Partnering with Parents… BOARDING SCHOOL… what thoughts or feelings does this conjure up for you? For some, it may be a foreign concept. For others, it may come with negative connotations, beliefs or experiences. And for a relatively small percent of the US population that has lived it, it may have been not only an extremely positive experience but also a vital educational lifeline. I married a boarding school kid and I have three...

Thank you to all who prayed for our return to Madagascar!! The amount that transpired in that month was a bit intense… good, hard, scary… we’re thankful for the ways the Lord protected and sustained us during this time! A Brief Recap…  * An armed break-in of the main Eden office 4 days before our arrival. * The unexpected death of the mother of one of the midwives at the Sarobidy Maternity Center the night of...

For the last 15+ years, Jamie and I have known with certainty, where the Lord has been calling us individually, as a couple and as a family. Madagascar. That big beautiful Red Island that is home to nearly 28 million people and that exquisitely feels like home to us. In the fall of last year, while on home assignment in the USA and waiting for borders to reopen in Madagascar, we sensed that the Lord was leading our family to serve at Rift...

Here in Kenya…. Thank you all for your prayers over these last few weeks of packing, traveling and transitioning to Kenya. Just 10 hours before we were set to leave for the airport, Gavin spiked a fever and was feeling miserable. Within a few hours we determined it best to change our tickets and postpone our flights by 30 hours– enough time to figure out what was going on, hoping he would feel better for the flight, yet still make...

Anything but Normal… Under normal circumstances, we would be writing this update from Madagascar. Under normal circumstances, we would be sharing about how crazy or perhaps, how seamless, the return trip to Madagascar was and how excruciatingly painful it was to leave our daughter in Kenya for high school. Under normal circumstances, our bodies would be readjusting to the 11-hour time change and the daily rhythms of filtering water,...

Thank you for your gracious prayers, emails and messages of encouragement since sharing the news last month about the imminent transition of taking our oldest to Kenya to begin high school at Rift Valley Academy!  The Lord was incredibly gracious to us amidst the seamless travel of 6 flights, 13 negative PCR Covid tests, entrance back into Madagascar, and the airplane safely landing after two failed attempts in the midst...

Ten Year Anniversary… On this day, 10 years ago exactly, we arrived in Madagascar as a family of five. At the time, our kids were 4 years, 2 years and 6 months old. We arrived in the wee hours of the morning on January 1, 2011… the five of us and all 26 pieces of luggage plus 3 car seats and 3 strollers. Officially, we were nuts!!  The Expected… The last ten years of ministry have been full of things...

Some of the most common questions we encounter when we’re in the USA on home assignment are:  1. So what’s Madagascar like? 2. Do you like living there?  3. What do you eat there? 4. What’s a typical day look like for you?     Three of the four of these questions are not necessarily the easiest to answer in the matter of just a few seconds.  To be clear, we’re not in the USA and...

Thank you all for your prayers for our safe return home! We arrived in country 2 weeks ago and after taking care of some business and seeing friends in the capital city, we made the 10.5 hour drive to our home city last weekend.     The mission field is often described as a massive paradox… deep joys in the face of severe struggles often mingle at the same time. The emotional paradox of our return home is real. After moving between five...

Throughout Madagascar, life is ruled by taboos as an attempt to maintain harmony with the ancestors in whom the Malagasy worship in order to communicate with the Creator God. There are varying levels of taboos… individual, family, community, land and even tribal taboos as is evidenced by the story of the twin babies that Rota and Andry recently rescued and adopted! Since taboos are put into place to maintain harmony, when...

Legally blind by the age of 5, Tovo learned Braille at a school started by Lutheran missionaries in Antsirabe, a small town in the highlands of Madagascar. For the last 25+ years, Tovo has been living with his wife and three kids (ages 9-25 years old) in the region of Mahabana on the northwest coast of Madagascar. Not allowing his loss of vision to deter him, he’s been making and mending fishing nets for local fishermen, fishing with...

In early August, we enjoyed our fourth annual all staff party for the Sarobidy Maternity Center, Eden Projects leadership team, Sarobidy Creations, Tonga Soa Guesthouse and those who we and other missionary teammates employ. In total, along with their families, we were 160 people for a fun-filled day of lots of play, conversations, and good food at the beach! It’s so good to not only work and pray with this team but to play together as...

