Amy Young

You Are Not Alone in This Estrangement

My aunt, my dad’s sister and most favorite adult outside of my parents growing up, turned on me a few years after I went to the field. I didn’t see it coming.

She died last month and that’s why I can now share this with you. This is a story about estrangement, about a relationship that wasn’t fixed, and about God’s faithfulness.

Let me back up. With no first cousins and only one aunt—my mom’s brother died when he was 19—she played a special role in my life and the lives of my sisters. What complicates the story is that I come from a family where my mom and dad did not have favorites between my sisters and me; my aunt, however, was the kind of person to have favorites. It was never spoken of, but I knew I was her favorite niece. If you’ve been in that situation as a kid, it feels confusing (why not love all of us equally?) and special to be the favorite (I am the chosen one!).

When I went to China for my first summer program, she sent a check in an amount that was so large it stunned me. It came with a note about how she sat in many “missionary circles” with her mom (my grandma) and heard about China for years; and now her niece was going. It meant the world to me.

That was the first and only financial donation in what became my life of support raising; it should have been a clue. But like many of you have experienced, who gives financially and who doesn’t isn’t always predictable. I moved full time to the field in my mid-twenties and planned to only stay for two years. I don’t think my aunt was thrilled with the faith part of my life, but the living abroad was a great resume builder, so at that point I didn’t know trouble was brewing.

What had once been “three girls” turned into “five kids,” with each of my sisters finding their person—a detail that mattered more than I realized once the math of the family started working against me (more on that later). The two years on the field turned into nine years with me stepping into more and more leadership in my organization. I was thriving, loved my life, and was part of an amazing team.

God threw a tiny curveball. The curveball involved a three-year study leave while still on full-time support to earn a master’s in counseling. On a Saturday afternoon a few weeks after I’d returned “home” but before my studies started, my aunt called to talk to my dad. He wasn’t home, and I was delighted to talk with her. That phone call fundamentally changed our relationship. I remember hanging up and shaking. What had just happened? I called one of my sisters. Later when my parents returned home, I told them about the phone call. Though everyone was shocked and confused, no one doubted my account of the call.

A few weeks later it was like Groundhog Day. Mom and Dad were out when the phone rang. I answered, and after that call I couldn’t imagine ever picking up the phone from her again. My family is a normal family with normal frustrations and fights with each other, but we are not abusive. This was new territory for all of us. Oversimplifying for the sake of space, while my immediate family supported me, no one called her out on her behavior, and I felt left alone to figure out what to do. “Abandoned” is too strong of a word for the situation, but I felt exposed, hurt, confused, and alone in navigating this terrain.

How could one of my favorite people attack me and have no remorse or consequences? How could my family support me, but from my point of view not take a stand and instead choose not to get involved? No one told her, “You may not like the choices Amy is making with her life, but you may not shred her verbally.”

Continuing with the simplifying of what had turned into a complex relational web, to protect myself I decided to not initiate with my aunt. She could have access to my “public” self. I did not remove her from my newsletter list (which, I admit, I thought was big of me) and years later I did not block her from subscribing to my blog or befriending me on social media.

I’d joke over the years that it takes a special skill set to fall from being number one out of three to being number five out of three, but it was true. And we all knew it. One of my sisters moved into number one and over the years reported how our aunt tried to triangulate between the three of us. Later she too fell from number one, but I am grateful that at that time and over the years my sister wouldn’t be played by our aunt’s manipulation. While our aunt has been difficult with each of us, there is something unique about me. Something personal. I am the lightning rod. Of course, I could offer my armchair analysis, but in the end, does it matter? I was the chosen one for abuse, in part, because I was a missionary.

I knew of colleagues who had family members that weren’t thrilled with or supportive of their choice to follow the call from God to a life on the field. But I didn’t know of anyone on the field who cut off contact with a family member because of how they were treated. And it’s not just “how I was treated,” but a fundamental question of “is part of the cost to accept abusive behavior?” What would Jesus do? Cutting my aunt out of my life felt unchristian and Christian. But it also felt like my best option.

Time passed. I didn’t speak to my aunt for ten years.

Fast forward to a hospital room. It seemed likely my dad might die in surgery, and I thought his sister should know. I mentioned this to my exhausted mom, the only other person in the ICU room, meaning, “You call Aunt.” Her response to my volley? “You call her.” And just like that I had a choice. I couldn’t picture one of my sisters dying in surgery and no one having told me; I called my aunt. I called her every day for the next seven days until her brother, my dad, died.

While the silence had been broken, the relationship wasn’t healed. A number of years later, the five of us “kids” flew to Arizona for my aunt’s ninetieth birthday. We all went because she was our beloved aunt in childhood. We went because our dad couldn’t and she was his only sister. We went because in our family, we show up for each other. Nineteen years had passed since I had last seen my aunt, and within five minutes the verbal jabs at me started. They continued for two days.

