Author: Anita Rahma

Before coming to the field, I had glowing ideals for what being part of a ministry team would be like. Perhaps you did, too. I dreamed of serving long term alongside mature men and women of God, who would go through trials together for the sake of Christ and come out on the other side bonded together with lots of fruit to show for it all.

Then I landed in Indonesia and reality struck. The team of five adults that I joined disintegrated within four months, leaving just me and one other teammate. My dreams of serving together long term with that particular group of people were shattered. And over the past fifteen years, as teammates have come and gone, I continue to wrestle with the concept of team.

People come and go for all sorts of reasons. Often, the reasons that call expat friends back home are totally outside of their control: a dad got brain cancer, an aging mother needed to go on dialysis, visa trouble caused chaos, a mental health crisis required more help, and the list could go on. 

I naively turned to having Indonesian teammates instead of Westerners, expecting team dynamics to be “easier” in some ways. Surely doing ministry together with Indonesians would provide more longevity than working with foreigners. 

Except it didn’t. In fact, doing team with Indonesian Christians led to much more stress and disappointment than I ever anticipated. No matter how hard I tried to bond with my Indonesian teammates, there seemed to remain a barrier. A “transactional” relationship, instead of a relational relationship. The Bible school graduates that we recruited needed a job, and the ministry was a job. And deception, stealing, mistrust, addictions, and heartbreak ensued. I still deeply believe in serving alongside brothers and sisters in Christ who are from Indonesia, but it has not been an easy journey. 

Over the years, team drama has sucked energy, time, and resources that perhaps would have been better spent actually building relationships with people who do not yet know Christ. Which has led me to where I am today, wondering is ministering in teams even worth it?? Perhaps you can resonate with this question, too?

In Scripture, we see that Jesus sent his disciples out two by two (you can read the story in Mark 6:7-13). Surely there was a reason the Lord did not send them out alone, but instead as teams of two. And the apostle Paul worked together with a variety of people: Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, John Mark, and Priscilla and Aqilla are names that come to mind. I can believe in my head that Christ calls us to work together with other believers, but the nitty-gritty of doing life together with others is challenging.

Team dynamics can be hard. But to be fair, good relationships always take work. Giving and receiving. Sacrificing and benefiting. Conversations and conflict. So I really still believe that there is a reason the Lord sends us out in teams, not as lone rangers on our own. It is because we need other believers to practice the “one-anothers” with. 

The New Testament is filled with over twenty commands that are all about interacting with “one another,” such as:

• Love one another (John 13:34-35)
• Live in harmony with one another (Rom. 12:16)
• Serve one another (Gal. 5:13)
• Bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2)
• Encourage and bear one another up (1 Thess. 5:11)
• Be kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another (Eph. 4:32)

And there are so many more.

But the team is not meant to be an idol. There is no such thing as a perfect team, because it is made up of humans and no human is perfect. I have had to confess my unrealistic ideals for a team and fall on my knees wondering what God is teaching me through this whole team journey. 

I have learned that a ministry team is not meant to be your church. When possible, it is still a good idea to plug into a larger body of believers to walk out practicing these “one another” commands, too. 

I have also learned that team can be beautiful. Sharing laughter, sharing tears, sharing meals, sharing memories, sharing a heart for the people we serve. 

Ultimately, I must remember to put my hope in Jesus. He knows firsthand the heartbreak of being abandoned, betrayed, and lied about — by his team of disciples. And yet He still washed their feet before going to the cross. And He still forgave them and equipped them with the Holy Spirit to send them out to share with others. 

I am also a sinner, in need of this crazy foot-washing grace every day. I am also in need of the Lord’s forgiveness over and over again. And I need to be rooted in Christ’s love — for myself, for my team, and for those who do not yet know the Lord. 

So I do not think I can give up on team. Not yet anyway. 

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

We had just arrived home after more than twenty-four hours of travel. Crossing an ocean and multiple continents, we were literally halfway around the world from where we had hugged my parents goodbye in the D.C. airport. 

We have only been gone two months, surely not much could be different, I thought. Time in the slum community where we live often seems like the movie Groundhog Day, where each day is similar — lived over and over again with slight variations. Children hollered out greetings as we drove into the community. Welcome home.

I had been mostly composed during the days leading up to our goodbyes. I often save my tears for just my journal — or my husband’s shoulder. 

But when we got to our house and started sweeping, in the liminal space of jetlag and crossing cultures, I found myself at the end of my rope. There was dirt along the edges of the room. Not dust, but dirt. We moved a small bookcase aside and found lots of dirt. Oh no. Opening the bookshelf revealed termites, chomping away at my carefully collected and saved books. 

I spent the next two hours, tears falling down my cheeks, going through the bookshelves book by book, assessing the damage, wiping off termite dirt, and sorting what was salvageable. I could literally hear the termites eating, crunch crunch crunching their way through our books.

“I’m so overwhelmed,” I told my husband.

I wiped snot off my nose, tearfully throwing the book This Isn’t What I Expected away. The irony of the title and the situation did manage to elicit a laugh out of me.

