My mom tells the story of taking my brother and me to a Christmas event at the American Embassy in Liberia. I had just turned seven and had lived in Liberia for a year. There was a Santa at that party, and he asked Paul and me what we wanted for Christmas. We sat perched on his knee, completely stumped, unable to think of a single thing. There was no question in our young minds that we wanted Christmas presents. But since a year had separated us from television, Toys R Us, and the Sears catalog, we couldn’t possibly imagine what we wanted those gifts to be.
My kids used to be the same way. But after four years in America? They can fill up an Amazon wishlist like nobody’s business.
When we moved into our new house a year after we arrived in California, I fretted over the laminate flooring, which is light brown on the bottom floor and dark brown from the stairs up, and gazed disapprovingly at the bedroom doors which look like they’ve been patched over several times by miscreant children. That is, until Gil gazed disbelievingly at me and reminded me that this house is way nicer than anything we’ve ever lived in, and what on earth had happened to me?
I didn’t want to tell you, actually. Actually, what I wanted to do was just surprise you at the end when my book was all perfect and published and everything. Because, if I tell you now, well, it may never be perfect or never be published and then I’ll feel dumb.
But I read somewhere that when you want to write a book, you should tell people because otherwise, you might never write it. Still, it’s taken me a while to tell you. I’ve been thinking about writing this book for three years and started writing it seven months ago. It took me that much time to work up the courage to talk about it with this corner of my world.
So if you’ve been wondering why I haven’t been posting as much here, that’s why. I don’t have a ton of time for writing, and when I do, most of it is going towards my book. Not just writing it but figuring out how to write it. I had no clue how to write a 6000-word chapter that made sense or that anyone would want to read. So much of what I’ve been doing is reading and researching how to write a book. And then, reading and researching even more about how to get that book published.
Let me tell you something, loyal fans, I’m not particularly optimistic about that part. A friend said to me, “Maybe your book will pay for your kids’ college education,” and I laughed way too hard. Over 95% of published books sell less than 2000 copies. In all my research, one thing is abundantly clear: there is no money in writing books. In fact, it’s more likely that it could cost me to get my book out into the world.
I found one Christian literary agent who looked like a promising option until I read on his website that if I didn’t have at least 20,000 social media followers, I shouldn’t even bother sending in a proposal. I’m only short 18,000 (give or take a few). The hard truth is that there are just too many books published every year and not enough people who read books anymore. I’ve noticed that Amazon book searches now take me straight to the audiobook version. Podcasts and Netflix and Tiktok are what people want.
This is why I have questioned myself only a bazillion times in the last seven months when I sit there staring at a blinking cursor and thinking about all the other things I could be doing with my time. I’m sure you are wondering the same thing by now.
So why am I doing this? I suppose it comes down to the reason why any writer tries to write a book: I have something to say and it’s time to say it and even if no one reads it but my family, I want to try. I do feel like God is leading me to do this, but I don’t feel like He’s giving me some sort of guarantee that this book will be successful. Maybe He will just use this project to help me become a better writer or to change the perspective of just a few people. Maybe it will just end up as a 60-part blog series.
After all, the topic I am writing about started out as a blog post. Back in 2016, a few months before the election, I wrote a post on a whim, with very little editing, one evening after my kids were in bed. American Christians, You Might Need to Start Living Like Missionaries shocked the daylights out of me when it suddenly started getting hundreds of shares and tens of thousands of hits. I think it’s just about my most popular post ever (other than the ones I’ve written on Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes, which still get tons of traffic but do not make me popular, so they don’t count).
But that post 8 years ago got me started in contemplating the ideas that are now becoming my book: Living as a missionary in Africa taught me how to live as a Christian in America. How do I live as one who is not home yet? My book will be filled with stories of my life overseas and how those experiences gave me a blueprint for living as one who is “longing for a better country” (Hebrews 11:16), even in America.
My book is only about 30% done (and I hope to finish it by next year), but I’ve learned that this is the point when I should start sending out proposals to agents or publishers, so here I go. Thanks to all of you for being my biggest cheerleaders. I would never have even attempted this without your encouragement.
If the other side of the political spectrum seems “weird” to you, this article helps to explain how both sides interpret the meaning of that word differently. I once wrote, “People act in a way that makes sense to them. Find out why it makes sense.” Read this.
Confessions of a Loner by Sophia Lee. I hope you can access this piece–such a poignant exploration of the loss of community and how to find it. I resonated with much of what she wrote.
The Dutiful Introvert by Tim Challies “A dutiful introvert is one who….will not allow his personality to excuse any failure to fulfill the opportunities God presents to him.”
