The Writers

 Editors, Monthly Contributors

Laura Parker. Co-Founder, Editor.  As a child, Laura wanted to be Amy Carmichael, and in college, she wanted to be an English teacher living in an African hut. When her first attempt at overseas missions became an epic failure, lasting three months instead of several years, she began to think that foreign ministry was perhaps more difficult than the books made it out to be. This was a truth made clear during her second stint living overseas, this time with three small children, in SouthEast Asia. As a freelance writer and avid blogger, Laura wrote gritty and honest about her time in the field, building a community of missionaries, hungry for authenticity about  the difficulties of living overseas. In addition to writing for her personal blog, LauraParkerBlog, Laura has also been a freelance writer and photographer for Compassion International. She has been published in RELEVANT Magazine, MomSense magazine, a Deeper Story, {In}Courage, SheLoves and other online websites. Currently, she is the Communications Director for a counter-trafficking NGO, theExodusRoad, which was founded by her husband. You can find her at her personal site, LauraParkerBlog and can follow her on twitter at @LauraParkerBlog.

Angie Washington. Co-Founder, Editor. Angie has been living the adventure with her husband and their five kids in Bolivia for over a decade. Together they have started: multiple bible schools, an international office for equipping Latin leaders through media and conferences, a local church, a K-12 Christian school, and an orphanage. She has a personal blog called “The @“. Her blog topics range from street art to adoption to cooking with gas. Through her writing she hopes to push people to love God, love people and enjoy life. Straddling hemispheres creates a continual need for her to rely on Christ… and coffee! When not writing, chilling with the fam or doing missionary stuff she collects cactus plants, takes pretty pictures and hangs out with her friends. Facebook: atangie Twitter: @atangie

Rachel Pieh Jones. Guest Post Editor. Rachel Pieh Jones is the mother of three (including twins) and the wife to Tom Jones (not the singer, better). Rachel has lived in Somalia and Kenya. She currently lives in Djibouti, the hottest inhabited country in the world, where she has been sweating, running, failing, learning about and from Islam, trying to see Jesus clearly, and writing about it for the past nine years. Rachel has written for the New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, EthnoTraveler, Running Times, RELEVANT Magazine, the Desiring God blog, and others. She is also a contributing writer at SheLoves, published a cookbook Djiboutilicious, swims with whale sharks, and loses to her children at hula-hoop battles, Lego-building, and anything craft-related. Visit her blog at: Djibouti Jones, follow her Facebook page or on Twitter @rachelpiehjones.

 Monthly Contributors

Lisa McKay. Lisa is a mother (she is also an author and a psychologist who specializes in trauma and resilience, but during these foggy days of early parenthood those other identities sometimes feel remote indeed). Raised in Australia, Bangladesh, the States, and Zimbabwe, she has also lived in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Croatia. She is currently living in Laos, where her husband works for a development organization. When she is not busy saying things like “no eating, that’s yucky”, “give it to Mama”, and “pat the dog gently”, she is writing. Her award-nominated first novel, My Hands Came Away Red, is set in Indonesia and tells the tale of a short-term mission gone horribly wrong. A memoir, Love At The Speed of Email, explores the notion of home and tells the unlikely story of how she met her husband via email while he was living in Papua New Guinea. You can visit her website and blog at LisaMcKayWriting.

Chris Lautsbaugh. Chris lives in Muizenberg, South Africa. He serves with Youth With a Mission (YWAM), teaching and training missionaries and church leaders. Together with his wife Lindsey, they lead and steward training programs and ministries in and around Cape Town, reaching out to under privileged communities, planting churches, and meeting needs associated with the issues South Africa faces. They have been in missions for 35 combined years. They serve together with their two boys, Garett and Thabo. The boys keep them hopping and performing as taxi drivers for all their various activities. Chris loves coffee, watching sports, and traveling.  Chris blogs at www.nosuperheroes.com and has published a book on grace, Death of the Modern Superhero: How Grace Breaks our Rules. You can follow him on Twitter @lautsbaugh or on his Facebook page for NoSuperheroes.