For the first time however, I had witnesses. The way she treated me wasn’t “in my head” or “blown out of proportion.” It was constant and involved everything about me as a person. The treatment was so egregious that my sister-in-law said upon leaving, “I am never going back. How Amy was treated was awful and I’m done.”

More time passed, and as she became housebound, I’d FaceTime her so she could experience nature, a museum exhibit, or a family gathering. Recently, in mid-August we got the call that she was dying. As I flew to see her one last time, I thought of her birth and of how she was held as a newborn by her mom. Much of our family’s spiritual heritage is because of my grandma. My aunt was held when she entered this world; for my grandma, I wanted my aunt’s passing from this world to be the same. So I went to hold her hand.

Looking back, I can see that part of why the pain has been deep is because what I thought our relationship would look like when I was an adult is nothing like what it ended up looking like. I knew others like me existed, but also like me, they couldn’t share their stories yet, if ever. This is for you. This isn’t a story with a nice tidy end, and it’s ongoing as now we have all of the details that come after a death. Her manipulative tendencies can still be felt, even in her death. Mostly I share so that you know you are not alone.

Do I wish things had turned out differently? A thousand yeses. They didn’t. But the truth in my story is that God saw how I was treated and knew my hurt and confusion and He walked with me all these many years. I trust He is doing the same for you.

The Faithful Goalkeeper: A World Cup Parable for Missionaries

If you’ve been around A Life Overseas for a while, you know I love sports. Looking back over posts I’ve written for A Life Overseas, I see I’ve written about the Olympics more than once. So, you can imagine I’m in my happy place with the World Cup right now and what I’ve been thinking.

I’ll admit that soccer (football!) isn’t my favorite sport, but one of the stories to come out of this World Cup reads like a parable to cross-cultural workers. It speaks to me about serving in obscurity with faithfulness, and I’ve become obsessed with learning all I can about the back story.

So, this is my imagining of The Faithful Goalkeeper.

There was once a goalkeeper who played in places no one could find on a map.

He had not always been a goalkeeper. As a boy in Mindelo, a small city on a small island in a small archipelago off the coast of Africa, he was a striker. His father, a military man who loved football, wanted to name him after an Argentine goal-scorer. But the name that stuck was Vozinha. Little Granny. The name his grandparents gave him when he ran to them after losing a match, and the older boys laughed.

He kept the name. He learned not to run from losses.

When he finally turned professional, he was 25, late by any measure. He began at the bottom: a modest club in Angola, then Moldova, then Cyprus, then Slovakia. Each move was a small act of faith. Each new city required him to start over — new teammates, new coaches, new languages, new loneliness. He was never the star. He was rarely even the starter.

But he showed up.

In Moldova, he trained in the cold. In Cyprus, he learned to read the sun differently. In Slovakia, he discovered things about his own reflexes that comfort would never have taught him. None of it made the highlights. None of it trended. His Instagram following hovered around a modest 50,000 for a professional player, just friends, family, faithful few.

Back home, Cape Verde was learning to dream. A tiny nation of half a million people that had never qualified for a World Cup. They were, by every measure, a footballing minnow. But they had Vozinha, a 40-year-old journeyman who had spent fifteen years preparing in obscurity for a moment that might never come.

It came.

On a Monday evening in Atlanta, Georgia, Cape Verde lined up against Spain, European champions, tournament favorites, a team built on generational talent. Vozinha pulled on his gloves in a locker room that smelled of nerves and disbelief. He was old enough to be the father of Spain’s brightest young star. He had played in stadiums a fraction of this size, for clubs a fraction of this prestige.

He was ready.

For ninety minutes, Spain poured everything at him. Twenty-seven shots. Reflex saves. Diving stops. The quiet, devastating competence of a man who had practiced these exact movements, in the cold, in the heat, in the empty stadiums of forgotten leagues.

The whistle blew. Cape Verde 0, Spain 0.

Vozinha fell to his knees and wept.

He wept for his grandparents, who had raised him and were gone now. He wept for his mother, who had tried to get a visa and couldn’t manage it in time. He wept for fifteen years of Moldova and Cyprus and Slovakia and the quiet, grinding, unwitnessed faithfulness of a life lived far from the spotlight.

“I thought about leaving,” he said afterward. “But I continued because of this dream.”

———

I’ve been sitting with Vozinha’s story for days now, turning it over and marveling as the story has continued since that first game.

I think about the cross-cultural workers I know about being faithful in assignments and callings that never made a headline, in cities their supporters couldn’t pronounce, in seasons that felt like they were disappearing into the air. The ones who wondered, somewhere in year seven or year twelve, whether the faithfulness was accumulating into anything at all.

It is. It always is.

What the world saw in Atlanta on June 15th was a 40-year-old goalkeeper stopping the best team in the world. What they didn’t see were the fifteen years that made it possible, the empty stadiums, the cold training sessions, the lonely moves to yet another city, the quiet decision to keep showing up even when no one was watching.