“After launching two of our six kids into adulthood, I’ve been astounded at the things other adult Christians have said to my children as they left our house to pursue the vocations God had prepared for them. There’s a consistent theme of fear and discouragement: If you go to that college or move to this place or aren’t super careful, you’ll lose your faith.
These statements come from a place of genuine and justified concern. Many young Christians go to college and never return to church. We’ve all heard of a young person who’s moved out of the house, begun dating an unbeliever, and rejected their faith to live a different life. We know the data. We know the stories. And we are filled with fear. So we impress that fear on our children, urging them to draw their apologetic swords.But however good the intent, these warnings communicated something more to my kids: Have fear, not hope.Your faith is delicate. It’s fragile. It’s glass. At any moment, it could shatter forever. Talking with my kids, I found I had to push back on that implicit teaching—because it pushed them toward a false and lesser understanding of God, his mission for each of them, and his role in preserving their faith.”
Movies:
The Map of Tiny Perfect Things on Amazon video. Grace and I watched this movie recently and found ourselves surprisingly moved by it. It starts out seeming to be a teen version of Groundhog Day, but ends with a meaningful twist that had both of us crying happy tears. Great movie for older teens.
The Pod Generation. I watched this on the plane to Tanzania but looks like it’s available on Hulu. It’s a super thought-provoking movie on what it means to be human and turns out to be (probably unintentionally) quite pro-life. I found this so ironic since the female lead (Emilia Clarke) also stars in Me Before You, which is the most (deceptively) pro-death film I’ve seen. I don’t think there’s anything objectionable in this one, but since I watched it on a Muslim airline, I could have seen an edited version. This movie would be another great discussion starter for older teens.
I may write more about this one at some point, but for now I’ll just say that this is a must-read for everyone who interacts with children, which is, probably, just about everyone.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I wrote about this one here. If you’ve never read it and you are looking for a riveting but also thought-provoking novel, you’ll want to pick this one up.
I live in Southern California, and if you’ve been watching the news, you know that it’s been on fire. Our city is surrounded by the San Bernardino mountains on three sides, and 10 days ago, an arsonist set fire to those mountains just a few miles away from us. We haven’t had rain in months, and last week the temperatures soared above 110, so we were the perfect tinder box.
During the day, the air was so thick that the mountains disappeared. At night, ribbons of bright red slashed through the darkness in the distance. Folks pulled their cars over to the side of the road, watching, entranced as the ribbons danced through the mountains, terrifying yet mesmerizing.
A week ago, the whole world smelled like when you get too close to a campfire and you can’t breathe. Our church’s annual baptism ceremony in the mountains was canceled, many schools closed, and friends were evacuated from their homes.
I watched the FireMappers app obsessively as the evacuation zone crept closer to our house until it was just 1.7 miles away.
My Grace is now 18, has started college, and is studying to become a middle-school history teacher. I think she’s pretty fascinating, and want more people to get to know her. So she agreed to let me interview her for my blog. Just remember that she represents only herself, not all adopted kids, or even her siblings. And as she continues to process her childhood, her answers to these questions will continue to evolve. But she gives a great snapshot of her unique life, and I know you’ll enjoy it!
What was it like to grow up Tanzanian in Tanzania by American parents?
I’m sure that when I was younger, it didn’t feel as weird as it does looking back on it now. I knew other kids that were being raised like that, so I was like, “That’s normal.” Uh, no. No, it’s not!
As I grew up, like the last few years we were in Tanzania, I started realizing that I was treated differently by my Tanzanian classmates because I was from Tanzania, but that was the only thing that we had in common. I wasn’t fluent in Swahili; I had an accent from 10,000 miles away; I knew a lot about American culture and not Tanzanian culture. Sometimes I was subject to minor bullying. It wasn’t like I felt attacked; it was more like insults….. but that’s also because middle schoolers are awful. [And yet she wants to teach middle school!]
But also, being at Haven of Peace Academy really helped. Just because, even if they weren’t adopted, there were so many other kids like me there. There were kids who were from a different culture coming to live in Tanzania, which is kind of like my experience since I grew up in a culturally American home. Of course, I had great Tanzanian food and we listened to Tanzanian music but other than that, it was very American. So having missionary and international kids at the school made me feel that there were way many other people like me around me.
In moving to the U.S. I realized, Whoa, there are more Black people here than I realized. So many ethnicities are counted as “Black” but there are so many different experiences represented. A Nigerian who moved to America as a college student will be living a crazy life of cultural shock. But other kids who are Nigerian and grew up here are completely different. It helped me to realize that there are so many different Black experiences in the U.S. Yes, my story is weird but that’s true of so many people in America.
