If this journey interests you, I cordially invite you to follow the blog and rejoice at what God is doing in the world and also pray for the many people and situations still needing help and hope.

My husband Gary and I have served internationally through video and teaching since 1988, and our colleagues and friends seem to enjoy hearing stories about the fascinating people and cultures we get to meet. Interviewing people who share their lives, hopes and dreams with us, and serving them in their home turf, seems to us richer and more insightful than what most tourists usually see.

Filming in Guatemala in 1989, we shot an interview with pioneer missionaries Edward and Pauline Sywulka. Edward said something that stuck with us all these years: “God is the God of history.” Changes in nations and cultures aren’t accidental. They come through the hands of a loving Lord, a sovereign King. Sometimes there’s great pain. Sometimes joy! And often they simply catch us humans by surprise.

You’re invited to taste some memorable experiences God has given me the privilege to be a part of. I never, ever thought this ordinary girl from Texas would participate in adventures like these:

Seeing Kanjobal and Mam indigenous peoples of Guatemala hold in their hands–for the first time–the entire Bible, in their own languages.
Meeting an elderly ballerina, who risked danger for decades by hiding her treasured photos of the Romanov Czar’s children–because her Russian grandfather was one of their bodyguards.
Partnering alongside Albanian Christians, in the same country that was locked up so tight in the 1970s– against foreigners and religious influences–that mission researchers couldn’t be sure there were any believers in the whole nation. (There actually were some, we later learned.)
Hearing firsthand accounts of the Romanian revolution from a pastor who was then in the army.
Praying in a tent with Orthodox, Baptist, Presbyterian and charismatic believers on the Maidan (Independence Square) in Ukraine during the Dignity Revolution.
Touching the Berlin Wall for the first time, 25 years after rousing our children from sleep in 1989 to watch its startling collapse on TV.
Experiencing the life and work of dear friends in Tacloban, Philippines, both before and after the deadly super-typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda. Touching the wall’s high-water stain and thanking God for the miracle.
“Adopting” a church-away-from-home, whose pastor (a physicist by training) deliberately flubbed his final entry exam into the KGB—before he ever knew Christ.
Editing videos for one of the “lost boys” of Sudan, who’s giving back to his people through drilling water wells.
Eating Memphis barbecue and caviar at the American ambassador’s house on our Independence Day, the Fourth of July. In this foreign setting–alive with diplomats and US Marines–we meet the British ambassador’s wife. She smiles and says, “Well, yes, we thought we’d come. It’s time to forgive the past.”

God is still in charge of history, and He is writing new stories of transformation on people’s hearts every day, every hour, every moment. We’ve seen only glimpses of the total, but those have changed us.

Acknowledgement: I’m grateful to Irina Marchenko, PhD, for suggesting Stories of the Pendulum as an apt title for our adventures. She taught the semester of Russian language we studied at Richland College.

If this journey interests you, I cordially invite you to follow the blog and rejoice at what God is doing in the world and also pray for the many people and situations still needing help and hope.

Watch for the next post–coming soon. The Romanian clock “of the pendulum” will tell its own story of change.