We follow many different blogs and find laughter, encouragement and sometimes a kick in the pants.  In one week there were two blogs that struck a chord deep within me.  So often when I’m (DeAnna) asked questions about our life here, it’s hard for me to articulate what I want to share.

When someone shares with me that I’m brave, I cringe.  That’s the last thing I feel.  I feel helplessly, desperately, breathlessly, clingingly DEPENDENT.  This is a hard thing for a control freak like me to feel.  The muscles in my body are clenched tight and became that way through the tension of living in a foreign culture, speaking a foreign language, learning the lay of a foreign land, the constant worry of illnesses or accidents, feeling like every moment I’m on the brink of an emergency and not being able to operate confidently.

I liked the description that one blogger wrote about living overseas.  She wrote that living overseas is a form of fasting.  Fasting from the comforts of a would-be heaven on earth where there are dishwashers, clothes dryers, constant electricity, fast internet, clean water, water that stays on, fully-stocked grocery stores, Boy Scouts and activities for the boys to take part in.

So why in the world would I fast in this way and live in a constant heightened state of awareness?  I want God’s Word to be available to every language, tribe and tongue so much that I will risk scary diseases, fast from my beloved family, friends and worldly comforts and raise our children as TCK’s (Third Culture Kids).

Parts of this blog were taken from A Life Overseas: A Missions Conversation