Purpose Asia

Gossamer cathedrals drape from post to post, festooned with crystal dew drops. Mist curls up between tall spires capped with a cacophony of greens. Across my path sprawls a riot of orange sentinels, nodding their heads at me in the morning gold. Life. It drips from every leaf and petal and stalk and fills the blue air with its heady perfume.  Today I was listening to the Psalms as I got ready for work and my heart and mind were arrested by Psalm 8. “Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place. What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them w...

Mt. Hood in Oregon I sighed and closed my eyes. Although the tension had been draining from my knotted shoulders for a couple of weeks I could feel the old familiar twinge cramping it's fingers around my muscles. I should write. I should say something. I should introspect and find something profound to say, something profound to think. I should really be thinking more intentionally about where I've been and where I'm going as I transition from Papua New Guinea back to the USA. I breathe again, slowly pulling air into my nose and forcing it out of my mouth between pursed lips. So complicated. How do I begin to unravel the last few years and my first term as a missionary in Papua New Guinea? How can I even begin to contemplate what the next, few brief months will bring before I start my second term? How do I even start to process them both and describe them both and share them both? I want to, I just don't know how. So, here I sit, writing about how I don't kn...

"Lone Tree" hill near where I live Clouds pile up against the shoulders of the mountains. The rippling call and response of the unique birds of this country pierce the early evening. The scent of bananas mingles with cooking fires and the earthy, moist clay of the dirt roads. I breathe it all in, stop and try to taste it, to live it, to truly see it and hold it in my mind’s eye. Then I realize it; I’m trying to say goodbye while at the same time, I’m trying to prepare myself to say hello. For over four years I have lived here in Papua New Guinea. It has become my home. I have chosen to immerse myself in its people, its culture, its food, its life. I have become a different woman. No longer fully American, neither have I fully become Papua New Guinean. I have learned to love this country and its people. I’ve also mourned with them, rejoiced with them, and rise and fall with them to a certain extent. They’ve become my family, my friends, my mentors and spiritual le...