“Good job, Mom! You didn’t cry!” my daughter Zoe congratulated me recently. We were visiting our old home of 10 years on the island of Tarakan, off the coast of northeast Kalimantan. It had been over four years since we left, and I think Zoe was worried I would repeat the great outpouring of emotion […]
I have a collection of magnets on my refrigerator. Each magnet serves as reminder of the places I’ve been, the things I’ve seen, the people I love. There are several “Colorado” magnets, reminding me of my homeland and the people I love there. A “Wisconsin” magnet reminds me of going to Oshkosh last year with […]
I was you.
It’s hard to believe it was nine years ago. I got off that plane on that small Indonesian island to the blanket of heat and the MAF team of strangers waiting for us. I climbed in the car and saw my first views of Tarakan—the palm trees, people staring at me through the […]
A few months ago, I sat on the front porch of a national missionary-pastor’s house watching village life pass by while his wife worked in the kitchen to serve us the most extravagant meal she could create on short notice. Villagers flowed in and out of their home—some to talk about recent deaths in the […]
As I gripped the sides of the skinny dugout canoe and shut my eyes, I wondered if our jungle adventure was going to come to an end in the swirling brown river.
A lot of times when Kelly and I are explaining what MAF does, we’ll say something like, “In some of the most remote areas […]
On a recent flight to the small village of Long Sule, MAF pilot Steve Persenaire told me a little bit about the people who live there. Unlike most of the villages in Kalimantan, in Long Sule the women do much of the hard labor. Whenever a plane comes in, ladies are there waiting to help […]