When your life feels like an earthquake

Have you ever felt an earthquake?

I experienced Seattle’s 1965 earthquake. People felt it across Washington, British Columbia, Idaho, and Oregon. The 6.5 quake (some officials called it a 6.7) lasted 45 seconds, and that’s a long time for an earthquake of that magnitude.

But the earth’s eerie roar lasted even longer than that.

Sometimes life can feel like an earthquake. Without warning, a jolt rocks the world. What has seemed solid and predictable and dependable suddenly lurches and crumbles. And even when the shaking stops, the jarring trauma rolls on.

And the eerie roar lasts longer than that.

After the 1965 Seattle earthquake, countless structures had to be repaired and strengthened and because of that, I added a new word to my vocabulary: Retrofitting.

Just about everything needed to be retrofitted: bridges, roads, buildings, chimneys, and equipment. That is, they needed not only repairs but significant modifications to lessen the damage if other earthquakes should strike. Often retrofitting required the development of new gizmos and doodads and technology.

After that April 29, 1965 earthquake, I remember all of us—my family, classmates, friends, neighbors, Seattle’s newspapers and TV stations—all of us relived the trauma, trying to process what had happened, amazed and thankful our damage wasn’t worse, worried that aftershocks or even bigger earthquakes would soon follow. All our talk was like that eerie roar that kept up after the ground stopped lurching.

Years later, when my husband burst through our front door and announced we were moving to South America so he could teach missionaries’ kids, the earth beneath my feet felt like another major earthquake had struck and I literally fell to the floor.

And in coming days and weeks and months, the eerie roar roared on. My dreams and plans had taken a hit. My sense of where my life was headed had fallen apart.

What I didn’t know then was that the earthquake that my husband (and eventually, it turned out, that God, too) sprung on me was meant for good. In fact, I would later learn that some of my dreams and plans weren’t the best for me and my family. They needed to crumble down in ruins.

But I didn’t recognize that then. Instead, the stuff of earthquakes—like crumbled bricks and debris—covered me. It was dark down there. I felt bruised and broken. Alone.

I was only 27 years young. The old me now wishes I could have told the 27-year-old me that I could live a good life even after earthquakes and loss and the shock of it all.

As Christine Caine said, “Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.”

It would take me a couple of years to recognize that. The process included confusion, pain, waiting, and a lot of mystery.

Even though I struggled to recognize the specifics of God’s presence and guidance, deep down I knew He was working out my future.

That future would involve helping people who had nothing—nothing—of the Bible in their own languages. They had no way of knowing God and His goodness and involvement in their lives, especially when they, too, experienced life’s earthquakes and heaps of ruins.

But I—I did have God’s Word to stabilize me and give me hope. It tells me—and you, too—that He is present with us in our troubles and, “So we will not fear when earthquakes come and mountains crumble. . . . Let the mountains tremble . . . !”

And then He says, 

“Be still, and know that I am God!” 

(Psalm 46:1-11)

Wow! What a contrast: 

The earth trembles and splits and crumbles and roars, 

yet we are to be still. Still in God’s presence.

Be still and be assured: 

He knows all about our lives’ tremors 

and jolts and upheavals and lurches and joggles. 

And He knows about the resulting broken pieces 

and piles of rubble.

Be still and be assured: 

He repairs and rebuilds us, 

retrofitting us to stabilize and strengthen us, 

making modifications to lessen the damage 

if other “earthquakes” should strike—

all to make us beautiful, and useful to Him, in His time. 

(Ecclesiastes 3:11)

A word from Wycliffe USA’s President/CEO

Linda K. Thomas has delivered another captivating memoir. . . . In Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go, Linda invites readers to a turbulent time in a volatile region. Threats from anti-American Marxist guerrillas were just one of the many very good reasons not to move to 1970s Colombia.

But Linda, her husband, and their two young children answered God’s call anyway, and her account is a reminder that a call to the mission field is a call to sacrifice. It can be uncomfortable, challenging, and at times tragic. 