 In July we traded the greenery and the majesty of the Alps for the rugged beauty, coastal breeze and the unmistakable warmth of the Malagasy people.    We traded speaking in French to speaking in Malagasy. We traded our work environment from our desks in the classroom to the walls of the maternity center and being out in the field– either in the mangrove mud flats, the dry deciduous nurseries or reforestation sites....

An opportunity, a job, a transformed life.. Half of Madagascar’s population is under the age of 15 years old. Like many young people in Madagascar, Abid dropped out of school early, took any job he could– shoveling sand or mixing cement so that he could financially help his parents. Growing up in an extremely poor family within the community, Josy has known Abid since he was a young boy. Josy offered Abid a job with Eden Projects a...

Of God’s goodness… Two weeks ago we left our beloved home in Madagascar… it was a hard and tearful goodbye. Leaving all that is known and loved… home, friends, routines, our work and going to a new country where everything is unknown. We stopped off in Kenya for four days to visit Rift Valley Academy (RVA), the boarding school for missionary kids where Jamie spent his junior high and high school years– he would...

In recent months we’ve been growing our program at the Sarobidy Maternity Center in order to provide safe and compassionate care to more moms and babies in our community. In fact, we’ve doubled our numbers. In the upcoming months we’ll be serving nearly 140 women on a weekly basis through our prenatal and postpartum programs. This is in addition to the women that come to our weekly family planning program. We’ve made...

So many months since Ten on Ten. I miss this monthly gift that helps me pick up the camera to catch the daily happenings of life. To remember these days that are so fleeting. The 10th fell on a Sunday this month… sandwiched between our return from a a whirlwind trip to the capital city the night before and the evening pick up of a sonography team that provided our staff with two weeks of obstetrical ultrasound training. Amazing! A morning...

And… we’re off! We’re sitting waiting to board our first flight. Goodbyes have been said, tears shed and home assignment is complete. It was intense, in some ways—predictably so and in other ways it was intense in ways we could never imagine. Here’s a snapshot of our last seven months by the numbers… * We moved houses 6 times * 3000+ Sarobidy Creations items that were tagged and priced by countless friends and family that...

For all of you who have experienced African rains… the dramatic thunder and lightening, rain so loud on a tin roof you can’t hear someone next to you shouting, raindrops the size of small cats and the instantaneous drenching of the land– then you know exactly what we mean when we say “african rains”. Indeed, they are something beautiful! After four years of disappointing rainy seasons and the subsequent drought...

In two hands… This last month has felt that we’re often holding life with all of it’s opposing feelings and situations in two hands at the same time. In one hand, soaking in the life-giving days we had in Seattle with Madagascar teammates and college friends while in the other hand, navigating a damaging and destructive situation with employees in Madagascar at the same time. In one hand, the pride of our oldest daughter...

Winds of change… We’ve been back in the USA for two months and thankfully, the winds of change are lessening and life is starting to feel normal again as we juggle the new routines and rhythms of American life. Home assignment is intended to be a time set aside from the demands of ministry on the mission field– a time to be with friends and family, a time to be refreshed in your native language, a time to catch up with...

Highlight Reel… My brain and heart haven’t been in a place to write a newsletter…. usually my head is spinning all month long with what I want to share. This month it just hasn’t. We decided a highlight reel of images from this last term in Madagascar would be a fantastic substitute… I mean, who doesn’t love photographs– it’s honestly one of my love languages! Easier said than done though–...

Here and there… As I type, we’re on our last day in Madagascar for 2017… late tonight we head to the airport for our 1:50am flight to Paris and then on to Los Angeles. I would be lying to say that it wasn’t with mixed emotions that we’re leaving. peace– we have peace with the place that we were able to leave each of the ministries and peace knowing that the Lord has raised up an amazing ministry team that...

Ten (or more) images a month on the 10th of the month in an attempt to capture the ordinary of life wherever we may and whatever we may be doing at the time. This month the 10th fell on a Monday– a Monday during our kid’s summer vacation, a typical Monday of prenatal program at the Sarobidy Maternity Center, a Monday just two weeks before our departure from our city of Mahajanga to begin the journey back to the USA.  In other words,...

Goodbyes… Thank you for your prayers for the three families– the Bright’s, Gough’s, and Jensen’s that left Madagascar earlier this month. The last year has been a gift in so many ways for us personally, as a field, ministry-wise and for each of the families and those they interacted with daily. Goodbyes are never easy but the sadness and tears are truly a testimony to the intensity of the life shared together over...

