missionaryMAC

Fellow missionary Ashley Lehr & I have been travel buddies on multiple occasions now: Germany in December 2021,  Pico Duarte in December 2022, Spain in November 2024. Accordingly, when she started talking about a friends' cruise for her "golden birthday" (age = date)...in June of 2024(!)...I was intrigued. Unused vacation days + a travel credit from Capital One made it largely a no-brainer.  Fast forward to last weekend, and Ashley's Birthday Bash morphed into her parents & I spending a long weekend celebrating at Ashley's place (pictured below) in Cabo Rojo, PR, doing all of her favorite things and then some. Her kitchen table is small, so she'd set up a folding table in the living room with a color-me tablecloth that even had a crossword puzzle for me! The numbered images are the clues; the words underneath are the answer key. I knew I'd trained Ashley well for her role hosting short-term volunteers that complements mine in the DR when she sen...

The DR missionary team doesn't need excuses to celebrate...but an engagement sure sounds like a good one.  Tirzah & co. organized a dessert + drinks soiree for the evening after I got home from Jamaica . She told us it'd be "chill," but I immediately started questioning her definition of the word when we walked in to a photo slideshow and this (keep scrolling for the champagne toast and bakery-esque cake): Our favorites were represented on a beautiful sweet and savory spread of finger foods:  Me: pumpkin pie Josh: [plain] cheesecake Josh is still wondering why it took me so long to take a bite out of my mini cheesecake stacked on top of a mini pumpkin pie...     Practicing :) We were nice to each other...this time! We were - and continue to be - literally surrounded by the love and support of our missionary family. I'll close with some of the marriage advice they gave us while we sipped champagne:  [Josh], always remember to put the seat down! "A threefol...

You've probably heard someone say "Not today, Satan!" in an attempt to shun the devil's wiles. Last week in Jamaica, he was working overtime such that our mantra became "Not this week, Satan!" I was there hosting an eyeglass team, OIM's 2nd in partnership with MOST Ministries, and we didn't have any eyeglasses to give out until clinic day 3 of 5. From the team's arrival on Saturday until Tuesday afternoon, they were in "prison" (aka customs). Despite such adverse circumstances, I heard ZERO complaints - from the team or from the "friends" who left empty-handed. Rather, in the midst of it, a morning devotion on Philippians 1, written during Paul's imprisonment, hit different for all of us:   I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the ...

Tirzah & I flew back from Belize with six DR FORO partners: congregational, district, and RSO representatives invested in God's mission in the Dominican Republic. Together, we weathered a maintenance issue that led to deplaning and waiting three hours for a new aircraft...and later, a pilot...but thanks be to God we still arrived by early evening with enough time to get a full night's sleep before our cultural excursion day.  DR FOROs typically begin as such so everyone can recover from travel and get to know both missionaries and fellow partners. On this occasion, 47 of us headed for the hills: specifically, the Cafe Monte Alto coffee factory in Jarabacoa. I think I was the only one who had been there before .  The tour was even better than I remembered it being six years ago, but no, I still don't drink the stuff.  A coffee cherry might have 1, 2, or 3 beans inside. At this stage, they taste a little like green beans. I see what they're doing here...shamelessly u...