Well, friends-from-all-latitudes, it’s been a pretty amazing first six months here at A Life Overseas. When Angie (from Bolivia), and I (Laura, moving from SE Asia to Colorado at the time) first talked about creating an online space to honestly talk about what it means to serve internationally, we weren’t sure if the idea would take. We saw the need for it in our own lives and experiences overseas, but we weren’t confident other people would be as excited about the idea as we were.
But, you, you, friends have proven us wrong.
You’ve visited our pages over 113,000 times in the last six months, and lately you’ve been viewing our articles over 20,000 times each month. But you just haven’t just read and moved on, you have engaged with this community here in real conversations by leaving nearly 2,000 comments, as well. Over 500 of you get our posts to your inboxes and over 800 of you participate in the Facebook community, too.
And all of this, with 100 posts. These articles were written by a team of writers and guests from all walks of life, in every corner of the globe– the missionary mom in Bolivia, the single woman in Thailand, the dad loving orphans in Africa. We’ve talked about issues that are unique to this community of expats, from raising Third Culture Kids to wondering if the mission field was messing with our faith itself. We’ve talked about the realities of sacrifice and culture shock, and we’ve honestly talked about hard things, like sexual abuse on the mission field. This community has discussed fake conversions and hiring national house helpers, short term missions and even protocol for engaging in religious practices of other faiths. We’ve talked about fundraising and kid-raising, about saying goodbye and about saying goodbye again. We’ve hit topic after topic relevant to the unique community that we are as international aid workers and missionaries.
And all of this, in just six. short. months. Imagine what the next six might bring.
We can not thank you enough for investing here in this conversation, for sticking with us to this, our 100th post. This community of nomads here at A Life Overseas is turning out to be a powerful one. And we’re grateful you each are a part of it.
– Laura Parker, Co-Founder/Editor, Former Aid Worker in SE Asia
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In an effort to celebrate, we are launching two special events today. To begin, we are hosting our first ever photo contest! And yes, there will be prizes. The theme for this contest is: “Face of My Nation.” We’d like you to look through your photos and select one you think represents the people of the country where you are currently working and living. Please include a one sentence caption, explaining the photo or what you love about it. Submit the photo and caption, along with your name, country where you are working and how long you’ve lived there, with “Photo Contest” in the subject line to: alifeoverseas{@}gmail.com. We’ll close entries on June 5, then we will post the winning 5 photos for the community to vote on starting June 7. Prizes will be announced soon, but please go ahead and submit your favorite pictures! Only one entry per person, please.
Also, we’re hosting a link-up party today. We know that many of you are excellent bloggers yourselves, and we’d like the chance to foster community and get to know each other a bit better. So, take a minute and choose your favorite post from the past 100 you’ve written, and link it up below. {Go ahead and link us specifically to your favorite post, not just your blog homepage, if you would.}
Here’s to praying the next 100 posts, for your personally and for the team here at A Life Overseas, is as encouraging and challenging as the last 100.
{In addition to linking up your posts below, we’d love to hear from you about what you’d like to see more of in the next six months from this collective blog. Topics, features, ideas? Also, if this site has encouraged you or spoken to you in a particular way, we’d love to hear that, as well. We heart feedback.}
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