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Crossing Cultures Making Disciples Memoir

Fitting in

Fitting in when you enter a new culture can be a challenge. 

My parents grew up in America and moved to Asia.  Learned language and culture to fit in.

I grew up in Indonesia and loved the place of my childhood and teenage years. I spoke the language, played their games, knew how to bargain with the best. Had dear Indonesian friends. 

But I wasn’t Indonesian.

Every four years we came and spent a year in the country of my passport. America. 

I wasn’t sure I was American either.  

Old passports.
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Crossing Cultures Devotional Memoir

The greatest Treasure

One Christmas in Karachi. Mary’s travel to Bethlehem in her pregnancy catches my attention. And imagination.

I’m expecting our second child at the time. Struggling with all-day sickness. I put myself in her shoes. On the rough road from Nazareth. 

Arriving. Travel weary. And finding no place to stay.
Making do in temporary quarters. Where animals are kept. 

Giving birth.
Away from home and the familiar. 
Placing a newborn in the feeding trough. 

Yet, treasure. In the midst of it all. She holds the Savior of the world in her arms.

Nativity. Image by Walter Chavez on Unsplash photos.
Categories
Crossing Cultures Devotional

Matters of the heart

The conversation was one we had several times. “People have black hearts,” she would say. “People have rotten hearts.”  She used the word that describes rotting fruit. Busuk.