That’s the thing about faithfulness in obscurity: it doesn’t feel like preparation. It feels like waiting. It feels like being stuck. It feels, sometimes, like being forgotten.

But you are not forgotten. You are being formed.

The kingdom of God is full of goalkeepers playing in empty stadiums. People learning languages that don’t impress anyone back home. People showing up for work that doesn’t trend. People being shaped in ways they can’t yet measure, for moments they can’t yet see.

You don’t manufacture faithfulness when the moment comes. You arrive with it, forged from ten thousand unwitnessed repetitions.

Keep playing. Keep showing up.

(And GO ____ fill in the blank with the team you love!)

What Was Brought into the Light. Now What?

First, thank you.

If you took the survey that informed the Let’s Talk About It: Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault on the Field paper, thank you. Truly. Your willingness to share your experiences, insights, and observations made this work possible. This paper exists because you chose to bring what is often hidden into the light.

And bringing things into the light is sacred work.

Again and again in Scripture, we see that what is hidden is not meant to stay hidden. Light reveals, not to shame—but to heal, to restore, and to make a different way possible. Your voices are part of that work.

We do not take that lightly.

Off the top of your head, how frequent do you think sexual harassment, abuse, and assault are on the field?

One survey question asked participants to describe how often sexual harassment, abuse, or assault occurred in their context on the field. Participants selected from four categories: Rare (once a year or every couple of years), Seldom (a couple of times a year), Common (monthly), and Frequent (almost daily).

To help visualize the responses, imagine one hundred cross-cultural workers standing in front of you, each representing one survey participant.

We unpack these findings and what organizations, team leaders, and people on the field can do with this reality. But from these results, you can see this is topic we need to talk about.

What’s Inside the Paper

With the wide range of experiences and the depth of the reality, we (the authors) wanted to honor the complex reality you may live in.

We started with:
—An overview of the Survey

—Definitions of Terms

—Two Buckets: Within an Organization and Within a Host Culture

—Frequency of Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault on the Field

—How to Prepare and Support People When Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault Is Rare or Seldom

—How to Prepare and Support People When Sexual Harassment, Abuse, Assault Is Common or Frequent

But we also realized that there are “Ten Contributing Factors” to Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault on the field and spent time unpacking each of these with quotes from survey participants.

1. Why People Are Quiet

2. Why This Topic Isn’t Widely Discussed

3. Role of Personal History

4. Power Dynamics

5. Role of the Host Culture

6. Race and Minority/Majority Culture Dynamics

7. Gendered Cultural Experiences

8. Mental Health of Harassers

9. The Ministry Pedestal and Calling

10. Roles of Those Involved

We ended the paper with suggestions for cross-cultural workers, organizations, sending churches, and friends and family members. There’s something for everyone!

Get The Paper

What Readers Are Saying

We’ve begun hearing from readers, those who have taken the time to sit with the data, the stories, and the implications. Here’s some of what they are saying:

I’m so glad you touched this topic through the survey and this report. By that you have given those who sometimes couldn’t share a voice! I pray that this brings change in the way we talk about it and handle these things, starting with myself 😉

What impacted you most?

How common sexual assault by someone in the host culture occurs yet I have never heard people talk about it. That’s crazy

Did any statement, sentence, or section stand out to you? If so, what was it?

The example of a team leader going out of us way to advocate for his younger female teammates, insisting to national partners that they be treated with respect. I had landlords and neighbors in India do that for me (they were not even believers!), but teammates seemed unaware of the necessity of providing that for us.

If someone hasn’t read Let’s Talk About It: Sexual Harassment, Abuse, and Assault on the Field, why should they read it?

It is a great tool for opening a discussion on a topic that has largely been discussed only after there was a complaint filed. It also helps us understand the definitions of harassment, abuse and assault, and helps answer the question people seem to be asking themselves such as “does this count, and as what?”

A New Resource Hub

We’ve also created a few supplemental resources to help you continue engaging and sharing:

✅ Podcast episode: Hear directly from the authors as we unpack key themes and what surprised us most [Listen here]

✅ Graphics: Easy-to-use visuals from the paper for social media, newsletters, or presentations.

✅ Infographics: Clear, shareable summaries of key findings (two specifically for organizations! One geared for you to use in newsletters)

✅ Discussion guide: A tool to help teams and groups process the paper together

Find all these and more when you scroll down this page in the Download Hub.

Our hope is that these resources help you not only understand the content—but engage it in ways that lead to wisdom, care, and change.

Why This Matters

Sexual harassment, abuse, and assault are not isolated issues. They are shaped by culture, power, systems, and silence. And in cross-cultural contexts, these dynamics are often intensified—by distance, dependency, lack of oversight, and deeply embedded cultural norms.

Policies matter. Training matters. But neither are enough on their own.

What many of you helped surface—and what we are continuing to learn—is that this work is also spiritual work. It is about truth-telling. It is about dignity. It is about how we reflect the heart of God in the communities we’re a part of and the systems we uphold.