But Linda’s story also reveals the amazing work God accomplishes through His people when we trust Him with what seems impossible. (Bob Creson, President/CEO, Wycliffe Bible Translators USA)

In my other memoir, Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I wrote about a mini-adventure I had with Bob. At the time, he was Director of the Cameroon Branch of SIL (a partner organization with Wycliffe Bible Translators) and I worked as a journalist with SIL, based out of Nairobi, Kenya.

Below is an excerpt from Grandma’s Letters from Africa about that day with Bob.

On November 11 each year, Wycliffe members set aside the day to pray for our work. Around the world, wherever they gather, they view the World Day of Prayer video so they can link faces and personalities with specific prayer requests. During May’s meetings at Brackenhurst [upcountry in Kenya], I interviewed several people for this fall’s video—individuals from Ghana, Nigeria, Central African Republic, and the Philippines.  

One of the people I interviewed, Grace Adjekum, serves as the Director of Ghana’s Bible institute. Grace found herself in the midst of brutal ethnic violence in February when [my husband] and I had planned to travel there. (. . . . We received word along the way to skip Ghana so we traveled on to the next country on our itinerary.) 

When Grace arrived at Brackenhurst, she told us that those clashes had focused on her and Ghanaian Bible translators. Warring factions killed a thousand people, including Grace’s adopted son, and destroyed a hundred and fifty villages. . . . 

During our stay at Brackenhurst, Grace’s sister underwent extensive surgery in Nairobi. She needed a blood transfusion, so Grace asked people with Type O negative blood to donate. Only Bob Creson (the Director of Cameroon’s work) and I had that type, and we checked out a car and headed down to Nairobi.  

Along the way, I confessed that I worried about giving blood because of potential exposure to AIDS and hepatitis, but we went ahead with it anyway. Bob watched closely during the procedure and assured me afterward that they had used new, sterile needles.

Whew! I was so glad Bob was there to reassure me during this nervous time—exposure to AIDS, and to any number of other diseases, was a real consideration while we lived there.

Our drive to and from Nairobi was 90 minutes each way, giving us lots of time to visit. I still remember significant wisdom Bob shared with me—words I needed to hear at the time. Bless his heart.

Bob went on to become the President and CEO of Wycliffe Bible Translators USA and has served very successfully in that role for many years.

Below is a quote from Bob about the work of Wycliffe Bible Translators:

Be sure to “like” my Facebook Page because I post additional tidbits and interesting stuff. Do a search for Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir by Linda K. Thomas.

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“If you don’t like disruptions, stay away from God”

Sometimes God throws unwelcome surprises at us.

We can be happily minding our own business, doing the best we know to do, diligently fulfilling our roles—good roles like parenting and spousing (is that a word?), ministry, chores around the house and yard, maintaining friendships—when BAM! Out of nowhere, God blindsides us.

He interrupts our living.

He disrupts our dreams.

He intrudes on our plans.

Chuck Swindoll writes that an intrusion “is someone or something that thrusts itself into our world without permission, without an invitation, and refuses to be ignored.” (Day by Day with Charles R. Swindoll)

  

I don’t like such intrusions. I don’t like to have my goals interrupted and my life knocked off the rails. How about you?

But if we’re people who believe God is important, if we’ve committed our lives to Him, we must listen when He disrupts.

Recently I heard Rev. James Broughton III say something like this: “God interrupts your life and then he disrupts your life. If you don’t like disruptions, stay away from God.”

And so it was that at the beginning of my memoir, God (with help from my husband Dave) interrupted my comfortable life. Disrupted my serenity.

They both were disregarding my plans and dreams—and waiting for me to do the same.

If I went along with God, if I did things His way, the life I’d planned would get tossed upside down and inside out.

Life became confusing. The pain in the core of my being zapped the breath out of me. I struggled to make sense of what my life meant to me, of what my husband and two preschoolers meant to me—and what God meant to me. And what the four of us meant to God.

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, 

neither are your ways my ways, 

declares the Lord. 

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 

so are my ways higher than your ways 

and my thoughts than your thoughts.” 

