Editorial note: A Life Overseas is a place to share stories and have conversations about cross-cultural missions and international living. In this space we avoid personal attacks. The following piece is a critique of ideas currently being circulated among the missions crowd. It is not a personal attack on anyone whose words are quoted here, […]
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by Kris Gnuse I was not just upset; I was upset with myself for being upset. After years of “maybe someday,” I had finally auditioned for worship choir. Kick your thoughts of robes and high sopranos to the curb. This group was cool. I stepped onto the risers that first Sunday, trembly with nerves. My heart was full […]
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by Tamie Davis One of the hardest things for me about Bible college was discovering that I was good at it. I won awards, and was publicly recognised. Far from being an achievement to be celebrated, this made me intensely uncomfortable. Part of that is cultural. In Australia, we have this thing called ‘Tall Poppy […]
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By Tamie Davis Recently a church from another state in Australia decided to do a church plant into my home city of Adelaide. In their fundraising video, they described the church situation in Adelaide as rough, desperate, and crying for help from outside, because there was no church in Adelaide that could viably look outside […]
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A few years ago, a video started making its way around my Facebook feed–shared by lots foreigners who live in my part of Africa. The video showed two African men shoveling sand. There was a very large pile of sand to their left. The two men were shoveling the sand into a wheelbarrow, filling it […]
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This is a repost, originally published at She Loves Magazine. It is a poem, of sorts and during these days in which so many, many people seem to be and feel marginalized, I wanted to revisit it. Come to the margins, to the railroad track where houses were burned down and women are rebuilding with […]
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“There’s really no such thing as the voiceless. There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.” – Arundhati Roy * * * I am an Asian American, born and raised in the States, a child of immigrants. Growing up, my faith was deeply influenced by Western Christian thought, but always experienced in the […]
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A lot of people move to Africa on a mission. Some of them classic religious missionaries and others compassionate humanists who feel called to serve, to care, to give. I came here under that banner, thinking I was going to help to pull people out of the mire of poverty. I came here with dreams […]
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The question came as Jesus was beginning His last journey to Jerusalem. It came as He was heading toward His most heart-rending task, as He was starting the long descent toward death: “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” We all know the story. A young, rich, religious man calls Jesus good and […]
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As a zealous, young missionary I seemed to make the same mistake over and over. Now as a veteran, I find the same never-ending truth must remain continually before me. People are not our projects. We never set out to do this intentionally. Our mistakes are made in ignorance. Our desire is to do good, […]
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Last month at A Life Overseas, we discussed the dangerous stories we can tell in order to raise funds. This requires further consideration if we provide funds, pay national workers, or are just generous in any way. While the debate on this one is hot and heavy, I doubt we can make absolute statements. “Always […]
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Over the years we have tried with patchy success to create a habit of frequently asking ourselves whether the things we are doing make sense and if it seems like ‘God is in it?‘ We hope to avoid getting trapped into routines or habits without truly examining what we’re doing. We desire to be purposeful about […]
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