This is not what I expected coming home. What other surprises are awaiting us?

In the first two weeks back, it turned out that other unexpected things happened. Such as seven electricity blackouts in the course of two weeks, sometimes lasting for hours at a time. I know this is common in many parts of the world, but in our neighborhood this is unusual and presents all sorts of challenges. No electricity means no water, no fans, and no sleep — all in the midst of juggling jetlag and culture-shocked kids.

Then our best friend told us unexpectedly that she was moving. She was our next-door-neighbor and person-of-peace into this neighborhood for the past thirteen years. She helped us in countless ways over the years: with language learning, cultural insights, raising our children, and being a faithful friend. What will life be like here without her? I wondered. 

The next day we helped her and her son pack a van with all their movable belongings and leave. My tears fell freely that day. It was another invitation to trust in the Lord, to lean not on my own understanding. 

And while I do not have a crystal ball, and I cannot see the future, I do know that there will continue to be hard things as we seek to follow God in this place. And that is ok. I am not in control, but I trust in a God who is loving and kind and who promises to be with us through the hard things. 

Almost a month has passed since our return, and things are feeling more settled now. My sons are back in school, the house has been repainted and thoroughly cleaned (including caulking the cracks in the walls to hopefully discourage termites from entering), and we are past the worst of the jetlag fog.

As I am re-entering life in this familiar place, I am praying for wisdom. How should I use my time? After two months away, what roles should I jump back into and what roles should I let others carry? What is the invitation from the Lord in this next ministry term? 

My brother and his wife recently moved to Taiwan to serve long term. I had the opportunity to share at their commissioning service. I shared with them that international workers are not super humans. We too are sinners, in need of God’s grace daily. We can share about God’s love and forgiveness only as we remember that we ourselves are recipients of it. We are not called to save the world; we are called to point people to Jesus. He is the savior of the world. Not us. 

Many of us have been raised to care deeply about fighting the injustices in the world, working for peace and reconciliation, and caring for the poor. These are all good things, and we deeply believe that whatever we do for the least of these we do for Jesus. And yet, we need to remember that we are not the saviors. 

We must let Jesus fill us each day and trust that doing small acts with great love is important in the heavenly economy. In trying to follow Jesus cross-culturally, we will come to the end of ourselves. And as we find ourselves on our knees, in weeping, in anger, or perhaps in fear — that is a moment of grace. A moment when we realize how small all our best efforts are. A moment when we realize we still need God. The truth is, these moments are perhaps the most important part of serving internationally.

So wherever you are on the cross-cultural journey, whether just embarking or returning after many years of service, may you too hear the invitation of God’s grace, especially in the moments when you feel overwhelmed by the realities of the choices you have made. When the termites — literal or figurative — seem to be eating through your life, may the Lord meet you and sustain you.

Photo by Michał Lis on Unsplash

Mita was seven years old. She had been out sick from our kindergarten program for over a week. When we went and checked on her, we decided it was time to take her to a hospital. A fever and lingering cough had left her weak. My husband literally carried her up the stairs to the pediatric department of the hospital. 

The next day we got her diagnosis: active tuberculosis. We helped her get registered to receive the free cocktail of four antibiotics from the nearby government health clinic. Her mother faithfully helped Mita take her drugs for the next six months. She gained weight and recovered, and Mita is still alive and healthy today — now twelve years later! 

Until encountering Mita, I naively thought tuberculosis (TB) was a disease of the past — or at least a disease of “somewhere else” or “someone else.” Now the deceptive veil had been lifted, and I learned over the course of the following months and years that TB is all-too common in the world today. It is especially common in Indonesia, the country with the second highest number of active TB cases in the world (India has the highest number). It seems like every family had an uncle, a grandma, a child, or a neighbor who had died from TB.  

Tuberculosis showed up recently in my family’s bedtime reading. In Laura Ingalls Wilder’s By the Shores of Silver Lake, Pa helps a settler who is sick with “consumption.” The settler had moved out West for the “prairie cure” but was still skin-and-bones and needed to return East to his family for the winter. As I read to my two boys, I reflected on another book I had finished reading recently: Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green. When Laura Ingalls Wilder penned her book in 1939, she still lived in a world where “consumption” was untreatable. Unfortunately, now a century after Laura’s book, we still live in a world where over a million people die of TB each year. How can this be?

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John Green shares the fascinating history of global TB. He also eloquently highlights the complexities and injustices that have allowed TB to still be the infectious disease that kills the most people every year. 

Tuberculosis used to be believed to be a hereditary disease. In fact, for many centuries in Western societies, TB was partly glorified — it was thought to be a sign of intelligence and sophistication. Kings, artists, authors, and many famous people died of tuberculosis. It was not until 1882 that Dr. Robert Koch in Germany discovered that TB was a bacteria. 

It took another sixty years until the first antibiotic was discovered that could help fight TB. And since the 1950s, most developed countries have been very successful at fighting TB. The combination of mobile x-ray clinics and treatment with four antibiotics effectively lowered the rates of TB in the USA by 90%. Now, most people in developed countries have the luxury of living with the illusion that TB is a thing of the past. Tragically, this is not true for the majority of people in the world. 