(Isaiah 55:8-9)

“The world bombards us . . . telling us that unless we have the newest, the biggest and the best we will never be happy. But God says, ‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness’” (Matthew 6:33). (From The Bible Study)

Gulp. I had been thinking and planning like a self-centered, materialistic suburbanite determined to chase after the American dream.

This was a wake-up call telling me to bend my thinking more toward God’s perspective.

He seemed to be saying, “My purposes for you are different than what you always expected. And my purposes for you are good.”

“God is … quietly, invisibly, secretly planning our steps; feeding us our lines; moving us into position; unifying everything we do,” writes Lawrence Kushner.

“We are chastened to realize that what we thought was an accident was, in truth, the hand of God. Most of the time we are simply unaware. Awareness takes too much effort, and besides, it’s more fun to pretend we are running the show. 

"But every now and then we understand, just for a moment, that God has all along been involved in everything. As Rabbi Zaddok HaKohen taught, ‘The first premise of faith is to believe with perfect faith that there is no such thing as happenstance.… Every detail, small or great, they are all from the Holy One.’ Everything is organically, seamlessly joined to everything else and run by God.…” (Lawrence Kushner, Eyes Remade for Wonder)

BAM! Out of nowhere, God had blindsided me. 

He was giving me a wake-up call.

I had a lot of thinking to do.  

A lot of reconsidering to do. 

A lot of praying to do.

Woot! Woot! Finally, the e-book is for sale!

Looking for a good summer read? Well . . .

Woot! Woot! Finally, the e-book is for sale! It has taken a whole month (since the publication of the print book).

Only Barnes and Noble sells the e-book version of Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.

And currently Barnes and Noble offers it at a reduced price!

I don’t know why Amazon won’t sell the e-book (Amazon sells only the print book), but so be it.

You can get a sneak peek inside the memoir at Barnes and Noble, but Amazon still hasn’t installed the Read Inside feature. (Do you see a trend here?)

I’m getting nice feedback from those who are reading Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir. For example:

“Chapter 23 is outstanding!”

“I’m full of smiles as my wife and I read your book 

together every evening. . .. What fun. 

I will hate to see the book end.”

“Lots of laughs reading your book.”

So, if you’re looking for a good summer read, buy yourself a copy of Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.

Also, you might want to follow the memoir’s Facebook Page. Click on that link.

The following sell Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir:

Indigo(Canada)

Barnes andNoble (paperback)

Barnes and Noble (e-book)

Powell’s Books in Portland

Amazon

Eden.co.uk(UK)

Books-A-Million

Blooming where you’re planted

If I’d known Lomalinda had such lush flowers, perhaps I wouldn’t have dreaded moving there quite so much.

Our lives are so much richer for flowers, don’t you think? “Where flowers bloom,” said Lady Bird Johnson, “so does hope.” What a lovely thought.

As a native of the Pacific Northwest, I knew nothing about tropical flowers except for what I’d run across in a florist shop or greenhouse. Was I in for a surprise!

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 11 of Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir:

Tropical vegetation surrounded us, hurrying to grow taller and thicker. Hibiscus plants sprouted everywhere, covered with new crimson blossoms each morning. Cup of Gold, with its large yellow flowers, grew around our center; white and golden Frangipani (Plumeria) gave off a heady, tropical fragrance; and Bird of Paradise grew wild in low swampy areas. 

Begonias in red and pink thrived in shade; Veinte de Julio, or July 20, named for Colombia’s independence day, showed off large frilly blossoms of orange and yellow; Mimosa lined pathways, decorated with tiny lavender-colored poofs; Lantana bloomed in red, orange, and gold, and Lomalinda was home to many more flowers and vines I couldn’t name. 

Some people collected orchids, gathering them from low jungle areas. Glenny Gardner’s brother, Tommy, had an orchid shed with purple cattleyas, small yellow ones, white ones, and strings of tiny pinks–a dazzling display. 

And gardenias grew along the entire length of our house. Gardenias! A hedge of gardenias! During my teen years, a young man might give a gardenia corsage to his prom date, but in Lomalinda gardenias by the hundreds, gardenias by the thousands, bloomed outside our windows, their inebriating perfume filling the air.