Where We Go From Here

This paper was never meant to be the final word. It is a starting place.

A way to name what is happening.
A way to listen more carefully.
A way to begin asking better questions.

And now, together, we take the next steps.

If you took the survey, thank you for your courage and your honesty. If you haven’t read the paper yet, you can get it here. If you’ve read the paper, consider who you might invite into this conversation with you. These are not conversations meant to be held alone.

Because the kind of communities we long for—safer, more just, more whole—are not built by accident. They are shaped, over time, by people willing to walk in the light, to tell the truth, and to love one another well.

And that kind of work, too, is sacred.

Why Reflection Matters for Cross-Cultural Workers

I recently celebrated a birthday, and as it often does, it nudged me into reflection.

Paired with the end of the year, birthdays have a way of doing that—causing us to pause, look back, and quietly ask, How did I get here? What has this year held? What has it taken from me? What has it given?

There’s nothing magical about birthdays. And there’s nothing inherently sacred about December 31st. But together, they remind me of something important: what is meaningful is having a regular rhythm of reflection—a moment set aside to notice, name, and remember.

For cross-cultural workers, that rhythm matters more than we often realize.

The Weight of a Cross-Cultural Year

Life overseas tends to stack experiences quickly. In one year, we might navigate cultural misunderstandings, ministry challenges, family needs, leadership transitions, grief, joy, loneliness, and belonging—often without clear markers of closure.

When everything is piled together like that, whatever is sitting on top gets the most attention. The deeper stories—the ones that quietly shaped us—often stay buried.

And because many of us are wired to persevere, we keep moving forward without stopping to ask:

—What actually mattered this year?

—Where did God meet me?

—What am I still carrying?

Without intentional reflection, perspective gets lost. Not just on our work, but on our lives—and on God’s presence within them.

Reflection Is Not a Luxury

In ministry contexts especially, reflection can feel optional or indulgent. But reflection isn’t about slowing progress; it’s about sustaining the person doing the work.

Herb Lamp once wrote that without reflection, we lose the ability to see God at work, lose perspective on our lives and ministries, and lose the joyful awareness that God is with us and not against us. Many cross-cultural workers would say the same: reflection grounds us in truth when life feels fragmented.

Looking back prayerfully helps us notice patterns we missed, growth we didn’t acknowledge, grief we minimized, and faithfulness we took for granted.

Why an Annual Rhythm Helps

Most of us want to reflect, but vague intentions rarely turn into practice. Reflection happens most consistently when it becomes a rhythm—something we return to year after year.

There’s nothing special about when you reflect. What matters is that you do.

An annual rhythm—whether tied to a birthday, the end of the year, or another marker—creates a container. It gives us permission to pause long enough to ask honest questions and sit with real answers.

Structure can help here. Thoughtful questions don’t restrict reflection; they make it safer. They guide us from general feelings to specific memories, from self-criticism to compassion, from exhaustion to clarity.

Looking Back So We Can Move Forward

Reflection isn’t about staying stuck in the past. It’s what allows us to step into the future with intention rather than reaction.

When we take time to process what has been, preparation becomes gentler and wiser. We begin to ask:

—What rhythms do I need to carry forward?

—What needs to be released?

—Where might God be inviting rest, courage, or change?

For cross-cultural workers—whose futures often include uncertainty—this kind of preparation can be deeply stabilizing.

An Invitation

So consider this an invitation.

Not because it’s the end of the year. Not because I had a birthday. But because your life and work deserve to be noticed.

An annual rhythm of reflection—however simple—can help you see where God has been present, honor what this year has held, and step into what comes next with greater clarity and peace.

Sometimes, tending our souls is the most faithful work we can do.

I create a “reflect and prepare” packet designed specifically for cross-cultural workers and you can get it at Global Trellis.

When You Are in the Low

I am not prone to depression, but I am related to people who are. That is not to say that I haven’t had times of despondency related to situation, but I that I understand how for some, depression or seasons—long seasons—of being in the low are a part of life.

No one wants to be in the low.

In January 2024 Global Trellis conducted a survey asking people on field what they worried could jeopardize them being on the field. Out of the eleven areas reported, mental and emotional health were in the top three. (You can read the full report here.) Though mental and emotional health involve more than depression, what can you do instead of hiding your true state or pressing through in those seasons of what author Justin McRoberts and illustrator Scott Erickson call “the low?”

Their recent book In the Low: Honest Prayers for Dark Seasons is a welcome companion for those seasons. The book is divided into five sections with each section beginning with a short essay and then prayers and art related to that area.

The five sections are:

—Reconnecting to Where I am Today
—Reconnecting to What Happened to Me
—Reconnecting to What I am a Part of
—Reconnecting to What I Value
—Reconnecting to What is Ahead of Me

Here are two sample prayers. I love how each prayer includes an illustration (really a piece of art) to meditate on. When you are in the low it is hard to read long passages and concentrate, so bit sized words with an image to linger on, feels doable.