How the month of June came and vanished with the blink of an eye is beyond me.  It could’ve been all the extra things to conquer while our team of five families was still on the ground here in Madagascar, or it could’ve been soaking up all the last memories as a large team of 26 adults and kids, or the many tears shed and tender good-byes that we and the Carlstrom’s said to the Bright, Gough and Jensen families.  This has been...

Life on the mission field brings an array of emotions across the board… this letter hits a bit on a few of these. Heavy… (This is part of an original blog post that can be found here….) A first-time mom with joyful expectation of delivering a healthy baby boy at the Sarobidy Maternity Center had been struggling with the results of her 20-week ultrasound that showed her baby had short legs. Unbelieving of the news, she received a...

Ten photos throughout the day on the 10th of the month to capture the beauty of the ordinary in our day.  The 10th landed on a Tuesday this month.  Tuesday is our shopping day that Jamie and I make a date out of… nothing special…  no great restaurants, food, coffee, movie, walk on the beach, etc… merely a day that we set aside each week to catch up and be together sans kiddos and little voices interrupting our conversation....

Ten photos a day on the 10th of the month to capture the beauty in the daily life. This month on September 10th we had a filmmaker from the USA helping us to share what’s happening here in Madagascar.  Chris is ever-so-talented and has made some films in the past for us– you can check those out here, here and here. These quick-snap iPhone photos taken by several different people simply captured the behind the scenes magic of this...

For years I’ve had the burning desire to participate in a little exercise called Ten on Ten…. something that another former SPU alum and acquaintance, Rebekah Gough began.  The premise is simple: 10 pictures a day on the 10th of every month in order to capture the beauty that is life all around.  And so, the day before a planned trip to the capital rather than the standard rush and impatience, I pulled out the camera throughout to...

Life as we all know it is sometimes a mixture of good, bad and ugly… at times, all three are wrapped into a single day. The month of June seemed to be just this for us here in Madagascar. Kalamboro… (the good!) Thank you for your many prayers that went out as we traveled as a group to the remote fishing villages of Kalamboro and Mahabana! In Kalamboro, the reception was unbelievable as lines of people formed to give a formal welcome...

Thank you for praying us back to Madagascar earlier this month!  We arrived after only one hiccup due to a passport at the airport which caused us to spend an additional 3 days in the USA.  In the end, the extra time in Santa Barbara was such a gift!  We slept, walked on the beach, went surfing, had additional time with friends and family and even were able to pick up prescription medication for the kids that hadn’t come into the pharmacy...

Home Assignment by the Numbers… As we wrap up our time in the USA we look back to all that occurred in such a short amount of time. Historically, our time in the USA has been busier than we plan, hope for or anticipate– this time was no different and we’ve come to the realization that this is our “normal” here– and as such, we simply cannot buck it or complain about it!  🙂  Our time in the States is full of a...

   For years we have been praying for like-minded ministry partners to join in the growing work in Madagascar.  In 2014 and early 2015 we hosted several individuals, couples and families that came to Madagascar for vision trips.  Now that we’re back in the States we’re meeting with the same folks as they work on returning to Madagascar to serve with us– some for 6 months, some for a year, some for as long as God keeps them in...

Transition and re-entry.  It’s become a regular part of our lives, typically on a 20 month then 5 month then 20 month then 5 month rotation. Each and every time we return to the USA we experience transition.  Each and every time we return to Madagascar we experience transition.  Through the years, the transition and re-entry back home to Madagascar has become easier while the transition and re-entry to the USA has increasingly become more...

In the last 6 weeks, we’ve been in Madagascar, Paris, California, Colorado, Idaho and as I write this, Jamie is BACK in Madagascar after having arrived in country over the weekend for work with Eden Projects!  In the next 3 weeks, Jamie and I will add Ghana and Amsterdam to that list before we return back to the USA together!  To read more from our August Newsletter, click here.

It’s a bit of surreal process to travel half way around the world… leaving one world in which we’re settled and at home and coming back to our American world and the transition that it warrants.  The sights, sounds, experiences, foods, work, routines, friends, commonalities, climate, culture, currency and language are all totally different between the two worlds. As I downloaded our pictures from our camera recently, these...

A couple months ago I was telling Jamie how much I would love it if he swept me away someplace as a surprise.  At that time, it was talk and I was loftily dreaming of someplace in Europe or Asia… walking the streets, exploring the culture, eating yummy cuisine, snapping pictures and enjoying each other, sans children.  I put my dream on the back burner because you know… REALITY. Last month we “celebrated” our 12-year...

