking for beans and rice instead of macaroni and cheese? Was it when the women […]

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Our Maine Environment

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After weeks of sickness and pushing through the darkness to find the light, we finally receive our reward.  Two friends who share a birthday. Just two days apart…and ten years. We dropped off 7 children to spend the weekend with Aunts and Grandparents. Met at the airport with handsome husbands in the lead and only one darling baby to keep us from forgetting who we really are – parents. We depart for Maine, and the lovely Kismet Inn. From the dead, bleak, cold of winter we enter into Shadi’s home. A home of life, color and warmth (which had very […]