My last article on missionary burnout went viral and so many of you asked for missionary care resources. I’ve also written an article, “How to Recover from Burnout,” which offers great tips from my personal life because the last thing I want is for missionaries to be stranded, alone in a foreign country feeling isolated […]
“We don’t have to buy into the collective delusion that burnout is the price we must pay for success.” -Arianna Huffington, Thrive I’ve been humbled overwhelming response around my recent article, What I Wish I’d Known About Missionary Burnout. After sifting through numerous comments and emails, my heart ached with a common thread: The voices of so
Two years ago, I left the red-earthed Africa that I loved and landed awkwardly into a new life in San Francisco, lugging six giant suitcases that held all my worldly possessions. I had been running Zion Project for seven years at that point, spending nearly six of those full time as a missionary in Uganda. I
“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road Sometimes it’s hard to live in the present. Life with its busyness seems to suck at our joy of living in the moment. Then there are trauma’s that pile high which we try so hard
Sometimes in between the kitchen and the washing machine, doing the same acts over again with seemingly little result, I wonder if my life has purpose. I used to love my job. I used to love what I did with a kind of maniacal passion. I used to stay up late writing blog posts and used to
“Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.” –Charles Dickens- I was in Target, a cart full of disheveled clothes, baggy shirts and cardigans, waiting to
Most days I don’t know how to let go of fear. It presses heavy on my chest and claws up my throat threatening to stifle my breath with all the things that can go wrong and do go wrong. And breath is the only thing I have. In and out. Infilling and surrender. Sometimes the
“We seek our identities in the wake of painful experiences. We can endure great pain if we believe it is purposeful.” -Andrew Solomon- When we don’t get what we want, it throws our life into a certain amount of chaos. There is a deep desire to control, to force the world to bend to
Most days I am fine. I get up, walk RosieTheChippin, my breath exhaling in puffs in the cool morning air as the horizon blushes pink. I wait for her to go number two. I pick it up like a good neighbor. I come back, boil water for tea and make the omelet with spinach and
Last year, I didn’t have any resolutions. After the devastating loss of my first pregnancy, saying goodbye to my Ugandan home, my dream, and the day to day management of the non-profit I’d built over the last seven years, to move from Africa to America, I think my resolution was merely “to survive.” I did
Hope starts small. Like a thin winged bird unfurling from its nest for the first time. I’m learning there is some kind of secret in this brokenness, something sacred to follow winding down the cave walls towards a halo in the distance. Something to be learned here. About life. About myself. In the breathing in
When I hold the baby and realize that it isn’t mine and I am not sure I will ever clasp feet that tiny in my hands, there is a small part of me that wants to walk to a building’s edge and simply step off and feel the fluttering of air before nothing else. It
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