The crew of 4 students from Westmont College are with us this month and we’re joining efforts with a team of 20+ Malagasy young people from our Eden Crew and Maternity Center crew for a month-long mission trip.  Each morning we meet in the gazebo at the Sarobidy Maternity Center.  Jamie leads a fun challenge and pretends that he’s Jeff Probst from Survivor for the day.  We then sing songs in Malagasy and English and someone shares a...

Tears… welling up in my eyes and beginning to stream down my cheeks as I read these words.  Head nodding… as these truths strike so many cords for our family individually and collectively.  Heart rejoicing… that we’ve been privileged with this life in which God has blessed us to be a global people. By now you probably have no idea what I’m talking about but hopefully your curiosity is peaked.  Head on over to A...

I haven’t been posting much lately, or posting practically at all for the last 6’ish months.  Our days have been busy with fundraising and all the State-side work that comes with “home assignment”.  And truth be told, life for me… my life, is a bit uninspiring when in the States.  Life can be pretty uninspiring when in Madagascar too… but it’s different.  I find Madagascar inspiring– the people,...

Boxes.  Totes.  Purchasing.  Receiving donations.  Sorting.  Packing.  Itemizing.  Applying value for each item.  Numbering.  Taping itemized list and box number.  Zip-tying.  Packing Truck.  Driving Truck to Sacramento.  Unpacking Truck into holding container.   94 boxes/totes later.   All of these are awaiting to be packed on a 20-foot (or maybe 40-foot) ocean freight container which will then be shipped across the world to Madagascar....

You may remember when we first went to Madagascar it was a bit of a trial… a trial to make sure that our family wouldn’t merely survive but thrive in ministry on the Red Island.  As a result, we decided it was in our best interest to go to Madagascar as “mid-term” missionaries. Mid-term being roughly 2 years with the possibility of extending.  This has been our status for the last 3+ years. We have continually sensed...

For your reading pleasure… our October newsletter.  If you’d like to receive these monthly email updates into your inbox, simply drop us a line here to tell us!  

It’s mind-boggling to us that in less than 8 days, we’ll be on the first leg of our journey back to the USA for the fall.  It’s only been a year since we were last in the States for the main purpose of completing my midwifery license and taking my certifying board exams.  In reality, one year isn’t very long to be away from the States.  In reality, one year isn’t very long that we’ve been back in Madagascar...

Around here, life has been intense.  Our days have been beyond full and our nights of sleep sometimes a little a lot too short.  Around here, our minds have been swirling with the need-to-do’s, the want-to-do’s, the must-do-nows, and the emergency-do’s.  Around here, our bodies sometimes feel like they are keeping up simply with the force of adrenaline and a little afternoon caffeine. Around here, our hearts have been heavy...

The kids having been asking me to bake lately.  In fact, Gavin and Eliana both attempted to bake their own renditions of dessert yesterday… for Gavin it was chocolate pizza and for Eliana, it was chocolate cake.  Of course the measurements were all askew and Eliana was heartbroken and distraught when her cake came out of the oven still in liquid form.  I promised, “tomorrow we’ll make chocolate chip cookies!”  Squeels of...

It’s the afternoon of December 20th.  Christmas is 5 days away…. so technically 4 more days until Christmas. Have I done any shopping?  No. Have I sung any familiar Christmas hymns in church?  No.  Have I done any holiday baking?  No.  Have I seen any Christmas lights glittering the neighborhoods and lighted trees, dotting the streets?  Sadly, no.  The truth is, it’s haarrrrrddddddd to get into the Christmas spirit here....

Celebrating major American holidays and living in Madagascar somehow just don’t go together very well… or maybe we just haven’t found our groove with them just yet.  In fact, the last 4 holidays we’ve celebrated in Madagascar have been doozies… starting with Christmas, then New Year’s, Halloween and most recently, Thanksgiving.  Some more have been doozier than others. Christmas of 2011 was bad, real bad....

Last week we arrived in Olongapo, Philippines where we’ll call home for the next 6+ weeks. We were blessed beyond measure as our teammates here had already found and furnished a small house for us… no easy feat in a developing country! As though this isn’t gift enough, the house is literally right across the street from the Mercy Midwives Birthing Home where I’ll continue my midwifery training. Within 2 hours of our arrival, I was called...