Living in this slum community, where my family has made our home for the past thirteen years, I know this is true. I not only read facts about TB from a book about TB; I see the faces of students and their families. I remember friends whom we have successfully helped to receive TB treatment. I also remember the long lines, the heated conversations with doctors, and the devastating disappointments that were all wrapped up in trying to help people access TB treatment. Some people survived. Others stopped treatment and literally coughed themselves to death. 

I found my voice joining in with the cry of John Green, “How can I accept a world where over a million people will die this year for want of a cure that has existed for nearly a century?” (page 191). Because now, tuberculosis is no longer considered a disease of intelligent artists — it is stereotyped as a disease of poverty. Green writes:

It is an illness of poverty that worsens poverty. It’s an illness that worsens other illnesses- from HIV to diabetes. It’s an illness of weak healthcare systems that weakens healthcare systems. It’s an illness of malnutrition that worsens malnutrition. And it’s an illness of the stigmatized that worsens stigmatization. In the face of all this, it’s easy to despair. TB doesn’t just flow through the meandering river of injustice; TB broadens and deepens that river. (page 195)

As I reflect on reading this book, it seems all too close to home. My own son has been coughing for months and months. We are on a medical quest to try to reach a diagnosis and effective treatment. I am very aware that many of my friends and neighbors have no such access to good medical treatment. And part of me cringes with the underlying fear that my own son might have TB. 

As we await more tests and clarity, I cling to the truth that God is a healing God, who desires no one to suffer from tuberculosis or other illnesses. We live in a fallen world, a broken world. We all know this. We see brokenness all around us — in our friends, our co-workers, and in ourselves. And we see our physical bodies wearing down, getting older, fighting against viruses and bacteria that one day will be done away with. 

Perhaps many of you reading this live in a country where you have encountered people who are sick with tuberculosis (see the top 10 countries here). Or perhaps you have never met someone fighting TB. My invitation to all of us is to educate ourselves about TB. Learn what the local government is doing (and not yet doing). Perhaps you could help train small groups in your community to look out for basic TB symptoms, (The CDC provides basic 101 TB education here.) Perhaps you could encourage a neighbor to get tested– or even accompany them along to the doctor to help advocate for them. 

Additionally, as cross-cultural workers, do not forget to get checked for TB yourself. An IGRA blood test (also known as “TB-Spot”) can detect if you carry the bacteria. A chest x-ray can help catch active pulmonary cases. Even if you do not have any symptoms, it is good practice to get checked every couple of years if you think you have been exposed. TB can be “latent” in your body for years, causing no symptoms, but then become active at a later time.

There are many “Mitas” around us. Many people who are lacking the emotional (and financial) support to get the help they need to receive a TB diagnosis and start on life-saving drugs. Let’s work together to help make TB into a disease of history.

As John Green ends his book, he challenges his readers: “A preventable, curable infectious disease remains our deadliest. That’s the world we are currently choosing. But we can choose a different world. In fact, we will choose a different world. The world will be different a generation from now. The question is whether we will look back in gratitude at the virtuous cycles, or in horror at the vicious ones” (page 222). 

Work Cited

Green, John. Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection. Large print edition. Crash Course Books, 2025.

For more information and resources, check out TB Fighters: https://tbfighters.org/

Photo by CDC on Unsplash

We were “supposed” to get on a plane to go to the States by May 1st. We were planning to be there in person for my dad’s 65th birthday. We were looking forward to a relaxing few months together of summer splash-pools, children’s museums, and breathing in the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley.

Except we didn’t get on the plane. We never even bought the tickets.

We are still in Indonesia.

As fellow expats reading this, my guess is you can relate to the reality that we often feel torn between worlds. We sometimes need to change our plans. We have to learn to be flexible. Often, we wish to be in two places at once. We feel like we need to be on both sides of the world!

In this recent case for our family, our plans to the States were interrupted by rumors connected to policemen and government officials visiting our neighborhood. The slum community where we have been living and serving for over a decade seems to be under threat of a coming eviction and demolition. How could we dare get on a plane when the community we have poured our hearts into could be destroyed in the coming weeks?

When I joined Servants fifteen years ago, I knew that eviction was a reality faced by slum communities around the world. I have already experienced the heartbreak of one such eviction, which I wrote about in my first book Beyond Our Walls. But as we served year after year in this “new” slum community, we have been lulled into feeling safe from any such threat.

Yet there are no guarantees. In fact, part of the definition of a slum community is lacking “security of tenure.”¹ In other words, slum communities are housing with insecure residential status.

It is one thing to know this in my head; it is quite another to have to explain it to my two boys before we go to sleep at night. This place where we have grown our family, where we have planted a mango tree and now eat the sweet fruit, where we have laughed and cried and wrestled with God — will it all really become a pile of rubble? Will God really allow that?

Perhaps a younger version of myself would have answered confidently: “Surely eviction will not happen!! God will protect our ministry. He will protect the poor and downtrodden. Not a stone will fall. God will miraculously intervene.”