And how could I have left bougainvillea off that list? Their hot pink blossoms, or red, or orange, simply glowed under brilliant sunshine.

Living among such flowers was a new experience for me.

And it was not just the flowers—it was the trees, too.

Palm trees were new to me. I’d seen photos, of course, but to live among them—that was utterly exotic.

Here’s another excerpt from Chapter 11: 

A variety of trees edged our yard: lemon, papaya, avocado, mango, a bamboo grove, a tree with round pink blossoms resembling a burst of fireworks, and a tree people called Jungle Ice Cream. Kids pried open its pods—a couple of feet long—and ate cotton-candy-like fluff surrounding the seeds.

I still have to pinch myself: Lemon trees grew in my yard! And papayas, avocados, and mangos. Unreal!

I was in for pleasant new experiences with Lomalinda’s vegetation, but beforehand, while I was still in the States, I couldn’t have guessed that. I was begging, “Please, God, don’t make me go to Lomalinda!”

When I got there, my life fell apart and I plotted to run away.

I wish I’d known then about award-winning author Barbara Johnson’s wise words:

“If things are tough, 

remember that every flower that ever bloomed 

had to go through a whole lot of dirt to get there.” 

Yes, I’d have to go through a lot of “dirt”—doubts, difficult transitions, tears, homesickness, despair—before I could bloom where I was planted.

Barbara continues: “The Almighty Father will use life’s reverses to move you forward.”

I can attest to that. What seemed like reverses turned out to be tools God used to move me forward and upward.

When recalling those early experiences in Lomalinda, it hurts a bit. But I share them with you in case you’re going through troubling times—your own “dirt.”

Perhaps God is moving you toward something beautiful, something precious. Watch for it—watch for the days when you’ll be blooming where you are planted.

If only I’d known I would love living there

What would you expect your living conditions to be if you were to move to the end of the road in the middle of nowhere in South America?

That’s where my husband, Dave, wanted me to move, along with our two preschoolers. But to me, Dave was acting like that “wild and crazy sheep in love with thorns and brambles” that Thomas Merton wrote about. 

In my other memoir, Grandma’s Letters from Africa, I described Dave as “a free spirit who seldom limits himself to coloring within other people’s lines.”

But I was the opposite kind of person. Adventure and risk—those “thorns and brambles”—were not my cup of tea.

And coloring outside the lines? Never!

The thought of moving to a remote outpost in South America—of all places!—shot scary stuff into my brain and heart, stuff that assaulted my wellbeing, night and day.

If only I could have looked into the future—because then I’d have seen how much I would love working at our mission center, Lomalinda (pretty hill), alongside remarkable people.

But, of course, I couldn’t see into the future. I had no idea what rich adventures and relationships my family and I would enjoy there.

Instead, my mind went bonkers. Here’s an excerpt from Chapter 1:

 “What kind of house would we live in?” I asked Dave. I pictured a hut with a dirt floor.

 “I don’t know,” he admitted. 

“What if we had to build our own house? And with what? Bamboo and palm leaves? Besides,” I heard my voice getting shrieky, “we don’t even know how to build a house.” 

My mind went wild. “Would we have to grow our own vegetables and meat? What about eggs? And milk? The kids need milk, you know. Would we have to get a cow? I bet we wouldn’t even have electricity. And what about water? Would we have to haul our water?” 

I didn’t give Dave a chance to answer. I was on a roll. “Living in South America could be deadly! After all, look what happened to Jim Elliot. The natives killed him and his friends.” 

My voice rose an octave. “Karen’s only three years old! And Matt just turned five!” Our kids were so vulnerable, and the unknown for the four of us shook me to the core. Sometimes God does lead people to perilous places, and I didn’t want to find our young family among them.

I envisioned the worst. All I could do was pray—urgently: Please, God, don’t make me go!

Think about it: 

What would you expect your living conditions to be 

if you were to move to the end of the road 

in the middle of nowhere in South America?

