I’ve mentioned this before: the incidence of anxiety in younger children—not just MKs—is on the rise in nearly every culture. With recent conflicts and tragedies across the globe adding to the already exacerbated fear and upheaval of the pandemic, we can only expect that cases of serious anxiety in kids will continue to increase. […]
[The audio version of this article is available on the Pondering Purple podcast. Click HERE to listen or find it on your preferred podcast platform.] I struggle with rest. More accurately, I battle the guilt I associate with rest. And I know it comes from two significant pieces of my identity: the MK […]
[The audio version of this article is available on the Pondering Purple podcast. Click HERE to listen or find it on your preferred podcast platform.] During several reentry retreats at which I recently served, I was astonished at the prevalence of trauma among the MKs in attendance. So many of them were […]
Have you ever felt incapable of hearing God’s voice at times when you most needed to? Have you wondered if it’s because you’ve become deaf or he’s gone mute…or both? I was asked to speak on “Hearing Jesus’ Voice in the Chaos of Our Pain” for a conference in Wisconsin last week. As I began […]
[Did you know that most of my articles are available in audio form for learning on the go? Find my Pondering Purple podcast HERE.] Every so often, I have the great honor of being interviewed by a publication wanting to highlight the people I serve: children of missionaries and cross-cultural workers. When Among […]
[The audio version of this article is also available. Listen to it on the Pondering Purple podcast by clicking HERE.] As I’ve spoken with Missionaries’ Kids (MKs) of all ages over the past thirty years, a few commonalities have emerged—traits shared across locations and demographics within the cross-cultural world of missions. One of the […]
[The audio version of this article is also available. Listen to it on the Pondering Purple podcast by clicking HERE.] I marked a huge milestone a few months ago: thirty years in MK ministry. That’s three decades of conferences, articles, keynotes, videos, consultations, retreats and debriefs. It’s aha moments and hard conversations. It’s sleepless […]
[This interview is also featured on my podcast, Pondering Purple. You can access all the episodes to date by clicking HERE.] What a joy it was to be interviewed for the Amplify Podcast by Austin Slater, an MK/TCK who knows how to ask all the right questions. It’s machine-gun fast and covers a lot […]
I’d like to invite you into the experiences of People Raised in Intense Christian Environments who have deconstructed their faith—some of them are Missionaries’ Kids, some of them Pastors’ Kids, some simply from deeply spiritual homes. Understanding is often a building block for love.
[This article also exists in podcast form. You can listen to it on Pondering Purple, HERE.] It seems appropriate, in this first article of 2022, to be writing about pain. The world has been wracked with the kind of upheaval we never could have imagined just three years ago. It has compounded the suffering […]