But I find myself sure now that those prior statements are not where the answer lies. Regardless of whether we are evicted or not, the Lord is in control. “Our ministry,” “our plans,” “our dreams” can all too easily become an idol. In fact, the image of God I create can become an idol. God is bigger than what I can believe. God is greater than any theology I can box Him into. God is God.

And I am not.

Yes, I still firmly believe that the Lord cares for the poor and downtrodden. I cling to the truth that God loves my neighbors more than I can, that He desires what is best for them. But we live in a broken world, full of sin and corruption. The love of money has power over the hearts of many people — those in government halls of power and those in slum communities, too.

As I have wrestled in prayer these past months, I continue to pray that the Lord will sustain us. A song by Rend Collective is very appropriate at such a time as this:

Lord, whatever comes
Make me steadfast, make me rooted
A cedar planted firm, deeply grounded in Your goodness
Whatever comes

Lord, whatever comes
Be my bedrock, keep me steady
Loyal to Your throne, whatever stands against me
Whatever comes

Be my bravery when I am trembling
Be my courage when my heart is caving in
Be the fireside when I am wandering
Be my Father, whatever comes²

Living overseas is full of opportunities to grow in trusting God. Our trust is not that the Lord will keep difficult things from happening to us and those we love. Rather, the invitation is to embrace the promise that Jesus is with us in the valley, even when we are in the midst of the unknowns and the unsettling.

And that some day, all will be made right.

I have been obsessed with Amy Carmichael for many years, reading all her books that I could get my hands on (and inspiring the writing of my second book: Downward Discipleship: How Amy Carmichael Gave Me Courage to Serve in a Slum. However, now that I have run out of Amy books to read, I have recently turned to another author who also loved Amy’s writing: Elisabeth Elliott.

In her book These Strange Ashes, Elliott tells profound stories from her first year serving in Ecuador before she was married. She worked for months with a language friend Don Macario, who was helping teach her the Colorado language for Bible translation. One morning she heard a commotion outside and received news that Macario had been shot and murdered by land thugs. The only person she knew who could speak both Spanish and the Colorado language now lay murdered– he had been such an answer to prayer all these months.

How could God have let this happen?

Elisabeth described it as:

Lesson One for me in the school of faith. That is, it was my first experience of having to bow down before that which I could not possibly explain. Usually we need not bow. We can simply ignore the unexplainable because we have other things to occupy our minds. We sweep it under the rug. We evade the questions. Faith’s most severe tests come not when we see nothing but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain. If God were God, if He were omnipotent, if He had cared, would this have happened?

She went on to quote a poem from Amy Carmichael:

But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness,
This baffling sense of loss?
Son, was the anguish of my stripping less
Upon the torturing cross?³

Somehow when all does not go according to our plan, when we are stranded in unknowns and heartbreaks, we are invited to trust God and to offer ourselves back to God. 

I pray that whatever season you are in and whatever side of the world you are on at the moment, the Lord will sustain you. And as our idols are stripped away, idols of control and even idols surrounding our image of how God “should” work, I pray that the Lord will reveal more of Himself in the midst of these strange ashes.

References
1. Prasad, Amid. “Urban Slum Population.” World Health Organization, World Health Organization, https://www.who.int/data/gho/indicator-metadata-registry/imr-details/2476. Accessed 15 May 2025.
2. Rend Collective. “”Whatever Comes.”” YouTube, 2017, https://youtu.be/vP_EyBhjFXI?si=OsTpa1iHjzcjRWhk. Accessed 16 May 2025.
3. Elliott, Elisabeth. These Strange Ashes: A Deeply Personal Account of Elisabeth Elliot’s First Year as a Missionary. Kindle ed., Grand Rapids, MI, Revell, 1998. Pages 137-139.

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

I moved to Indonesia as a single female, and I am so grateful for my parents who supported me wholeheartedly as I left for the field. I remember a conversation with my mother in the kitchen a few weeks before I left for my first three-year term.

“How long do you think you will stay?” she asked as she plunged a dish into soapy water.

“I don’t know. Maybe twenty years?” I replied, while rinsing and drying the dish.

Now, as a mother myself, I can only imagine the inner turmoil I put my parents through. I can only begin to grasp a tiny picture of what her mother’s heart felt as I said those words so glibly. I did not really understand how hard it was (and would continue to be) to send one’s child to live across an ocean and twelve time zones away. And then I got married and had children and that was a whole new sacrifice I was asking of my parents: to live far away from their grandchildren.

I am the oldest child, and my children were the first grandchildren on my side of the family. My mother gave me very serious instructions when my first son was born: “You must speak to this child in English! I have to be able to communicate with my grandchildren!” (She was worried we would continue only using Bahasa Indonesia in the home.)

Fast forward eleven years, and now I can proudly say that my children do speak English (and Bahasa Indonesia). I can also say that we have learned a few tricks over the years to help our children know their grandparents across the miles. I am sure many of you reading this have your own great ideas of how to build (or maintain) a relationship while overseas. I hope you will share them in the comments!  