Whether you are prone to depression or not, this book is one that you should get now, before you’re in the low. We’re all going to be there at some point, how better to honor our humanness than to be prepared for it with resources that respect the reality and help connect us to God.

And if you’re in leadership or member care? This book needs to be added to your toolbox. Not “consider adding it”; add it.

As Curt Thompson said on the back of the book, “With In the Low, Scott Erickson and Justin McRoberts have offered the world an artifact of beauty and brevity, ushering us into that chambers of our interior lives that God has occupied from before the foundation of the world.”

Rethinking Capacity on the Mission Field: It’s Not About Doing More

When we talk about “capacity” on the mission field, most of us instinctively think about productivity. We equate capacity with how much we can accomplish in a day, how many people we can meet with, how many language classes we can attend, or how many ministry projects we can juggle at once.

It feels natural to measure our worth—and even our obedience—by what we do. And when the pressures of ministry stack up, the unspoken mantra becomes, “If I can just do a little more, push a little harder, then I’ll be okay.”

But what if that’s not what capacity is really about?

The Hidden Cost of “Just Doing More”

Take Sarah, a young worker adjusting to her first assignment overseas. She started strong—meeting locals, teaching classes, showing up for every opportunity. But within months, she found herself exhausted, irritable, and questioning her calling. Her solution? Push harder.

That’s often our default. But “just doing more” doesn’t create capacity; it drains it. And for many of us serving cross-culturally, that mindset leads not to fruitfulness, but to burnout.

A New Way to Think About Capacity

Jenilee Goodwin, who helped shape the Capacity Series Discussion & Activity Guide, reminds us that capacity is more than output. It’s a delicate, living balance of being and doing.

Being is who you are—your identity, your soul care, your spiritual depth.
Doing is what you bring to the world—your work, your responsibilities, your contributions.

If we only emphasize doing, we end up hollow, scattered, and depleted. If we only emphasize being, we risk disengagement or neglect of the good work set before us. True capacity grows when being and doing are in rhythm.

Learning to Notice What Shapes Capacity

One of the simple but profound tools Jenilee shares is “spoon theory.” Imagine that every day you start with a certain number of spoons—units of energy. Every task, every stressor, every cultural challenge takes a spoon. And some things—rest, prayer, laughter, connection—add spoons back.

On the field, it’s easy to underestimate how many spoons cultural adaptation, language learning, grief, or transition quietly steal from us. Recognizing these influences isn’t weakness—it’s wisdom.

When Sarah began mapping her “spoons,” she realized her exhaustion wasn’t failure. It was her body and spirit signaling that she had been spending spoons without replenishing them. That awareness became her first step toward healthier rhythms.

What Capacity Really Looks Like

Healthy capacity isn’t a superhuman worker who never slows down. It’s the seasoned teammate who:

Knows when to pause instead of powering through.
Creates space to grieve losses rather than ignoring them.
Practices boundaries that protect rest and relationships.
Invites others into the work through mentorship and delegation.

Capacity isn’t “more, faster, harder.” It’s sustainable strength rooted in God’s presence, mindful rhythms, and community.

Growing Capacity Together

This is why the Capacity Series Discussion & Activity Guide was created—not as another thing to do, but as a framework to help teams and individuals reflect, share, and grow.

The guide gives you:

Discussion questions that spark honest conversations about energy, stress, and calling.
Creative activities (yes, sometimes with sticky notes and coloring!) that help you visualize what drains and restores you.
Flexibility to walk through it in four focused sessions or over twelve slower weeks.

It’s less about adding content and more about creating conversations that matter.

The Hope of a Different Way

Back to Sarah. After walking through the series with her teammates, she stopped asking, “How can I do more?” and started asking, “What restores me? Where is God inviting me to pause? How can I invite others in?”

Her capacity didn’t magically multiply overnight. But she discovered small, steady shifts—building rest into transitions, naming grief instead of burying it, practicing the “one-minute pause” when her mind felt overrun. She began to live with a margin that made her ministry sustainable again.

That’s the hope of reframing capacity. It’s not about perfection or endless energy. It’s about tending your soul alongside your service, so your “yes” in ministry can endure.

Final Thoughts

If you’ve been equating capacity with productivity, you’re not alone. Most of us default there. But true capacity—the kind that sustains long-term cross-cultural life—has less to do with output and more to do with balance.

Capacity is being and doing. It’s recognizing what drains us and what fills us. It’s giving ourselves permission to rest, grieve, and connect. And it’s trusting that God enlarges our capacity not through striving, but through rhythms that align us with Him.

So next time you catch yourself thinking, “I just need to do more,” pause. Breathe. Ask instead, “What would restore me right now? What would reconnect me to who I am in Christ?”

That is where true capacity begins.

You can read the articles here and get the guide here. This resource is great for personal reflection and team meetings :).

Dance Party with Toast

Friends, I was pursuing some old pieces of writing from when I first started blogging and came across this gem :). Anyone else have some toast memories?

