My Byline Online

Enjoy these lovely links to selected articles I’ve written that are available online:

  • A Moons and Houses and Hope Travelogue (Culture Keeper, 19 December 2016):We entered Bosnia by road as night fell. A full moon rose and threw a spotlight down on houses scattered like carcasses through the countryside. So very many carcasses. Empty inside, roofless, with charred stone walls marking a former existence. Silent, somber, haunting, poetic testimony to tragedy. What exactly had happened here? Suddenly it all mattered….
  • The Brexit Heard ‘Round the World (Blue Dot, 12 July 2016): Due to living in a Southeast London garret for three months a few years ago and now residing in France, where I suppress envy over how easy life is for European friends who live and work here with nary a visa application in sight, my Facebook feed in the days around the referendum revealed friends who carried thoughtful and varied perspectives on what’s been happening. I’ve included their original posts and then asked some of them to take the conversation further than they did on Facebook…
  • Sometimes There’s a Historic Car Race Just Around the Next Corner (Blue Dot, 24 May 2016): Sparks. Tires flying. A pretty mint green capsule of a car careening from the left side of the curve to crash into the wall on the right, adding swipes of black to the orange and white safety barrier. Yet in the slow motion replay in my mind, I’m no longer sure of the order of those details…
  • Marseille Responds to the Paris Attacks (Blue Dot, 17 November 2015): Finally, though, just three eternity-feeling nights since the horrifying attacks on Parisian civilians, tonight at the Vieux Port, Marseille responded in much more force. People gathered en masse in solidarity. It was an informal gathering, no speakers, no one seemed to be in charge, no obvious extra security. Just citizens together…
  • Driving Through the Balkans, a Rocky Road (Washington Post, 25 June 2015): Despite scenic views, charming dinners and welcoming hosts, we found traces of tragedy in burned-out houses, ethnic segregation and a pervasive sense of melancholy. The five countries we passed through were like beloved grandparents with war stories to tell…
  • We Are Still Charlie (Society of Professional Journalists’ Journalism and the World blog, 3 May 2015): For most of the day, the crew members outnumbered the handfuls of spectators who paused in their wanderings along the wide boulevard that is a center of all that happens in Aix. But for Bernard Beka, a veteran war reporter who organized the event in partnership with Reporters Without Borders, if even just eight people listened and were touched by what they heard, then that would suffice…
  • Releasing Fear, Embracing God (The Well, 8 December 2015): I come by fear honestly. It’s embedded in my genes, not the best gift among the other better heritages that live down the lines of my family. I first climbed deeply into the pit of fear when I was about 13 years old. I was dragged down there initially by some thyroid hormones that were out of whack, but I wasn’t released from the prison just by correcting the hormone levels. Fear had gained a foothold and wasn’t quick to relinquish it…
  • The Word Became Flesh (The Washington Institute’s Missio blog, 24 December 2013): A lover of words and their sounds, I discovered, a few months into my studies, that there were certain French words that resisted taking up residence in the new dictionary in my head. Upon further inspection, I realized this was because my new dictionary was fighting them off, unwilling to accept entries from words whose sounds I don’t find pleasing, while it eagerly welcomed the words whose beauty I prefer over their English counterpart…
  • Standing with Zambia: Spark Ventures (North Park University’s North Parker magazine, Summer 2013): Overwhelmed by the needs he observed while working alongside Mumba and his wife, Margaret, at their orphanage and school—initiatives that began in the early 2000s when the Mumbas responded to needs in their church—he asked Mumba, “What do you need?” Johnson was already anticipating the answer would be money. Instead, Mumba said they needed partners to stand alongside them until they could stand on their own…
  • Help that Heals (Prism Magazine, March/April 2011): When I landed in Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo, for a brief visit in late 2007 after a period of horrible fighting and massacres in the region, UN cargo planes were the only others parked on the tarmac. Blue-hatted soldiers lounged against their roadside tanks as we traveled from the airport to the missionary pilot’s home…  
  • Vietnam: Unleaching Disciples (Outreach, September/October 2010): Before joining Northwood Church in Keller, Texas, in 2007 and 2009, respectively, both Jessica Jernigan and Vicky Scott had participated in mission trips with their previous churches. And both had a love for international travel. So it was no surprise when the two women were quick to attend informational sessions about Northwood’s ongoing work in Vietnam and upcoming trips to the developing Southeast Asian nation…
  • Zimbabwe economic crisis cripples mission station (United Methodist News Service, 10 January 2008 ): The sewage system is overloaded, buildings are decaying, electricity is unreliable, and economic turmoil in Zimbabwe makes operating two schools, a hospital, a children’s home and church nearly impossible. Yet Old Mutare Mission, a ministry of The United Methodist Church for 110 years, is determined to continue its ministry to the people of Zimbabwe, its leaders say…
  • I’ve uploaded additional articles here.
  • And here’s a bit of video from an unexpected interview in French on World Press Freedom Day 2015.

**As of December 2015, my photographer friend JC Johnson and I have released Micro Stories, a collaboration of image and text. The book’s photos were taken in Europe and play with scale, creating a miniature effect. The stories are tiny, short fiction tales that narrate the photos but are also intended to inspire you to find your own stories in the whimsical images. It’s available on Etsy!

Africa-India-Haiti

Essays

Travel writing

Articles

Women Who Lead the Way (CCCU Advance, Spring 2010): While CCCU schools have made progress in advancing women’s leadership, much opportunity still exists for improvement. more