A slight disclaimer: There are no “rules” about this; these are just things my family has tried over the years. These are shared not to make anyone feel guilty, but with the hope that these ideas could potentially be useful for someone reading this. Not only can they be used with grandparents, but also aunts, uncles, and good friends.

1. Reading together. My family loves books, and I have read to my children since their infancy. My mom wanted to read to her grandchildren– and she did not let the fact that we lived in Indonesia get in her way. At first, we used good old-fashioned video calls (this was back in the days of Skype) and she would hold up the picture-book while reading it. This required a bit of juggling and patience to make sure the picture was in the right place on the screen, but my children had many hours of Oma time this way.

We have since appreciated the wonders of newer technology– using the application Caribu, which allows both parties to read books together, while seeing each others’ video. When we got tired of the book options on Caribu, we started subscribing to Epic! (a great resource that has thousands of educational books, videos, and audios) and screen-sharing with Oma and Opa so they could read them to our boys.

2. Playing together. Children love games! There are many different ways to play games together online. One fairly new option is using FB messenger to play games while video-calling. GoFish, Mini-golf, and Exploding Kittens are some of the many options. We have found that it is helpful to make a weekly rhythm of once a week “Oma and Opa time.” Schedules can be so busy; it is great to have a set time to spend together.

3. Celebrate important events together. My mom has always loved making birthdays a special time. The fact that we are not physically present does not have to stand in the way. For birthdays, she bakes cakes for her grandsons, and we video call and let the birthday boy “blow out the candle.” For Christmas, Easter, and other holidays we make sure to video call.

4. Share your children’s growth together. Periodically, my parents ask for the heights of my boys. They can then mark it on a wall they have, to see how much they are growing. Of course, technology helps with sending photos and videos. School projects, school activities, and hobbies can also be documented. My boys like learning piano using the app Simply Piano, and the songs they play can easily be shared with Oma and Opa.

5. Cherish the time we are together (in the same place). My parents vowed that they would see their grandchildren in person at least once a year. This has meant many long flights to Asia, facing jet lag and culture shock each time. I am so grateful for their sacrifice of time and money to make visiting us a priority. Although it is hard to be apart the majority of the time, when we are together the time is precious and full. My mom has used the image of “fasting and feasting.”

When it is our turn to visit the States, the months there do feel like feasting. Soaking in clean air, comfort foods, playgrounds, and grandparent time. Regardless of whatever month it is, my mom likes to include the boys in family traditions. Dying Easter Eggs, carving pumpkins, baking and decorating Christmas cookies— these have been known to happen at random months in our family.

As my children continue to grow up in Indonesia, I am very grateful for the love and support they have received from their grandparents in America. Honestly, they have a closer relationship with their Oma and Opa than I did growing up in the same country with my grandparents! While it is still difficult to be so many time zones apart, with creativity and determination it is very possible for TCKs to have a strong relationship with their grandparents.

Photo by Holly Landkammer on Unsplash

Some of my earliest memories are of Christmas and the weeks leading up to it. The month of night-by-night burning Advent candles during family devotions, the holiday baking and decorating of cookies with my mom and siblings, the sacred feel of Christmas Eve service with candles and carols. Of course, it is all mixed up in my memories with snow, the smell of pine-tree Christmas trees in our living room, and a pile of gifts on Christmas morning. 

I was fourteen years old when my understanding of Christmas traditions began to shift. We had just moved to the Philippines, and now suddenly Christmas started in September (all of the “Ber” months). Stores blared Christmas carols, and decorations went up. All gift shopping needed to be done weeks in advance to avoid the sardine-like shopping conditions in malls. Homes displayed intricate festive decorations, including beautiful parol stars made of capiz shells (google it to see for yourself). My mom had remembered to pack our Advent wreath, so we carried on that tradition–as well as baking and decorating cookies.

I remember laughing with my family on Christmas day about how it was so hot that we could play tennis and go swimming–which we did. Snow was far away, and all the Christmas traditions tied up with Northern hemisphere weather began being stripped away from my expectations of the holiday. (We occasionally enjoyed indoor ice skating at Mega Mall, although not during the month of December.)

Fast-forward a few decades, and I am now grown, living with my own family and children in Indonesia. Christmas celebrations in Muslim-majority Indonesia are very different from the Philippines, which is predominantly Catholic. Christmas Day is a national holiday, but for most of my neighbors it is just that–one of the days off during “New Year’s break.”

It is rare to see homes with outside holiday decorations, although sometimes a plastic tree is visible from a window. Restaurants and malls may or may not display any acknowledgement of the holiday. Many Muslims in Indonesia feel uncomfortable even saying, “Merry Christmas” to their Christian neighbors, although some years our closest friends have come to our house to wish us a “happy holiday” and try our cookies. Most Christians attend church on Christmas Day, but for the most part, the Western tradition of gift-giving has not been adopted.

One tradition I have carried on with my family is using the Advent candles as a way to enter into the month before Christmas. Although we always have evening devotions as a family, something about lighting the Advent candles makes the month extra special–even if it takes some creativity to use candles and fans at the same time!