Yesterday I bought a new toaster. I expected to enjoy toast this morning but have been surprised by the memories that have popped up as well!

When I first came to China bread was hard to come by. Usually we had it only when we baked some in a little toaster oven. No small feat, which is why we didn’t have it all that often. The bread we made was decent, but variety only came in the form of adding different combination of spices to the white flour dough. Trust me, there is only so much you can do with rosemary, oregano, thyme and Italian Spice!

One Friday night about ten of us foreigners rented the hall on the second floor of the guest house I lived in to have a dance party. Now, when you read “hall” try to picture “big empty room with a few small tables and folding chairs.” In good mid-90’s China style, the floor was mopped using only water and a tired mop that just pushed the dirt around, the walls were green on the bottom half and white on the top, and a few exposed light bulbs hung from the ceiling (half of which were burnt out). Rats were known for being on that side of the building because of the restaurant on the first floor. In all fairness, rats were known for being on all sides of that building, but they were not going to stop a good dance party. Not on that night.

In preparation we hauled our boom box and stack of tapes up to the dingy room and got ready to party like it was 1999, a freakishly futuristic time. You can guess the options for entertainment were few if this was how ten young people spent a Friday night, and you would be right.

Often the highlight of any good party is in the snacks. Someone (and this little detail has not popped back up in my memory) had a toaster! How that person had that miracle piece of equipment in a city that didn’t even have bread is a mystery – most likely it was brought in from Hong Kong –but there it was at our dance party.

More time was spent in the corner making and eating toast than actually dancing. Because only two pieces could be toasted at a time, there were those waiting for toast, those enjoying toast, and those who wondered how long they needed to wait until their next round of toast. Oh the comments and the joy at eating one of the ultimate comfort foods of western society!

The snack had become the favored guest.

Dance we did! Swirling around and marveling that we had hit the jackpot and were eating actual toast. In the land of rice and spice and chopsticks, for one brief night we had bread and toppings and knives. All because we were eating … toast.

What toast memories did this bring back for you? Please share in the comments and we can have our own toast party!

What You May Not Know

Someone near and dear to me, we’ll call her Marla, is fighting an up hill battled at her church to keep you—those on the field—remembered and cared for.

Over the years, pastors have come and gone. Some for natural, understandable reasons and some for reasons that have left hurt, confusion, and chaos in their wake.

Being on the field for any period of time, you are familiar with the ebbs and flows and changes that occur in your sending church or churches. It’s a familiar story for missionaries to be sent to the field from a well-connected and known position. Equally familiar, as the years go by, leadership changes and with new leadership might come new focuses or priorities. You’ve probably experienced a church that sent you with a financial committed that either increased or decreased over the years as your needs, their ability, and their priorities change.

So far, I haven’t said anything new or revolutionary. You know this. I know this.

Lead pastors have come and gone. Mission pastors have come and gone. What the “mission committee” looks like has morphed over the years. They are currently needing to hire several new key staff members at the church and may be shifting who is “responsible” for missions and missionaries around again.

Marla is one of the people at her church who has stayed the same over the years. She’s the one who knows your name, knows your ministry, prays for your kids, and does her best to create opportunities for you to share when you are on furlough.

I have been thinking about her. Probably the majority of the missionaries sent from their church have no idea the meetings she schedules with the pastors, advocating for missionaries. They don’t know of the “battles” (why does it have to feel like it takes so much energy, effort, and girding of loins) on your behalf. Marla reads through the budget and speaks up when your needs might be overlooked and under budgeted. They would be surprised to know that she’s paid a price on their behalf because she’s done it quietly, faithfully, and without a title. So, few know. Most do not.

I share this to remind you that one of the challenges of living far away from those who sent you, is that you probably don’t know of the quiet, faithful souls who are advocating on your behalf. They take partnership with you and God seriously and count it a privilege to be a part of your ministry.

Today, let’s pause, and thank God for those faithful servants like Marla. If you’re thinking, “I don’t have anyone like that.” You probably do, you just don’t know it—because that’s how they roll. Thank God for those who have stood in the gap for you—unseen, unpaid, and unwavering.

HALT-B: I don’t do all that well with tired

It’s the time of year for travel. For some, winter trips, for others, summer, for all, a chance for a melt-down.

Traveling is a perfect time to use HALT-B. You can easily tick it off on your fingers:

—Hungry
—Angry
—Lonely
—Tired
—or Bored

HALT-B stands for things that can lead us to make poor choices. Poor choices can lead to sin and distance and shame and regret. While none of us are at our best when we are hungry-angry-lonely-tired-or-bored, some will be easier to roll with than others.

The granddaddy of them all for me

When I’m lonely, yeah I’m lonely but I’m not as likely to do something that I will later regret and potentially have to confess. When I’m hungry I can get a bit testy; but the granddaddy of them all is when I’ve had a long day and all I want to do is go to bed. I am not at my most lovely late at night. To say I’m not a night person would be, um, a colossal understatement.

