How close are you to the people you interact with day in and day out? Is your dentist your friend or the parent of one of your students? Do you see your child’s Principal at social gatherings? Do you shop at the same grocery store and worship at the same church?For those of you who have grown up in or lived in a very small town, the answer to many of these questions might be yes and, for us, living here in Ukarumpa, the answer is most definitely yes. If there are six degrees of separation … [Read more...] about Zero Degrees of Separation
McCarthy's Musings
Elbow Room
“From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the towering rock of safety.” Psalm 61:2 (NLT) Have you ever felt overwhelmed? Have you ever felt like the tasks before you were too great. The unknowns too daunting. The stakes too high? I have felt this way so palpably in the past few months. Over the past three years, we have navigated more transition as a family than we have in the 5 years prior and these past few months we have … [Read more...] about Elbow Room
God of the “Ands”
This past week, we hosted the Senior class for a potluck and I captured these two photos of just a few of the youth loving on our kids and it made me smile but, with that smile lingered a tinge of sadness. A tinge of relational loneliness. A bit of longing for the young men and women in Canada who are big brothers and sisters to our kids. The ones who sat with them in church, ran around with them, played with them, attended their school concerts and read stories to them before bed. A bit of an … [Read more...] about God of the “Ands”
Derailed Dependent Yet Inexplicably At Peace
My deepest friendships are ones of grace - ones of acceptance. Yes, they are friendships with other sinful people, but those deep, deep friendships are almost always relationships in which I know I am loved no matter what. Enter an incredibly difficult decision - a decision in which, at times, I have felt like I was choosing abandonment - a decision through which I have felt like I was slamming a door on the promise of living life together face to face. A decision that has seemed … [Read more...] about Derailed Dependent Yet Inexplicably At Peace
We’re Not So Different
What do you think of when you think of a missionary? What comes to mind? What pictures are elicited? What traits do you imagine? Courageous, Godly, Bold, Different. Before coming to the mission field, that was my impression. These other worldly, supremely spiritual beings who long only for God’s kingdom. A sort of untouchable calibre of Christian, far from relateability, experiencing an entirely different set of problems than you or I. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why I … [Read more...] about We’re Not So Different