Over the years, the focus of Christmas has moved for me. No longer is it about snow, decorated trees, or gifts. The good news of Christmas is Christ. Christ coming to dwell with humanity–God with us. The season of Advent is a season of waiting, a time of remembering the years leading up to the first coming of Christ. As believers, we also prayerfully wait for Jesus’ second coming.

Advent is also a time of celebrating, of living into the good news that Jesus came to earth as a little baby, with all the vulnerability of a newborn. He came and lived and breathed and nursed and pooped and spit up on his mama’s shoulder. And while it might seem sacrilegious to imagine Jesus doing those things, that is the gist of Christmas–that God chose to become human, in all its messiness!

I love the book The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson (written in 1972). The story is about how the six Herdman children who come from a rough home end up as the lead characters in their town’s Christmas pageant and how it changes the experience of Christmas for many involved.

I think of this book often as we are teaching children in the slum community where we live and work. There are a few students that I must confess remind me of the Herdman children: they use bad language, cause trouble in class, wear dirty clothes, and are quick to fight with each other and with others. But it is for such as these that Jesus came to earth, not just for the little children memorizing Bible verses in Sunday school!

Having spent more Christmases in an Indonesian slum than probably anywhere else in my life, I now believe that Christmas is nothing like the Hallmark cards or Netflix holiday specials. I imagine Jesus being born in a shack like my neighbors live in. I see sheep on the field near our house, their coats dirtied black from picking through trash, and I remember how God chose humble shepherds to be the first witnesses to the miracle of Immanuel’s birth. As I journey with pregnant mamas in a weekly prenatal class, I wonder how it was for Mary, far from family and from her home.

I love the way Andrew Peterson portrays Mary in his Christmas song, “Labor of Love.”

It was not a silent night
There was blood on the ground
You could hear a woman cry
In the alleyways that night
On the streets of David’s town

And the stable was not clean
And the cobblestones were cold
And little Mary full of grace
With the tears upon her face
Had no mother’s hand to hold

It was a labor of pain
It was a cold sky above
But for the girl on the ground in the dark
With every beat of her beautiful heart
It was a labor of love

This year, wherever you are in the world, I pray that you will be held in the good news of Immanuel, God with us. Perhaps you are separated from loved ones by vast oceans. Perhaps you are missing the colder weather and comforting smell of homemade cookies.

As you reflect on how your understanding of Christmas has shifted over the years, I pray that you would have grace with yourself– to discern which traditions to let go of, and which are meaningful enough to figure out how to hold onto. And may you allow God to shift and grow your understanding of Christ’s birth. May you live into the good news of Jesus coming and be encouraged to share that story with others.

And as we seek to follow our Savior, may we, too, live lives that are labors of love.

Photo by iSawRed on Unsplash

It was my twenty-fifth birthday. My husband and I, married only six months at the time, were on our first furlough and were living in my parent’s house for a three-month break from life in the slums of Indonesia. We had arrived in the country five days prior and were still jet lagged.

It was a Sunday, a beautiful, summer, sun-shining Sunday. We walked to church. I was exhilarated from the joy of connecting with old friends, introducing my husband for the first time, and worshiping with such a loving community. My brother led worship, and I let the familiar songs – in the comfort of my own language – wash over me.

We walked home in the warm sunshine and lay down for a short nap. It was a perfect birthday, I thought.

Until lightning struck.

We heard the thunderbolt; it felt so close. It wasn’t even raining, and I realized in my half-awake/half-asleep state that it was strange to have lightning in the middle of a sunny day. We let ourselves drift back to sleep — until we were awakened by frantic voices in the living room.

As we wandered out to the living room to see what was going on, my parents explained in fearful voices that my brother had been hit by lightning and was being rushed by ambulance to the hospital. My brother’s friend stood in the living room, panting and out of breath. She had sprinted the half mile to my parents’ house to tell them the news.

How quickly life can change.

My brother almost died from the lightning strike. It hit him in his leg, leaving a scar that shows where the electricity traveled from his knee to his stomach. The lightning burnt out his cellphone and stopped his heart from beating. The paramedics saved his life, and he lived to tell the story.

Thanks be to God.

Except that one miraculous lightning-survival story does not mean that life will be easy sailing. My dear brother has had a fourteen-year-long journey with mental illness. He is funny, loving, and immensely gifted as a singer/songwriter; but bipolar disorder has landed him in the hospital many times since that lightning day. Sometimes, I happen to be on his side of the world when he is hospitalized, but more often than not I am thousands of miles away in Indonesia.

Family crises are heartbreaking. Even more so when we are separated by oceans and twelve time zones. It is hard for our loved ones, and it is hard on us. What can we do except lift our prayers to a God who is beyond limitations of space and time zones? We entrust ourselves – and our families – into the loving hands of a grace-filled God.

I have been thinking about this lightning event recently, as another crisis occurred on my birthday this year: my mother-in-law had a stroke. She was taken to the ICU and passed away two weeks later.