For me, it’s when I’m tired that I’m most likely to say something that I know—usually immediately—I shouldn’t have said.

Here’s an example that involved traveling. It had been a long day (note to self, pay attention!) and I had returned to my hotel from a hot-pot banquet with about an hour before bed. A friend at the banquet later emailed me that I looked tired near the end, but she didn’t think anyone but her had noticed. I’ll be honest, whether I looked tired or not was the least of my concerns during the meal! As the guest I kept getting served lots of organ meat. My primary concern around the communal hot-pot wasn’t whether they thought I was tired, but whether or not the hosts were noticing how much pig’s stomach I was trying to hide in my dipping sauce!

So, yes, I was tired and ready for bed.

When I got back to the hotel another co-worker called because she had had a rough day and needed to process it a bit. I like this co-worker and am glad to walk through the up’s and down’s of growth and change. She was sick and when she’s not at her best (HALT-B), she can be extreme in the way she talks. Her health will NEVER recover. She’s a burden to everyone she’s ever met. Darth Vader had more friends than she does.

When she gets like this I can usually use mild sarcasm to reflect back to her the absurdity of her statements. Note the use of the word ‘mild.’ Tiredness can take mild and—if I’m not careful, bypass moderate and land on caustic—sarcasm before Princess Leia’s hair comes into it! (Why did she have to reference Darth Vader, I annoyingly wondered!)

That evening I was cruising towards caustic when she rightly said, “Wow, you’re a bit sarcastic tonight.”

She was more than a bit generous and gentle. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit confirmed her admonition and I was able to dial it back to mild. I know I don’t do well with tired. Late at night I’m good in a crisis, not in a deep conversation and if I’m not on guard, what starts off as merely a foolish choice of words can end in blatant, distance causing sin. Confession can be made and distance closed, yes. However, how much lighter and freer to be able to go to bed or face the next morning without regret.

As you get ready to travel, which is your greatest stumbling block: hungry, angry, lonely, tired, or bored? Knowing which one is likely to lead you to be less-than-your-lovely-self can help you prepare, especially on the road!

The Gift of Guestpitality

What comes to mind when you hear the phrase “the gift of hospitality?” Maybe hosting, cooking, inviting, followed by eating, talking, and belonging . . . I tend to forget about the final phase of hosting, the clean up that’s involved! You probably also think about those who are coming and the hopes you have for an event.

While I value, believe in, and understand what a gift hospitality can be, I don’t have it. I used to avoid the subject and try not role my eyes when “the gift of hospitality” was mentioned at basically every women’s event, cynically doubting it was mentioned as frequently at men’s events. I digress, refocusing, what does it take to host? Guests!

Today I’m giving a shoutout to a gift that was never specifically named in the Bible. While I won’t go so far as to say it was an oversight, I can say with confidence I wish it were mentioned in the Bible. What gift am I referring to? The gift of guestpitality.

I became email friends with a fellow missionary after she and her family had relocated to Kansas in the United States. While I don’t live in Kansas, I travel through on occasion. We hoped that someday I could be a guest in her home and I said how much I love being a guest.

I went on to add that as outgoing and friendly as I am, in general I do not enjoy having people in my space, so I appreciate that she’d have me in her home. Instead, I (far) prefer being in other people’s space. If I recall our interaction correctly, she’s the one who coined the term “guestpitality.” As someone who enjoys hosting and having people in her home, she said that she loves when guests know how to be good guests.

A lightbulb went off.

I have the gift of guestpitality. Preferring to be a guest instead of a host isn’t a detriment! It isn’t a weakness. It can be a gift (thanks be to God, the giver of all good gifts!). Like all gifts, a preference isn’t a pass to not do something. Can I host? Yes. Do I host? Yes. So, you may prefer to host, but can you be a guest? Yes. Are you sometimes a guest? Of course.

Culture comes through loud and clear in hosting and guesting. (Can I get an “Amen!”) Once visiting a Chinese friend’s house, the cook came out of the kitchen saying dinner was ready. I cheerfully said I was hungry and how much I was looking forward to dinner; the room erupted in laughter. Nothing lets you know you’ve made a faux pas like three generations of a family laughing at you :)!

So, when I share a few principles of guestitality, adapt them for your cultural context. These are principles, not hard fast rules. The point is, we’ve all been around people who seemed oblivious to their impact on a gathering, or worse, when it comes to being a guest they are “aware but don’t care.”

Here’s the definition and 3 principles of Guestpitality:

Guestpitality is the practice of entering another’s space with warmth, awareness, and generosity of spirit.

One practicing the gift of guestptitality is able to:

1. Be grateful and present. In an age when so often people multitask or are tied to their phone, good guest are present and give off the vibe that they are glad to be there.

2. Pitch in when possible. Does the table need to be set? Does the cook need company in the kitchen? You don’t need to overthink or worry about this, it’s more the attitude that you are willing to serve.

