Discipleship should make us uncomfortable.

Our family was invited to dinner recently at the home of some new friends. They lived in a quiet neighborhood that was growing. The husband told me not long after they moved in one of the neighbors came over and told him about a weekly Bible study several of them were having together and asked…

How The Average Joe Can Learn Another Language.

The Beep Beep Boop of my Skype call ring was happening and I began to sweat. I was about to have a video call with a new Italian friend who didn’t know enough English to help me understand. And, all the questions I’d practiced in her language that day vanished. Throat dry. I sat forward feeling…

Is Italy A Sexy Mission Field?

Somewhere in the process of telling people what we are doing (becoming missionaries) and where we are going (Italy), a friend gave me a sympathetic look. “Italy is not a sexy mission field,” they sighed.  A sexy mission field? I thought, alarmed that these words could find themselves so closely together in a sentence. One being…

Lasts.

I met a friend for lunch this past week who has since boarded a plane for Kenya. He’s going to live there for at least two years. The journey has been a long one for him. For four years he resisted asking people for money to help him go on mission, as he described it….

I’d Rather Die.

Still, I want it made clear that I’ve never gotten anything out of this for myself, and that I’m not writing now to get something. I’d rather die than give anyone ammunition to discredit me or impugn my motives. If I proclaim the Message, it’s not to get something out of it for myself. I’m…