I am a missionary gone rogue. Funded by supporters and my organization to live in China, I received a masters in Intercultural Studies and spent two years in full-time language school studying Chinese. I had relationships, was living in a Chinese community complete with neighbor visitors, vegetable gardens, and a live-in pet bunny. I was called. I was thriving. I was fluent. And then I came home.
I remember discussing missions with friends in high school. “I’ll go if God really wants me to go, but I want to stay,” they’d say. I’d surprise them with, “I’ll stay if He really wants me to stay, but I want to go!” I finally had my chance to go to China and lived there, loving it, from 2005 to 2010. So when God had other plans and led me back to the states, it was with great difficulty that I surrendered to His mysterious plan.
His plan included rerouting my path from China, missions, language study and a PhD study to changing diapers, making goofy faces at my 6-month-old and quiet evenings with my husband. My plan was to marry a missionary in northwest rural China, while God’s plan for me included marrying an actor living in the northside of Chicago. This blog will hopefully serve as an outlet as I reconcile my desire to live a ruggedly adventurous life serving God where most people will never go with the journey that He has me on, serving God on the normal, domestic path that many mamas have tread before me.