Leave a comment below 

or on Facebook 

(Please, God, Don't Make Me Go: 

A Foot-Dragger's Memoir by Linda K. Thomas), 

or leave a private message on Facebook. 

A pay cut, no medical insurance, no retirement plan

During my lifetime, the American Dream has been so pervasive in our values, assumptions, and expectations that we have allowed it to be a comfortable, acceptable, welcome part of Christianity.

The American dream: Upward mobility. Abundance. Living the good life.

Back in my twenties, those were my goals. I admit it. In my circles, including my church circles, that was the thing to do—that was the way we lived.

Like I said in “I was chasing the American Dream,” when I was a teenager and a young wife and mother, I never questioned those goals. I never questioned my motives for pursuing them.

What a shock it would have been for me if, back then, I had read David Wilkinson’s words in The Prayer of Jabez: “Do we really understand how far the American Dream is from God’s dream for us? We’re steeped in a culture that worships freedom, independence, personal rights, and the pursuit of pleasure.” 

Christianity and the American dream clash when our motives for getting more money and possessions are to show off our success, to impress others with our lifestyles, to use our status as a way to compete or exert power, or to pursue self-indulgence and self-gratification.

My husband, Dave, sensed I planned to pursue that kind of American dream, and I thank God for giving me a thinking, questioning man. Dave didn’t want that lifestyle for our young family.

This topic is not easily covered in one short blog post, but I’ll highlight Bible verses that spoke to my husband’s heart back in our pre-Lomalinda days (and later, spoke to my heart, and still do):

Jesus said: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothes? . . . Do not worry, saying ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:25-33, NIV).

The New Living Translation words verse 33 this way: “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.”

Eventually I realized I needed to look at the American dream in a new way, the better way. Dear Chuck Swindoll—my life and faith would be so different without him!—says, “If I am to seek first in my life God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, then whatever else I do ought to relate to that goal . . . . Every decision I make ought to be filtered through the Matthew 6:33 filter: where I put my money, where and how I spend my time, what I buy, what I sell, what I give away.” (Dear Graduate: Letters of Wisdom from Charles R. Swindoll )

Here’s another of Jesus’ teachings: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. . . . No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:10-21, 24 NIV).

Or, the New Living Translation words verse 24 this way: “No one can serve two masters. . . . You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”

The New Century Version words verse 24 this way: “You cannot serve both God and worldly riches.”

Each person and family must decide how to apply those teachings of Jesus.

My husband and God eventually persuaded me to let go of chasing after that American dream.

Instead, our family took a big pay cut and moved to Lomalinda—no medical insurance, no retirement plan. We had to believe God would give us everything we needed—and He did! (And there’s a huge difference between what a person needs and wants.)

I recommend the following for more on this topic:

Priorities

The Christian Worldview and the American Dream

Should Christians Pursue the American Dream?

Haggai, Chapter 1, in the Old Testament (Caught Up With Taking Care of Our Own Houses) 

Should Christians Strive for the ‘American Dream’? 

I was chasing the American Dream

I’d always planned to chase the American Dream—I’d marry a guy who’d earn more money next year than this year. And more money each year after that. And we’d get a bigger, nicer house every so often. And increasingly nice furniture and carpets. New cars, too.

And I expected we’d continue our pursuit of happiness—which the Declaration of Independence says is our right. I assumed gaining more and better possessions would lead to that happiness.

Abundance. Upward mobility. Living the good life. When I was a kid and a young wife and mother, that’s what I assumed would be mine.

And I wasn’t alone. In The American Dream: A Cultural History, Lawrence R. Samuel observes that “. . . the American Dream . . . is thoroughly woven into the fabric of everyday life. It plays a vital, active role in who we are, what we do, and why we do it.”

I still remember the house my family moved into when I was about three years old. My dad had finished his duties in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II and, thanks to the GI Bill, my parents bought one of the many new houses popping up.

Our house was tiny, but it was new and in an all-new neighborhood in suburban Spokane, Washington. It had one bathroom (tub, no shower) and two bedrooms (smaller than many of today’s closets), one of which my two little brothers and I shared. The living room measured about thirteen feet long and nine feet wide. A small kitchen also served as our only place to eat. But life was good.

