http://www.lauraleighparker.com Life Overseas {a missionary blogs of life in Asia} Sun, 05 Feb 2012 03:05:46 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://0.gravatar.com/avatar/88ea54a0b2c7b923e211db41c950105b.png?s=48 http://www.lauraleighparker.com http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/02/missionary-blog/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/02/missionary-blog/#comments Sat, 04 Feb 2012 16:05:08 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6186 The following is my humble, quick attempt to convince my fellow missionary-types to jump the hurdles of fear, time and know-how and just go ahead and start a blog of some sort.  {That is, of course, unless you are one of those super-amazing people living in a closed country where blogs are illegal or in [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/02/missionary-blog/feed/ 10 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/02/week-fractured/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/02/week-fractured/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:17:35 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6158 It’s Thursday morning, and I wake up with my mind racing. The balls are spinning in the air, and it seems the faster I juggle, the more likely I am to drop one, or two, or seven for that matter. I have about twelve too many projects going on at once, no consistent childcare help, [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/02/week-fractured/feed/ 16 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/interview-urban-missionary-bangkok/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/interview-urban-missionary-bangkok/#comments Sat, 28 Jan 2012 05:52:43 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6141 So I met a family last week that suddenly made me want to sell all my stuff and go live in the red-light district of Bangkok, buying rice for the homeless crazy woman in the mornings and giving warm socks to the male prostitute on the street corner, trying to make a buck. Their story [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/interview-urban-missionary-bangkok/feed/ 5 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/mustard-seed/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/mustard-seed/#comments Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:10:10 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6136 If my spiritual life were a dashboard in a flight cockpit, I’m pretty sure the red lights screaming danger, crash-and-burn-imminent! would be angrily blinking. Because my faith has taken a beating this year, a battering. . . ********* But, here’s the thing I am {re}learning about this God I started following 25 years ago. He [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/mustard-seed/feed/ 1 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/8-reasons-becomingmissionary/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/8-reasons-becomingmissionary/#comments Tue, 24 Jan 2012 07:26:13 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6123 1. Don’t Become a Missionary if You Think You Are Going to Change the World. First, high expectations doom to disappoint, but, also, maybe your desire to change the world is trumping your desire to serve. Ask yourself if you would be happy moving overseas to a much harsher environment in order to quietly help [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/8-reasons-becomingmissionary/feed/ 59 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/praying-color-using-art-pray-better/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/praying-color-using-art-pray-better/#comments Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:59:48 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6116 Admittedly, I am a crappy pray-er.  I have the attention span of a cocker-spaniel whose owners are having a dinnerparty, and the result of my distraction is that my prayer life is sporadic, hurried, and fuzzy, at best. Last week, though, I learned about a new tool to use in prayer that has really helped [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/praying-color-using-art-pray-better/feed/ 15 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/sponsor-love-question-play/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/sponsor-love-question-play/#comments Fri, 20 Jan 2012 13:17:16 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6061 I homeschool my kids. I see them from 6:30 in the morning until about 8:30 in the evening, with the exception of an hour-and-a-half lesson in taekwondo a few times a week or the occasional playdate. We don’t have family close by to watch the kids for the weekend, and we live in Asia where [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/sponsor-love-question-play/feed/ 31 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/missionary-kid-lunch-a-video-experience/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/missionary-kid-lunch-a-video-experience/#comments Thu, 19 Jan 2012 00:07:32 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6094 So the number one comment I read last week asked for more writings, images, and videos of our daily life here in Thailand. I’ve done videos of the local market where most people shop, the process of riding local transportation, my daughter eating worms, my husband making chopsticks and riding an ostrich, but I realized [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/missionary-kid-lunch-a-video-experience/feed/ 19 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/army-of-worms/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/army-of-worms/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:36:05 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6002 I was talking to a Chinese neighbor the other day while his kids were playing with mine.  My friend and I began asking him a little about his work in Thailand, and it turns out he trains Chinese nationals to go into countries of the Middle East– Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq. And then he told us [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/army-of-worms/feed/ 17 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/tropical-fruit-from-thailand-and-how-my-kids-dont-eat-much-else/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/tropical-fruit-from-thailand-and-how-my-kids-dont-eat-much-else/#comments Thu, 12 Jan 2012 00:46:31 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=5926 So, yeah, our family has food issues. I have one kid that has claimed vegetarianism for the past 6 months, one kid that I think has a gluten-allergy and also hates rice {yeah, in Asia, he hates rice}, and another child that literally wants ketchup on everything from noodles to watermelon {yeah, I am not [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/tropical-fruit-from-thailand-and-how-my-kids-dont-eat-much-else/feed/ 11 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/national-delurking-day/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/national-delurking-day/#comments Wed, 11 Jan 2012 02:12:38 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=6078 National DeLurking Day in the blogworld is this weekend. Haven’t heard of it?  Neither had I before this morning. Essentially, it’s a day when bloggers ask readers to leave a comment. It gives bloggers an idea of who is actually reading the stuff they are throwing to the big-wide-Universe. So, in honor of this epically-grand [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/national-delurking-day/feed/ 19 http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/mentorship/ http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/mentorship/#comments Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:16:45 +0000 Laura http://www.lauraleighparker.com/?p=3115 I originally wrote this article following the three month opportunity we got to host and mentor a team of college-aged students on a trip to Thailand in the Fall of 2010. As we begin to re-launch this ministry this summer, I’ve been thinking lately about the immense value of a life done in community, in [...]]]> http://www.lauraleighparker.com/2012/01/mentorship/feed/ 21