This Christmas season, our team has put together 6 lovely gift baskets full of self-care items to foster gratefulness and connection. These would make terrific Christmas gifts, or be something to enjoy yourself throughout the winter and year to come.
Make a year-end donation of any amount to Safe Haven Travelers by December 9 and you might be selected to receive one of these six baskets!
Continue reading “Christmas Giveaway”
| We are coming to the States for a brief (and very busy!) month in August and would love to see you! Our main chance to catch up with you will be at our Safe Haven event: |
Tuesday, August 8, 7:00 pm
AC Fellowship Hall, Bluffton, IN
Join us to:
We hope it’ll be an encouraging night for you all! Please consider taking time to come hear what God’s doing around the world.
On February 6, a 7.8 earthquake struck southern Turkey and northern Syria, quickly followed by a 7.7 earthquake later that same day. In the following days, countless volunteers and workers from around Türkiye and the world would learn of the devastation and try to reach out to help. The death toll currently sits at over 56,000, but will likely continue to increase. Our staff psychologist describes these first weeks as the “heroic” stage of disaster response, a time when many people pushing themselves to their utter limits to try and rescue whoever they can. But as we all recognize, we can’t live in these states forever and relief workers often find themselves feeling disillusioned and hopeless in the months following days.
Continue reading “When Natural Disasters Strike…”Join us to hear more about what God’s been doing in our work and family in the last year. We’re excited to share authentic foods, stories and praises with you.
Sept 6, 2022
7:00 pm Indiana time
@ Bluffton AC Fellowship Hall, 1970 S 800 E, Bluffton, IN 46714
| I recently came across an article talking about how our closest relationships can suffer during times of intense stress. And let’s be honest, life can be stressful! For those who have moved overseas, there’s a season of intense change, culture shock, language barriers, etc. As everything feels more difficult, we may find ourselves turning away from or even against the most important people in our lives. If you recognize something of yourself in this description, consider the questions in this article as potential conversations starters with the people you’re closest to. |
Nick, LMHC originally wrote this for the counseling center
The book of Jeremiah presents to us the voice of a grieving prophet having lived through a transition from the relatively stable nation of Israel under King Josiah through its utter destruction. We can hear the echoes of the despairing and bereft within his text, but he also provides us with a voice that we so often need in life: the voice of a good parent.
Jeremiah 30-31, the so-called Book of Consolation, speaks to an alienated people, living out the insecurity of a refugee life, hopes lost in foreign lands and weighed down under the rule of foreign gods. How could people whose home has been taken away find home again? Baruch writes of a divine command to the people that they call out to the Lord and follows it up immediately with God’s response:
Continue reading “God is a Good Father”
Every expat can tell you stories of holidays overseas. I’ve been watching moms across our city search for advent calendars, cream cheese, peppermint sticks… anything to make the holidays feel like “normal” from their lives before. Other times, I think, it’s in a genuine effort to share what a “western” Christmas looks like with their friends and neighbors who haven’t ever experienced it before.
We are learning a new dance between the traditions and family gatherings and abundant holiday lights from our home culture, and the quieter, distant culture here that doesn’t celebrate at all. In a sense, we’re finding a new balance between worlds.
Continue reading “AN EXPAT CHRISTMAS”
Nick works with a lot of families and couples living all over the world. Here, he gets the privilege of collaborating with a team of therapists to provide better care for entire families.
This week has been hard. We weep with many who are suffering.
It hits close to home for us because we have dear friends in Haiti who are navigating natural disaster after natural disaster this week, seeing death, dealing with trauma… #PrayforLesCayes
Continue reading “When the World Weighs Heavy”
We ask this all the time in normal conversations, right? For us, it’s pretty easy to answer. We’re from Indiana, but we live abroad now. In fact, we have roots generations deep in a small community, and most of our family is in a 2 hour radius from that one spot. I don’t think I realized how unique that was until moving abroad. The fact Nick and I were from the same small town and knew each other growing up… most people in our sphere now can hardly imagine that! All that to say, it’s pretty easy for us to say where we’re from. There’s an identity in that shaping us even now as we experience life in a new culture that looks very different from our old one.
Continue reading “Counseling TCKs”
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