Richelle Wright. Richelle is a disciple of Jesus,  wife to “Mr. wRight” (and yes, she HAS heard that joke many times over the past 18 years), mama chasing after eight marvelous gifts and the zookeeper to two dogs, four cats, two goats, four pigeons, a family of hedgehogs and, for the moment, one chameleon. Other current “employment” includes teacher of TCKs, swim instructor, Bible study facilitator, Zarma literacy worker, donut maker and full-time remover of the Sahara Desert which always seems to be infiltrating her home. After growing up in Oklahoma, she’s since spent time in inner city Boston (might as well have been a foreign land), Bangladesh, Thailand, Québec City and Niger. Home, for this season of life, cycles between Niger and mid-Michigan. She and her husband serve with a mission organization producing evangelistic and discipleship audio-visual tools, writing children’s radio dramas, assisting Nigerien church planters, encouraging the development of local Christian education and teaching women to read. She began blogging primarily so the grandparents would know their grandkids; Mr. wRight now encourages her to continue writing – internet connection cooperating. After all, it’s cheaper than therapy! You can find her online at Our Wright-ing Pad (family stuff and her personal musings) as well as at WBTN.org (ministry dedicated).

Justin Schneider.  Justin is a man who always seems to have more questions than answers, more vices than virtues, more time than money, and more “good” ideas than ability to put them into blog form.  As a follower of Christ, Justin has visited 6 continents on short-term mission trips and spent a year as International Justice Mission‘s first Legal Fellow in Thailand.  During that time, Justin engaged in learning more about a (w)holistic approach to sharing the Gospel.  A licensed attorney, Justin is currently seeking employment in a university position that combines experiential-learning, a global perspective, and asset-based community development.  One thing you will likely find is that Justin loves to use humor to point out the absurdities in life.  For a larger dose, you can find his musings at JustinSchneidersBlog.com  and @JustSchneider on Twitter.  Another thing you’ll soon discover is how true his wife’s assessment is: “Justin thinks he’s cooler than he really is.”

Tara Livesay.  Tara is the mom to seven unique personalities and wife to her best-friend, Troy. The Livesays have been living, learning and working with women in Haiti for seven years. During that time they have come to recognize that God is not made manifest in their ability to “fix” anything, but in their own need to be fixed. Tara is a slow and aging distance runner that enjoys writing, potato chips, diet coke, and spending time with her family. She is a self-confessed cynic and a hard core realist. (No one has ever accused her of being an optimist.) She is passionate about maternal health and is pursuing her midwifery certification while she works in a relationship-based maternity center serving women before, during, and after labor and delivery. She writers regularly at: livesayhaiti.com.

Quarterly Contributors

Adele Booysen. At 25, Adele left native South Africa for a teaching job in Taiwan. It turned out that school that had recruited her didn’t yet exist, and thus began her adventures of living abroad. She found a job as a magazine editor and stayed on the island for almost eight years. Having obtained both a master’s degree and a doctorate, Adele has lived and worked in the Kenyan bush, the island of Jakarta, Indonesia, and her home country of South Africa. Currently, she oversees the leadership development program with Compassion International in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She is determined not to move anytime soon. Happily single, Adele appreciates the company of wonderful friends around the world, while she practices her Thai cooking and taekwondo. Her silent travel companion is a 2-inch tall M&M called Kiptoo.  You can read more about her and Kiptoo’s adventures at www.adelebooysen.com.

Michele Perry. Word weaver. Paint slinger. Grace clinger. Sunset gazer. Pixel tamer. Dream wrangler. Artist, author and executive coach.  Michele spent six years in the bush of Southern Sudan rescuing children and establishing a safe place for them to grow and become all they are created to be.  She recently relocated to the USA after turning the bases in South Sudan over to their respective field leadership teams that have been raised up through the years. She continues to serve with Iris Ministries as the founder of their South Sudan presence raising awareness for the bases there and as a part of Iris’s global team.   Michele is now pioneering Create 61, a missional creative community with an Isaiah 61 mandate for His Presence.  Love Has A Face is her first book (2009). And her second, An Invitation to the Supernatural Life was released July 1, 2012.  Both are available wherever books are sold.  She writes regularly about her personal faith journey at From the Unpaved Road and about art, faith and the creative life at Weaving the Wind.  Michele also owns her own art studio and just launched a creative consulting and executive coaching firm, Edge Creative Consulting, LLC.  You can find her online there or where all her online spaces connect, micheleperry.me. She travels the world regularly to share the lessons she is learning on this unpaved road into God’s heart– and to keep learning.