Life can be going so smoothly. We can have our laid-out plans and set routines, and then suddenly – like a lightning bolt – we find that everything seems to have changed. We find ourselves thrust into chaos and the unknown.

In times like these, I cling to the truth that God is a God who understands suffering. A God who is near to the brokenhearted and downcast. A God who is good even when life isn’t. A God who chose to take on flesh and humble Himself to suffer alongside humanity. He could have chosen an easier way, but he chose to incarnate—to be with us.

The disciples had their own “lightning bolt” moments as they followed Jesus. Probably the most striking example was the night that Jesus was betrayed. It was the night everything changed for them, followed by days of intense trauma and pain, as they watched their beloved leader die a criminal’s death. And yet we believe that the suffering Jesus endured on the cross did not get the last word. We cling to the hope of the resurrection: the belief that one day all will be made right.

Meanwhile, Jesus left his disciples with a tangible reminder: the practice of communion. As we break the bread and take the cup, we proclaim Christ’s death and resurrection. We acknowledge the brokenness and the hope that Christ experienced. We proclaim a new world coming.

Often, when my brother is experiencing manic episodes and has to be in the psych ward, he invites us to share communion. Sometimes it is with saltine crackers and apple juice, as we sit together during visiting hours. Other times, we have shared communion across the ocean, while connecting via a psych ward phone call. These precious times have highlighted for me once again, the beauty and the brokenness of following Christ.

Even when the lightning strikes, even when the storm is real, Christ is with us.

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It was a Thursday afternoon. My boys had just finished their week of exams at school, and now they were flopping around the house “bored with nothing to do.” Even though the weather was fairly hot, I suggested going for a walk to their new favorite store: Mr. D.I.Y.

This store is like a fancy dollar store, with just about anything you can imagine, including a large toy section. We have been reading The Chronicles of Narnia recently as a family, and my boys were interested in buying toy bow and arrows and plastic swords (the pacifist within me cringing a little, but only allowing it for the sake of encouraging the Narnia Imagination).

We had just successfully crossed the Sea of Cars, when I noticed a little boy ahead of us setting out to work as a silver boy¹. Even before we saw his face, I recognized him. It’s Ishmael,² I thought. His skin was covered completely in silver, his face, bare-chest, arms, and legs—all silver.

Ishmael was a student of ours for two or three years. We know his family well. When our boys were small, his mother used to help us with laundry and cooking three times a week. There was even a season when Ishmael would play at our house with our son for an hour before school started—because his mom had already left for work as a maid in a middle-class neighborhood and he had nowhere to be.

I did mental math as I tried to calculate how old Ishmael must be by now. If our oldest son is ten years old, then Ismael must be twelve or thirteen. He is tiny for his age and could easily pass as a seven-year-old still. I know his life has been awfully hard. Poverty forced both his parents to work long hours, leaving no one at home to ensure he attended school.

He dropped out of first grade multiple times (from three different schools over the course of three years, one time including Muslim boarding school in another city– which he ran away from and was escorted home by policemen). Can I blame him for how his life has turned out already? He smokes. He drinks. He works the streets as a singer-beggar, and now as a silver boy. He was born into a life of poverty, and the vicious cycle continues.

We greeted Ishmael, talked a little bit, and then continued on our way to buy Narnia toys. But my heart ached as I contemplated such different childhoods. My children get to hold my hand as they cross busy streets and go shopping. They get to buy new toys and laugh and play and be kids. Ishmael never got to really be a kid. He fended for himself from a small age, likely experiencing all sorts of trauma and abuse along the way—from the slum and from the streets. Lord, have mercy.

The next day was a Friday, the last day of lessons at our school before taking a week off to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan fasting month. I invited the two moms who teach with us and their children to accompany our family to the nearby movie cinema to see Kung Fu Panda 4. They were all very excited, as they had never been to the theaters before.

When we got there and parked our motorcycles, we rode the escalator up to the theater. We were all surprised to see three children that we knew playing at the entrance. They were three kids who used to be our students, but all had dropped out for various reasons (two ten-year-olds and one seven-year-old). We greeted them, asking what they were doing at the theater.

They were just playing and enjoying the air conditioning. They ran up and down the aisles, where people sat waiting for the theater doors to open. All three were fairly dressed up, wearing their Friday best. It was likely they had spent the morning begging from Friday worshippers at a nearby mosque and on their walk home had decided to stop and enjoy the comfort of air conditioning and soft sofas. Perhaps the security guards did not realize they were beggar kids and assumed they were children belonging to some adult walking around the theater, too.

They took a picture with us as we waited for the theater doors to open. We went in to see the movie, and they wandered off to keep begging or perhaps to just walk home (the movie theater is only a ten-minute walk away from our slum community).

Similarly to the day before, I was left with a deep grief at the reality these children experience. A deep sense of hopelessness came over me. Who can help these children now? What future can they possibly have if they are elementary school dropouts? Their parents send them out as beggars, and they are left on their own for hours at a time to face this big city.

Through the school we run in the slum community, we try to help children have a better start at education. But we mourn the many children that we cannot help. We mourn the complex systems of poverty—systemic injustices, parental sins, government corruption, and all sorts of other issues that have led to the lives our neighbors find themselves living and which these children find themselves born into.

