On:
In: Adventures in Learning, Taking After My Father, Uncategorized

Sixteen years ago! It’s hard to believe it’s already so many years ago that our family spent six and a half months in pre-mission-field training. The first, very long two months of our training were spent in Valley City, North Dakota, living in a college dorm with our family. The last four months were spent in Waxhaw, North Carolina. It was such a loooong six and a half months. But also a nice, long time to learn more about God’s love and faithfulness! Not long after, I wrote the following story in a newsletter… The fall of 1997 at JAARS in Waxhaw, NC was aRead More →

On:
In: Adventures in Learning, Grace, Uncategorized

While I figure out how to write about what the Lord has been teaching me these last few months, I share something my husband wrote shortly after we bought our house two and a half years ago. (The title is mine.) After 25 years of renting…… the Lord has given us the privilege of home ownership.  We have learned a few lessons over our 25 years as home renters. One of the biggest lessons is stewardship: When renting a home we know that it isn’t ours, but we need to take care of it as if it were ours. At some point the owner willRead More →

On:
In: Adventures in Learning, Grace, Uncategorized

Three years ago, I cried my eyes out at a scrapbook retreat. I was Skype-ing with Ron in Indonesia. Together – me in Hedgesville, Maryland and Ron in Sentani, Papua, Indonesia – we sifted through ten years of our family in one house. Just stuff but stuff representing memories. A whole house narrowed down into a small pile of what Ron could hand-carry in his luggage. Most heartbreaking for me was choosing which of my children’s special things would or would not make that small pile. We told ourselves that stuff can always be replaced. Over the next year, I saw my loving Heavenly Father,Read More →

On:
In: Adventures in Learning, Grace, It's Just Life, Uncategorized

One meal in the life of a missionary housewife in Sentani, Papua, Indonesia… Today I want to make lasagna for my family. I’ll make a salad, a loaf of Italian bread and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. My task list: 1. Early in the day: Sift the bugs out of the flour. Bugs really like flour in the tropics. Mix up the bread dough and let it rise. Dough rises very well on the counter in the hot tropics! Bake. 2. Make the lasagna noodles. Or if I’m feeling lazy I will just go buy macaroni at the grocery store and make “Lazy Lasagna”. I’mRead More →

On:
In: Adventures in Learning, Grace, Uncategorized

“There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number–living things both large and small. There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there. These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with good things.” Psalm 104:25-28 For a missionary mom, one of the hardest things she ever has to do is to leave a child thousands and thousands of miles away. In March 2005, we left our oldest daughter and wentRead More →