A few years later, my dad’s employer transferred him across the state to a tall office building in downtown Seattle. He and Mom were all a-twitter because he’d be wearing suits to work every day. Our family was moving up in the world.

We moved to Seattle’s far northern suburbs (now a city named Shoreline) and bought a house larger than our previous one. This one had three bedrooms—I no longer had to share one with my little brothers. Two bedrooms were tiny, but the master bedroom was a decent size, unlike the one in Spokane. We had one bathroom (tub, no shower), a small kitchen, and our eating space was off the kitchen in one corner of the living room. Yes, indeed, we had moved up in the world.

A year or so after our move, our thickly-forested neighborhood was deforested, and hundreds of new homes popped up—houses a bit bigger and nicer than ours. But my parents spruced ours up here and there as they could afford—they added a shower head to our bathtub (showers seemed to be a status symbol for families who had taken only baths for centuries) and, years later, built a dining room off the back of the house. Yep—we were moving up in the world.

Because of the American Dream, I assumed my husband, Dave, and I would start small and move to increasingly nicer houses. Indeed, we did start small—living in a pathetic little place as newlyweds, later moving to a new-ish apartment at Richmond Beach, Washington, and then into a two-bedroom house on a large wooded lot. 

In 1974, Dave and I bought a house in Edmonds, Washington, an attractive and comfortable town bordering our hometown of Shoreline. Our kids, Matt and Karen, each had their own bedrooms. Dave and I had a half-bath off our bedroom (which neither my parents nor Dave’s had) and in the hallway, we had a full bathroom with an impressive shower. Moving up, indeed.

And we had a fireplace—that was another notable amenity that my parents’ house didn’t have. And it gets better: We had a sliding glass door off of our dining nook. We had definitely moved up in the world.

But I did have dreams of replacing the turquoise rug one day—soon, I hoped. It was in good condition but didn’t match anything we owned.

And I hoped to spruce up the dark-stained kitchen cupboards.

And it would be nice if we could change the master half-bath into a full bath.

And I had dreams of making the kitchen and dining nook just a bit larger by adding on to the back of the house.

I figured this house would suit us well for years to come. I was really happy—until . . . .

Until that fateful February day in 1975 when:

My husband, Dave, burst through the front door of our home and, with a boyish grin and outstretched arms, announced, “We’re moving to Lomalinda! I’m going to teach there!”

 A few seconds passed before I could wheeze in enough air to speak. “Where is Lomalinda?”

 “Colombia, South America!”

 I collapsed to the floor.

 I’d always expected we’d live a normal, predictable, all-American life but, without warning, my husband declared he had other ideas. (from Chapter 1, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir) 

Any day now you should be able to buy Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir as an ebook, and it’s now available in paperback through your favorite independent bookseller, or the following:

Barnes and Noble (10% off with their promo code; 15% off for new customers)

Amazon

Powell’s Books

Eden.co.uk

Books-A-Million 

Indigo (Canada) 

What would you have done?

My new memoir, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir, begins this way:

My husband, Dave, burst through the front door of our Seattle home and, with a boyish grin and outstretched arms, announced, “We’re moving to Lomalinda! I’m going to teach there!” 

A few seconds passed before I could wheeze in enough air to speak. “Where is Lomalinda?”  

“Colombia, South America!”  

I collapsed to the floor.  

I’d always expected we’d live a normal, predictable, all-American life but, without warning, my husband declared he had other ideas.  

It was February 1975 and, as youth director for our church, Dave had taken college kids to a Wycliffe BibleTranslators’ event hoping some would consider missions work. 

The meeting failed to persuade any of his young people but, when Dave learned Wycliffe needed teachers for their missionaries’ kids in Lomalinda, he was hooked. He wanted to move the four of us, including our preschoolers, Matt and Karen, to a dinky outpost in the middle of nowhere. . . .  

The thought of living in Colombia scared me out of my wits. And that was before I’d learned about guerrillas and kidnappings. But, like Abraham, Dave had heard God’s voice, “Leave your homeland.”  