What we are trying to do continues to seem like a pathetic drop in an ocean of pain and hurt. And yet, for the children who do continue to come to learn each day, we hope we are empowering them towards a brighter future.

But what about these four little boys — and the many more like them — that I met this week? Will Ishmael ever know that God hears him, sees him, and loves him?

Lord, shine your light in the darkness. Grant us your hope to continue to believe in the seemingly impossible. Grant us your love to reach out to these boys who spend hours working the streets. Somehow, someway, will your good news break through?

¹ Silver boys (or men, women, or girls) cover their skin with silver-colored powder. They then stand in intersections or walk along roads, begging for money.

² Name changed to protect privacy.

An earlier form of this article was originally published in my March 2024 newsletter.

Photo by Chintya Akemi Keirayuki on Unsplash

I never thought I would write a book. At least not until I was old and retired and had actually “done something with my life.” But then a few years ago, a conversation with my parents spurred me on to start writing—and I wrote my first book, Beyond Our Walls: Finding Jesus in the Slums of Jakarta.

And somehow, in writing that book, I found my voice in a new way. Even as I wrote down those first stories about a decade living and serving in a slum in Indonesia, I knew that I had something else to share, too. I knew that I was not done writing.

I have been obsessed with Amy Carmichael for the past seven years or so. Have you ever heard of Amy Carmichael? Don’t feel bad if you never had—I never had either until listening to a recording of a seminar about the untold story of women in missions. Something about Amy’s story captured my attention, and I began buying book after book written by her.

Amy Carmichael was born in what is now Northern Ireland in 1867, but she spent most of her life serving at the southern tip of India. Initially, she was an “itinerating” missionary—travelling around with a group of other believers, preaching and teaching wherever they could get an audience. But her life began to change when she became aware of the practice of temple prostitution throughout India. Young girls were dedicated to the gods from infancy and raised by temple women to serve in the temples. As Amy’s heart was broken, learning about the traumas and injustices these girls faced, she found God calling her to a new work: rescuing children and providing a home for them.

Amy was a prolific writer, penning more than thirty books throughout her fifty-plus years in India. Her writing is beautiful, and I find her words written a century ago still have a profound relevancy in my own life. I decided that these gifts that I was gleaning from Amy’s writings were too precious to keep to myself.

In my new book, Downward Discipleship: How Amy Carmichael Gave Me Courage to Serve in a Slum, I share seven lessons that I have learned from the life and legacy of Amy Carmichael. Interwoven with these lessons from Amy, I share more stories from my life in a slum in Jakarta.

Amy’s life and books are a call to radical discipleship, to following Christ into unlikely places. She testifies to the profound joy of listening to and obeying Jesus’ call, even when it calls us to go “against the flow” or to do something unpopular. As Amy and her team fought against the injustices and evils being done to children in India, they learned that it was a lonely journey. Many people did not support the work—in fact, many other missionaries at the time did not approve of Amy. She wore Indian clothes, worked “too closely” with Indian co-workers, and was challenging systems of evil that many people did not even want to acknowledge existed.

One of the most inspirational parts of Amy’s story for me is her profound theology of suffering. She learned that when one follows Christ, there is pain and loss. But she also continued to trust in her savior—and to believe that one day God would, indeed, have the final victory. When Amy was in her sixties, she had an accident that essentially left her bedridden for the rest of her life. But during her twenty years in her sickbed in India, she wrote some of her most powerful books.

And while my short time in Indonesia is nothing compared to Amy’s five decades in India, Amy’s writing encourages me on. She invites her readers to move beyond self to surrender, beyond guilt to gratitude, beyond grasping for control to living lives of compassion. She invites us all to a journey of downward discipleship, following Jesus into difficult places—to fight injustices with God’s love and hope. And while the journey will not be easy, Amy promises that it will be a journey we will not regret. If we are walking with our savior, He will sustain us even in the darkest valley.

My prayer is that Downward Discipleship would be a gift for readers, too. That my humble attempts at sharing some of Amy’s story would serve as an encouragement for all of us as we follow Christ.

Amy and her community in Dohnavur prayed this beautiful prayer whenever a book was published. I offer it now as a prayer for Downward Discipleship, too:

“Take this book in Thy wounded Hand,
Jesus, Lord of Calvary;
Let it go forth at Thy command;
Use it as it pleases Thee.

“Dust of earth, but Thy dust, Lord,
Blade of grass in Thy hand a sword–
Nothing, nothing unless it be
Purged and quickened, O Lord, by Thee.
Unless Thou touch it graciously
It will do less than naught.

“O touch, inspire and purify,
We lay it at Thy feet,
Let all of earth about it die,
Turn it to corn of wheat.

“O blessed be the love that takes
This that we offer Thee,
And out of our poor nothing makes
Seed for Eternity.”[1]

[1] Amy Carmichael. Gold Cord: The Story of a Fellowship. Fort Washington: CLC, 2002. First published 1932 by SPCK (London), 28.