Purpose Asia

“”The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” which means, “God with us.””  Matthew 1:23 (NIV) We’ve heard it a million times, could recite it in our sleep. We intellectually understand it and once a year actually probably think about it a little bit. But how would our lives look different if we walked around acting like it was true? For instance, I’m a nurse, that’s who I am. But lets pretend for a minute that you didn’t know me and someone told you I was a nurse. You have heard it a thousand times from others that I’m a nurse, you could recite it in your sleep. You intellectually understand it and whenever you have a sniffle or an ache you actually probably think about it a little bit. But what would happen if, in a crisis you had me in the room with you and, instead of asking me to help, you turned to your friend and asked for help or whipped out your cell phone to Google what to do or call a...

Airports: the intersection of my most bitter sorrows and deepest joys. A tangled mess of gut wrenching goodbyes and laughter filled hellos. I love and hate them all at once. Corridors to my future that lead me further and further away from my past. Away from those I love, to reunite with those I love. A topsy-turvy, upside down, paradox that I can't seem to work out no matter how much I try.  Before I left Washington people kept asking me if I was excited to go back. Yes? No? Can I get a pass on this question? I can't help but laugh. Before I lived overseas for extended periods of time I asked the same question. Now I find the question so confusing, and my emotions so convoluted around the issue, that whenever anyone asks that question I stand there dumbfounded, paralyzed by my conflicted feelings. It's the nature of my life, my calling.  Things are more complicated now. My emotions, impressions and feelings are so different now. I'm struggling through them but gratef...

Saturday morning dawned dripping and misty. I tumbled out of bed and stumbled to the kitchen. Today I had to bake a breakfast treat before a going-away party for a friend. I pulled out tubs of flour and sugar and set to work measuring and kneading. Soon I stood up and brushed stray hairs from my face after closing the oven on my soon-to-be masterpiece. It was a good morning. Then the phone rang. I fumbled on the shelf above the fridge to grab it and pulled it to my ear. “Hello?” Funny, there was a strange tickling feeling on my arm. The person on the other end of the line started talking but another tickling feeling on my neck and arm distracted me. I shook my head thinking I was just being paranoid. “Uh huh.” I agreed distractedly to the voice on the phone. There it was again. This time I couldn’t control my paranoia. I had to look. I pulled the phone away from my face and gaped at it in abject horror. Swarming out of the buttons, battery compartment and every orific...

a Bougainvillea bloom on one of the roads where I live I sit on my bed after a full day.   My wet hair dangles around my face and I contemplate the peeling nail polish on one hand while I scratch one of my more than twenty mosquito bites with the other.   I can hear the bat flapping out of the guava tree in my front yard and night sounds pile up outside my cantilever windows like cans down an alleyway. Sometimes I’m amazed when I think about where I live and the work I do. I feel so average most of the time and tonight I certainly look it. But then I get to thinking about it. I live on an island in the South Pacific. Every day I speak a language other than my heart language and I emerge from my house to hibiscus and banana trees in the heart of a valley nestled among jagged, jungle-covered mountains. I walk down a dirt road and walk into a clinic that routinely sees malaria, dengue, ameobaisis, tuberculosis and other tropical disease along with everything from...

Here I sit, alone in my house, and listen to the sounds of afternoon fading into evening. The parrot screeches from its roost down the street and the smaller birds fuss like so many parents scolding their children to go to bed. The bright colors of day soften into the hazy hues of twilight. Clouds swathe the hills like a down comforter pulled over knobby heads, and everything drips with the remnants of the late afternoon rain. It is a cacophony of peace, a clamor of stillness, with which this valley so expertly surrounds its brood daily. The last couple of months have been a season of goodbyes. Many of the group that came at the same time as me have left for furlough or have finished their commitment to working here. The high school seniors I’ve come to know through helping with plays or mentoring them at the clinic have graduated and have gone back to their passport countries to start college or university. The constant cycle of time and the ebb and flow of change continu...

     This may come as a shock to some, but many days my work feels insignificant. I fill my working hours with checking vitals signs, charting, counting pills, giving instructions, performing treatments. I spend my lunches praying with a group, or listening to or teaching a Bible study, or meeting with one of the girls in my community group. At night when I’m not spending time with friends I’m whittling away at rewriting literacy materials so they can be used in the initial stages of Bible translation. One day flows into the next and I feel like I’m just living life. Nothing fantastic or dramatic or epic, just putting one foot in front of the other, trying to be faithful with what’s in my hands.         I guess, in a way I had envisioned something different for missions work. I think a lot of people do even though we try to bluster and say we know missions is about living life and sharing Christ in a different c...

     I gingerly pick up the microscope slide and set it on the microscope stage. Training my eyes on the tiny specimen beneath the magnifying viewer I focus it back and forth until the purple-pink blood cells come into clear focus. Then, I carefully place a drop of oil on the slide to go to the next level of magnification and look again. There, everywhere on the slide, are miniscule pink dots with purple rings inside the red blood cells. Malaria. Some of you may remember that I myself had malaria back in 2015 when I was training in the lowlands near the coast. It can certainly be dangerous if untreated and where I work it constitutes a significant portion of the patients that I help treat. In the tropics (especially lowland and coastal areas) malaria is a common ailment and where I live there are a few types that are common. It used to be that the mosquito that carried the malaria parasite was only found in the lowlands but we are starting to have an inc...

