by Editor on May 16, 2013
As soon as the angry words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. I was speaking to Rehmet, the woman who helped me care for my kids and my home. She was a Punjabi woman, uneducated, illiterate, with a smile that stretched across a beautiful, weathered face and a personality as big as her [...]
by Chris Lautsbaugh on May 14, 2013
Being a missionary carries a great cost, but does have some benefits. It is not all doom and gloom, complete with vows of poverty and poor fashion choices for clothing. In today’s day and age it is easy to benefit from one aspect of the missionary life. Frequent travel. The nature of missions involves being [...]
by Richelle Wright on May 9, 2013
About a month ago, we had a conversation here about one of those unsettling and sometimes divisive (at least as far as opinions about best practices) components of our expat, international lifestyle – local men and women employed to handle those domestic tasks and home maintenance labor. One thing I did pick up from that [...]
by Lisa McKay on May 7, 2013
When I first moved to Laos with my husband Mike, I tagged along on one of his work trips out to a rural village where Mike’s organization had recently helped set up a gravity-fed water system. During this trip, Mike and the staff (and, by extension, me) were the guests of honor in the village [...]
by Tara Livesay on May 2, 2013
More than ten years ago I got to watch my oldest son Isaac take his first steps. He was 11 months old at the time. Considering we lived in two different countries at that point in time, it was great timing on his part. I was in Port au Prince visiting him toward the end of his [...]
by Laura Parker on April 30, 2013
Sweaty heads and dirty feet tumbled into the car after an evening last week at BHJ Girl’s Home in SE Asia. And we waved goodbye out the window as the gate was closed behind us, and I asked my three kids in the backseat, “Well, did you have fun?” And, immediately, my son started in– “I didn’t like the food. [...]
by Editor on April 26, 2013
*a note: This post came to A Life Overseas the same week many parents sent their boarding children back to Kenya at the end of a term break. It seemed timely and is offered in honor of those parents and kids.* One week ago we said goodbye to my younger brother and his wife beside [...]
by Justin Schneider on April 25, 2013
Many Christians living and working overseas can be put into two categories: church planters and community developers. During my time overseas, I have primarily worked in the community development side but was introduced to serving abroad by church planters. Perhaps some of you have noticed that at times it almost feels like there is a [...]
by Angie Washington on April 22, 2013
We sat in the booth at a sandwich shop. By divine serendipity our paths crossed on “home” soil. She was back from Africa and I was up from South America. As we picked at our oversize, overpriced deliciousness stories poured out. “Things are so rough in the village. The ladies tell me I need to [...]
by Editor on April 19, 2013
She sits in my office, crying. “Why am I so depressed? Nothing terrible happened to me. I love my parents. I loved living overseas. I can’t wait to go back. But why do I get so depressed?” I get out a stack of paper, and draw a tombstone on each sheet. On each tombstone, I [...]
by Rachel Pieh Jones on April 17, 2013
When you start to pick your nose in public, you might be too cheap for Kleenex. Or you might live in a really dry, dusty place and need to dig that one out before it makes you bleed. Or you might be overdue for a break. When you (if a native English speaker) start to [...]
by Laura Parker on April 11, 2013
Missionaries can be a negative, cynical bunch sometimes. And I’m not pointing fingers because I get it. I’ve drunk the kool-aid and have come up woefully short of expectations (of myself, the work and others), and I’ve done this same fall-on-my-face-move on four different continents. Hacking out a life overseas can make a pessimist out [...]