Stories
See how God is working globally in, through, and around our workers.
While reflecting on his background and new life in Christ, the apostle Paul wrote, “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered...
Just as in our home countries, in the fragile, central Asian country where I live and work, there is a growing realization of how important mental health is. Years of war and high levels of stressful life experiences like poverty and family violence mean more than 50% of the population...
I have visited and lived in many places around the world, some safe and others not so safe. It’s fair to say that this war-torn country is not a tourist destination, and when you mention that you live here in conversation, no matter what setting you are in, people tend...
I see myself more as a Jack-of-all-trades than a specialist. I spent more of my working life raising children than in my profession. In my new country, I work in ‘support.’ I do not run any projects myself. ‘Support’ for me may mean collating clinical data, making cushions, dolls and...
OSCaR is one of those things that’s hard to write about. It’s a social work case management and database software package. It doesn’t tug at your heartstrings like rehabilitating drug users, or rescuing people from trafficking, or reuniting children with their families. It’s certainly not what I had in mind...
I was only fourteen when I decided I wanted to work overseas as a doctor showing Jesus’ love. I assumed I would be going to Africa. But I was surprised to learn that female medical personnel were most needed in Muslim countries, where women must see a female professional and...
One of my personality quirks is that I am a fairly fearful person. Those who know my story wouldn’t expect this as my wife and I lived in an area of the world that was marred by conflict. Nonetheless, my default emotional position is to hope the Lord keeps anything...
We came to this country later in our careers. Over the last five years our focus has been on childhood disability, and now our clinical work, teaching and research and our learning from these areas help provide input into national health policy. We’re still asking the same questions we were...
At the organisation where I volunteer a few days a week doing prenatal care, I meet women who have fled from the horrors of war. Most women at the clinic are victims of the most heinous acts. These women, almost all of them, are pregnant through rape. What can one...
Integration is so vital, but it is hindered by our tendency to compartmentalize the faith. Our educational and cultural training in the west teaches us to compartmentalize the different aspects of our lives. We divide up our educational spaces into different subjects, such as, math, biology, chemistry, history, English, and...
Sometimes discipleship happens in the context of long-term relationships. At other times, brief encounters give us the opportunity to share God’s love in meaningful ways. Being disciples of Jesus means allowing His love to fill up our lives, so that whatever the situation, we are ready to let that love...
I returned to Central Asia a little over six months ago, after a two-year hiatus at home that had seemed to take forever. Yet now that I am back here, that time at home seems more like a memory, a blink of time that in reality passed very quickly. I...
