My first Christmas in China, my American teammate got sick and asked to be alone. Rather than spend Christmas binge-watching television by myself, I jogged to the outskirts of the city where tarmac turned to orange dust. I ran through dry fields that would grow potatoes, spinach, and sunflowers in the summer, then wandered into…
We’ve been invited to a church member’s home for a meal just three times in three years. As an accidental experiment in the Colorado city where we moved three years ago, we visited 17 churches, landing at 2 for about a year, 3 for a month each, and visited the others once or twice. Not…
Last summer, hugely pregnant with my third child, I took my 1- and 3-year-olds on a walk every afternoon. I’d saunter along behind them, absently resting my hand on my taut belly, hoping to receive some communication in the form of a heel or shoulder blade in my palm. My head ached from the dry…