“ and He [the LORD] will be the stability of your times.” Isaiah 33:6a My fingers drum on the shiny silver hide of my laptop. I stare at the wood floor of my bedroom and listen to the dripping water outside my window. So much, too much to try to capture all of it in the tiny bonds of words. Words. Black and white and angular. Tiny bars wrapping around concepts that laugh at the thought of being contained in such a puny prison. Like a giant watching a toddler wrap a thread around his wrists, so the thoughts I want to convey smile condescendingly on me as I attempt to tie them down with sentences and phrases. Despite its condescension I set to, with furrowed brow and intent, fumbling fingers to secure the thoughts I’m having about the concept of transition. Some friends and I were talking about this gargantuan concept today. We’d all heard about culture stress and culture shock and the transience of the missionary community before we arrived overseas. However,...

My eyes snapped open. There it was again. Scrape, scrape, scrape. My body was rigid under my tightly clutched blankets, like a tightrope strung between two high-rises. In my imagination I fantasized that I was a calm, cool, collected woman, unruffled by strange noises that go bump in the night. But I knew the source of this noise and I was terrified. It was my nemesis. We’d glimpsed each other earlier in the night – sized each other up – but now our face-off was inevitable. Was my courage sufficient? Finally, I awoke the David in me and decided to face my Goliath. I clicked on the light and padded cautiously on bare feet to the door of my room. The hall was dark and the noises emanating from the kitchen grew louder. The belly of the beast I thought to myself. I crept down the hallway in fearful pursuit of my quarry. Scrape, SCRAPE!   I froze. In the twilight I could see my enemy. I snapped on the light and we gaped at each other in abject horror. This...

A beautiful afternoon in the highlands Children play across the way in the little park. They call out to each other in Tok Pisin and laugh with all the gleeful innocence of childhood. The blue and maroon of their respective school uniforms flash brilliantly under the warm afternoon sun and the white clouds float by unconcerned on the gentle afternoon breeze. It's beautiful. God's hand splashed masterfully across every horizon that meets my eyes. How good He is. I'm amazed over and over again by His goodness. It's been a hard five months back here. They have been filled with struggle, sorrow, grief, pain, failure, frustration and spiritual assault. I would be lying if I said I've always handled it with grace and godliness (as much as I'd love to be able to tell you that). There have been times I have wanted to give up, to go home, to throw in the towel in defeat. I've seen ministry and work go through the roller coaster from mediocre to incredible to aw...

Banana leaf with morning dew The leathery flap of bats wings’ and the incessant chatter of the cicadas fill the night. Moths slap against my back porch light, the house creaks as a cool descends in the valley and the old wood shifts and shrinks into its familiar shape. Five months back in Papua New Guinea. It feels like a blink and forever all at once. Dirt roads and taro plants and banana trees seem normal to me now and my world of blinking lights and racing cars and grocery stores seems a million years away. Home is a strange word for me ever since leaving my family over 2 years ago to come to Papua New Guinea. It feels confining to me now, like a coat that has shrunk and my hands dangle awkwardly from its sleeves, now too short.   Dwelling place. Now there is a term I can understand. A place where you linger and choose to stay, that has a feeling of comfort and familiarity. This is probably much like the definition of “home” but a dwelling place is more broad ...

I happened to glance out the window as I walked into my room and there it was: a radiant sunset splashing across the evening sky with magenta and violet. I couldn’t help myself. I poked my head into the living room and blurted out, “Courtney, the sunset is amazing tonight! I have to go out and see it!” I ran to the back door, flung it open and dashed out onto the deck, out the gate and onto the back stairs. I felt I could almost touch it in all its deep, mysterious beauty. A rich, gorgeous sunset that graced the sky like a handful of jewels. It was so lovely that all I could do was gaze in awe and wonder at God’s handiwork. Then, I felt it, fleeting and deep but unmistakable – joy. Joy. It feels like an elusive concept sometimes. Like the mist that rises from the trees in the morning and disappears when the hot sun beats down and the rough winds blow. I’ve struggled a lot with what joy is supposed to look like in the life of a Christ Follower. Since I was litt...

Crossing the Ba'e River I bounced on my toes as I stepped out of the van. We walked down to the river and stood on the muddy banks as our more experienced friends stepped cautiously into the river and waded across to find the best path for crossing. Soon, they beckoned to us and I plunged into the water up to my thighs, eager to start the day. Today was my first day helping with Holide Baibel Skul (or Holiday Bible School – the Papua New Guinea Equivalent of Vacation Bible School or VBS). I was so excited that the river was soon forgotten behind me and my feet found the slippery trail up the hill to the settlements and villages that lay beyond. The trail wound up and around the hill and wrapped its gnarled arms around the hedges and fences of people’s garden and homes. The trees cleared and my path marched between gardens full of yams, sweet potatoes and squash. Stands of bamboo and banana trees stood like crowds of onlookers scattered around the gardens ...