Being a Mom today is not easy, so much to keep track of and expectations impossible to meet. After twenty years, here’s my go-to list of essentials (notice nothing about meal prep and homework help!) Over-communicate, hoping they secretly love it. In the absence of information, kids make up their own stories. Communication breeds security,… Read more
Our adopted, teenage son, Tyler, had only been home three months when I got a text from an unknown number. “Tyler forgot his soccer shoes and can’t play in the game unless you bring them to school.” “Ok, I will look for them and be right there,” I responded to the stranger. I found them… Read more
Christmas Is… A Nigerian daughter, reading to her widowed mom the Christmas story in English, having been prepared for a future in the village education center. A Nigerian boy, who this year will receive a personal gift in a home aptly named Destiny. An Indian child, who feels for the first time she has a… Read more
5 Ways Starting With Amen is helping me breathe (and not hustle) through this holiday season. It feels like as soon as the Halloween candy is put away, the Christmas carols begin. I do love this time of year, but sometimes the extra activities and added pressure can steal my peace and twist good thinking… Read more
5 Lessons I am Passing from the Foreign Mission Field to the Hometown Football Field I am going to spend many evenings this fall sitting in bleachers, cheering on various sized football and soccer players. All four of my sons are playing, so that’s at least four games a week. It’s a new mission field… Read more
It was 1996, and we were co-leading a Mexican missions trip that lacked substance. Painting a wall around a church, we wondered what God was doing in Queretaro, Mexico. We had visited an orphanage once in Albania while in college and it had moved us. Was there an orphanage in this city? Todd asked. We… Read more
I first met Junior while walking one night around the cafeteria at his children’s home. I noticed him up ahead, quietly drawing. I was fascinated by his face. He didn’t know I was there, and he looked relaxed, peaceful. He was leaning against the wall, in his ripped jeans and heavy sweatshirt, lost in his… Read more
“You did it! Eduardo, you did it!” The words ring clearly against a clear, blue Mazatlán sky as young Eduardo whispers with wonder, “It’s flying!” Eduardo has been busy this afternoon. The young boy, who lives at Rancho de los Nino’s children’s home in Mazatlán, Mexico, wants to fly a kite. Using a garbage bag,… Read more
Dear Back2Back Family, Do you have a minute for me to share something new? I had been writing a new manuscript in 2013, but couldn’t get anyone excited about the title or concept. God had miraculously opened doors to get in front of the right people, and they liked the stories I was telling, but… Read more
House-bound for three months following major surgery, Back2Back Co-Executive Director Beth Guckenberger shares six hard-earned lessons learned. Initially shared in Back2Back’s spring magazine (download a PDF of the original article here), the unanticipated response to this story is now also the subject of a 20-minute podcast. Download a PDF of the original magazine article here…. Read more