3. See guestpitality as a kind of hospitality itself. You are able to add to the space and time as a “sweet aroma of Christ.”

I have no doubt I created a memory for my friend and her family. But it’s not just because I culturally blew it. I explained that being a good guest in my passport country “required” me to express my appreciation for the host cooking a meal and one way to do that was by saying I was hungry. They graciously explained that was not how guests behaved in their country and we all had a good laugh. (And I learned how to be a better guest at my next meal!)

Whether you have the gift of guestpitality or not, we will all be guests at some point. Here’s a prayer I wrote for us to use the next time we are invited to someone’s home.

A Prayer of Guestpitality (For the Guest, Before Entering a Home)

O God of welcome and warmth,
As I approach this door, prepare my heart.

Let me enter not with assumption,
but with appreciation.
Not to be served,
but to honor the hands that have opened this space to me.

Make me mindful of the gift of invitation,
the quiet cost of hospitality,
and the sacredness of another’s home.

May I bring peace into these rooms—
peace in my words, in my posture, in my presence.

Let me tread lightly, speak graciously,
and carry gratitude in every gesture.

Guard me from being a unnecessary burden,
allowing me to notice moments where I can be a blessing.
Help me leave behind
my pride, my distractions, and my hurry.

May I receive whatever is offered,
food, rest, conversation, silence
as enough, as holy, as grace.

And when it is time to go,
may I leave with a full heart.

Amen.

Goodbye Liturgy

When asked what’s challenging about being a missionary, one of the top responses is “all of the goodbyes.” Between changing assignments, medical situations, home assignments, family needs, and the Lord redirecting, we say a lot of goodbyes.

Having a goodbye liturgy helps to combat goodbye fatigue and keep your heart tender to receive those who will enter the next chapter of your life.

While this can be used at any time, with the end of the academic year around the corner, I’ve been thinking about the goodbyes you’ll be saying.

Here’s how to use the Goodby Liturgy:

1—Set a time to officially “say goodbye.” Even if some are resistant or say they are too busy, this is important.

2—It’s okay to start off your time by saying, “This is hard to do.” It’s good to name this.

3—The first part of the Goodbye Liturgy is an Active Lament. Depending on the person and situation, your active lament can involve any of these parts of a lament: address, complain, request, and praise/thanks.

Address: You can simply state what is happening. Your TCK is leaving the nest and taking the next step of further study or getting a job. Parents are aging an in need of your physical presence. God is redirecting and opening doors. Often there are reasons that might not be appropriate to share in all settings like organizational politics or shifting beliefs. If you can’t address those reasons in a public setting, find ways you can address them.

Complain: You can complain about what you’ll miss or the injustice of why someone is needing to leave.

Request: What do you request from God or the person after they leave?

Praise/Thanks: Name a few of the ways that you are grateful this time for the Goodbye Liturgy

4—The second part of the Goodbye Liturgy allows all parties present express at least these three things:

a. What growth you have seen in the person who is leaving
b. What longings you have for the departing member
c. How the departing member has changed your life

5—The final part is a short blessing for the person who is leaving

The goodbyes get old, very old. I’m reminded of Galatians 6: 8-10.

“Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

The goodbyes get old, but if you use this Goodbye Liturgy (or some other way of leaning into the goodbyes), you will reap a harvest. As you read this article, think through of the goodbyes you have in the upcoming months and pull out your calendar or send a text to get a Goodbye Liturgy on your calendar. This is too important of an opportunity to get lost before the departure date.

Expectations and Burnout

As we were wrapping up last month’s Sabbatical Journey Course zoom, one of the participants said, “I want to talk about expectations at our next meeting.”

I asked him if he’d heard of the book Expectations and Burnout: Women Surviving the Great Commission. He hadn’t. Now, don’t let the “women” lull you into thinking this book doesn’t have something to offer to each of us!

First published in 2010 and written by Sue Eenigenburg and Robynn Bliss, this is my go-to book when it comes to expectations and cross-cultural service. It might be considered an oldie, but it most definitely is a goodie!

If you haven’t heard of us, please get a copy right now. In preparation for this month’s Sabbatical Journey Course zoom, I pulled the book out yesterday and was reminded of the wisdom it contains. The book is based on research conducted by Sue with Robynn providingpersonal anecdotes to flesh out the points.

The book covers six areas related to expectations:

1. Expectations and Yourself

2. Expectations and Your Sending Church

3. Expectations and Your Agency

4. Expectations and Fellow Cross-Cultural Workers

5. Expectations and National Friends and Host Culture

6. Expectations and God

I’d forgotten that the book comes with a 34-question resource that you can use to gauge your own expectations you have of yourself. In addition, the chapter on Expectations and God also touches on when God disappoints.

Maybe because the book has been around “so long,” it’s easy to assume that everyone’s heard of it. If you haven’t heard of Expectations and Burnout before now, no worries and welcome to the party. This is a book you’re going to want to add to your library.

Shout out other books in the comments that might have been around for a while and are worth reading.