I begged in prayer, “Please, God, don’t make me go!”  

Dave longed to hear me say, “Sure, let’s go!” But I didn’t like his idea. Not at all. The plans I’d made for my life did not include living in Lomalinda. The thought of moving to a patch of grassland in South America made me choke. Uttering the word “yes” was unthinkable.

If you’d been in my place, what would you have done?

Dave’s new plan interrupted the dreams and plans I had for myself as his wife and as the mother of his children.

I don’t appreciate interruptions in general—but this interruption was a doozie . . . . Moving to rural South America?!

And this was not just an interruption, it was a surprise—shocking, traumatic. Dave had given no hints that he’d been thinking along those lines. His desire to teach missionaries’ kids in Colombia left me stunned—as evidenced by my reaction: collapsing to the floor.

What would you have done? 

Feel free to leave a comment or send a private message.

Come on back and we’ll talk more about this.

Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger's Memoir is on special right now at Barnes and Noble for $14.84! That’s an 18% savings! The memoir will be published on June 4, but you can pre-order it now.

You can also pre-order the memoir through your independent bookseller, or Powell’s Books in Portland, Books-A-Million, and Amazon. Those in the UK can order it through Eden Co UK.

Any day now it will be available as an ebook.

Welcome to my adventures—some of them almost other-worldly

Welcome! I hope you’ll find a few laughs here, a few adventures, plus some encouragement and inspiration along the way.

In coming months, you and I will delve into the challenges and unwelcome surprises—but also the joys and wonders—of living in Lomalinda, a mission center built on a cluster of hills in rural Colombia, South America. (In Spanish, Lomalinda means pretty hill.)

I’ll show you pictures from my scrapbook, intrigue you with links to related info, share recipes with you, and tell you stories you won't find in Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go! A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.

Sometimes you’ll hear from—and maybe interact with—people you’ve met in my book.

You’ll join my family and me in our discoveries and adventures (some of them almost other-worldly), but you’ll also learn about and, I hope, learn from my lack of faith and my struggle to trust God—who never gave up on me.

And so, be forewarned: Reading this memoir and this blog could change your life!

Here’s a glimpse into what you’ll find in Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: AFoot-Dragger’s Memoir:

What’s a comfortable—and cowardly—suburbanite to do when her husband wants to move the family to rural Colombia, South America, so he can teach missionaries’ kids?

Linda begs God, “Please don’t make me go!” but He sides with her husband, Dave. So, with a good attitude—well, a pretty good attitude—she turns her back on the American dream and, with timid faith and wobbly courage, sets out with Dave and their kids on a life-changing adventure.

But when culture shock, tropical heat, and a certain boa constrictor threaten to undo her, she considers running away and hiking back to the U.S. Instead, she fights through it and soon falls in love with her work alongside current-day heroes of the faith disguised as regular folks.

Once life is under control, predictable, and easy, Linda receives an unwelcome surprise—a request to travel to one of the world’s most dangerous drug-dealing regions where hundreds of Colombians and Americans have recently died. In fact, most of Colombia is dangerous. Marxist guerrillas don’t like Americans, proving it with bombs, kidnapping, and eventually murder. Linda doesn’t want to leave the only safe place—the mission center—because she doesn’t trust God or herself to make the trip.

Again she begs, “Please, God, don’t make me go!” But she does go. How does she find the faith and courage to set out?

In this heartwarming, sometimes humorous, and sometimes shocking memoir, you’ll walk alongside this young wife and mother as she must choose between:

• her plans and God’s,
• cowardice and courage,
• fear and faith.

Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go will inspire you to cancel membership in the Society of the Faint-hearted, enjoy God more, take a quaking leap of faith, and relish the adventures God dreams up.

Be sure to join us on Facebook at Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir.

Come back next week. I’ll tell you more about my escapades in South America.

You can pre-order Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go! A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir at Amazon or, if you’re in the UK, click on Eden.co.uk. Soon my memoir will be available through many more distributors and retailers.