Technology is a shining sword that will slay us if we don’t know how to handle it. Only a fool wields a weapon without the know-how. The instruction our children need most is not found inside schools or peer groups. Parents are the God-given gatekeepers to guide kids into proper technology use, if we want the next generation to advance without injury.  Gatekeepers are not trending. It’s clear at the playground that child and parent roles often play in reverse. The kids call the shots and scream when they don’t get their way. I know from experience how lame and powerless I feel when I cannot get my toddler off…

I knew more about my parent’s cat Amos than the prophet by the same name. When I started to listen to Amos’ message from a Lord that roars like a lion (Amos 3:8), I considered flipping to passages where Jesus points out wildflowers and blesses babies. Israel’s sin in the book of Amos seemed worse than mine and the judgment warnings inapplicable at this point of salvation history. The thing about roars is that they are hard to mute. Even the deaf feel its vibrations. As with every page of our Bible, the book of Amos still roars to us today. If we lay ourselves down in front of the…

I made a roast beef dinner for our friends a while back. Something from my upbringing causes me to cook 50’s dinners when wanting to especially impress company. I poured melted butter into potatoes and forked the carrots to be sure they were soft. I heard the door open and quickly checked the meat. To my dismay, it was nowhere near silky. It resisted my attempts of shredding and stared back at me like a rubber tire. The toddler who only wants to live on my hip started to whimper and I threw cheerios at her like she was one of those yappy dogs. I was stressed. I didn’t want…

My husband and I like change. After a few years in the same house, we tend to think, what’s next? Change on its best days can feel like a hot shower, a change of clothes, resolutions scribbled neatly on a crisp white piece of paper.  Not all change is created equal. We laid no welcome mat at the thought of our friends leaving.  We lived one rice paddy away from them and regularly traded sugar, eggs, and diarrhea meds. We also exchanged children for science experiments, extra Saturday morning donuts, and absurd tips for making chicken taste beefier. The daily dinging of our kids’ bicycle bells outside our gates signaled…

Peel the carrots and potatoes. Chop the onion. Wipe the nose of the kid with the cold. Wipe the butt of the girl yelling my name on repeat from her potty throne. Wash hands without drying. Back to dinner. Scrub the pot. Warm the broth. Remove the bones. Add the veggies. Wipe two more noses and catch a baby from slipping out of her high chair with the missing seat belt. And on it goes.  The last few nights have kept that rhythm alive. Nose wipes. Cold toes. A hot forehead. Melatonin magic pills for everyone.  You know this “most wonderful time of the year” isn’t living up to the…

The roads around our house remind me of that Mouse Trap roller coaster at amusement parks. The cute mouse with its slice of Swiss fools you into thinking the ride is for babies, until you get to the hairpin turns. Our roads are like that. Made for daredevils. That is why Micah drives like Rambo and I wait for America to take the wheel. It’s common to see cars with one wheel stuck in the deep cement ditches that perilously line each side of the road. This happened to us when our Hindi vernacular consisted of fruits and zoo animals. Within minutes, males from all directions, let’s call them the…

We often hear what an education our kids receive just by living in another culture. People assume language is as automatic for children as the toy promised on the front of the cereal box. They are little sponges, after all.  While I’m sure there’s truth to these things, what I see up close are other influences… I see one heck of a junglee Swede. We have a very wild, white-haired three-year-old.  I don’t mean wild, like naughty. I mean that she’s more like Mowgli from The Jungle Book than any princess. She is known to noiselessly sneak into our yard after breakfast and stay there. And with five other kids,…

For whatever reason, our massive house has only one mirror. It sits above a sink in our dining room. We have no clue how we are looking from the shoulders down. That’s fine. We don’t need a mirror to tell us that. We have our neighbors.  My husband receives the most feedback. He recently pierced his ears in America at an off-brand Claires inside Walmart. Judging by all the rose gold and unicorns the store was designed for tween girls. He held the teddy bravely while I snapped a photo. He has long admired the gold that glitters from many men’s ears in the Himalayas. Not only sported by the…

Where we live, autumn isn’t celebrated by sipping maple lattes in chunky sweaters. So, driven by homesickness and a stubborn determination to give my kids some Hallmark memories, I charged Lucy and Moses to go and hide our near-rotten pumpkins around the neighborhood. I loaded their arms with the green, stripy squashes that had been staring me in the face the last couple of weeks. These festive friends had been too stout to carve but lovingly made over with goopy paint, cotton balls, and popsicle stick bunny ears.  My two oldest nestled the gaudy pumpkins along the walking path outside our home and in the wheat fields of our neighbors.…

“God bless the school that D.L. Moody founded…” is sung to a grandiose pipe organ inside the auditorium of my alma mater. The instrument sprawls behind the stage like a brassy mountain range and has the cathedral-like effect of making you feel like a minnow thrown into the Pacific.  The school’s intricate architecture makes you think D.L. Moody must have really been something. And he was. But not in the new car kind of way. He was more squeaky than smooth. In one biography, the author tells his impression of the shoe salesmen turned evangelist:  “The first meeting I ever saw him at was in a little old shanty that…