Girl Kaleidoscope

Tag: Papua New Guinea

  • Uneven Curiosity

    One of the quiet conundrums I carried in my time as a missionary in PNG was this: why is it that so much is expected of us, in terms of cultural sensitivity and adaptation, while almost nothing is asked in return?

    I don’t mean that harshly. It’s just… something I noticed. Again and again.

    We were trained to bend, to soften, to listen carefully, to hold our tongues when things felt off-kilter. We were taught new languages, both spoken and not. We were taught to treat every cultural difference with reverence, to assume goodwill, to hold space for what we didn’t yet understand.

    But I rarely, if ever, saw that same posture mirrored back toward us.

    There seemed to be no collective curiosity about our culture—no sense that our ways might also be different and worthy of understanding. It often felt like the flow of effort and empathy was a one-way stream, and that to speak up about the toll this took would somehow make me unkind.

    So instead, we shut down.

    Not from superiority. Not from spite. From fatigue. From the effort of constantly treading gently, constantly translating ourselves, constantly shrinking in the name of peace and conformity.

    I saw it in others too. In the shoulders drawn tight. In the careful pauses before someone responded. In the practiced neutral tone. We weren’t being false; we were just being careful. Careful not to offend. Careful not to be misunderstood. Careful to fit in—if not in heart, then at least in silence.

    And yet, when we were surprised or jarred by something, we’d often whisper to each other, “It’s okay. Every culture is different. This wasn’t personal.”

    We made space. We stretched wide.

    But there was another layer to my silence, one I didn’t always know how to name. I was not just an expat trying to fit in—I was a young, single, white woman in a place where that trifecta was impossibly conspicuous.

    I felt watched. Not always unkindly, but constantly. And sometimes, dangerously.

    There were many days I simply couldn’t go out. Not without risk. Not without dread curling in my belly. There were roads I couldn’t drive, markets I couldn’t enter, places I couldn’t be alone. I learned to scan every street, every pair of eyes. I learned to disappear in plain sight. To hide.

    It was too dangerous to be out.

    Too dangerous to be me.

    The only one of my kind in the wild.

    And yet, I was still expected to be warm, open, adaptable. To engage, to explain myself, to never show discomfort. But so often, the cost of simply existing in that place was already more than I could say aloud.

    So I became smaller. Quieter. I folded myself inwards. I dressed in plain clothes and gentle tones. I deflected attention. I kept my stories close to my chest. I let others speak first. I practiced invisibility.

    And still—I loved. I served. I laughed with local women in smoky huts. I sang in church aisles. I listened to stories that broke my heart and mended it again. But I often felt like a ghost version of myself—present, but not fully seen. Tolerated – yes, respected – perhaps, but definitely not understood.

    I don’t blame individuals. Many were kind, and some were curious in quiet, tender ways. But as a whole, I think PNG as a nation—a young, mono-cultural one still learning to hold difference without suspicion—has not yet had to ask these questions. Has not yet been called to look outward with the same empathy we were trained to bring inward.

    And I wonder if, perhaps, that mutual curiosity could be the beginning of something sacred.

    Because I truly believe there’s untapped potential here—relationally, spiritually, economically—for growth that could come through understanding. If people in PNG took the time to truly see and know their international friends, especially those who quietly fold themselves to fit, I think there’d be more cohesion. More grace. More beautiful partnership.

    And maybe—just maybe—fewer women like me, carrying their full selves in silence, waiting for someone to ask, “What is it like for you here?”

  • Faith in the Fog

    I used to think faith looked like fire —
    bright, bold, unmistakable.
    I thought it would always burn hot in my chest, always feel like certainty, always sound like singing.

    But lately, faith feels more like fog.

    Not gone, just… harder to hold.

    I still believe — but now, belief looks quieter. It looks like choosing to stay
    even when I don’t feel anything. Even when the sky doesn’t answer back.

    I wake up some mornings and whisper,
    “Are You still here?”
    Not because I doubt He exists,
    but because I can’t feel Him
    like I used to.

    There was a time when I would hear Him
    in every song,
    see Him in every sunrise,
    sense Him in every silent moment.

    Now, the silence feels heavier.
    Now, prayer feels like writing letters
    with no return address.

    And honestly, sometimes I feel like I’ve been left on read —
    not just by heaven,
    but by the people I trusted most.

    Rejection came from the places I never expected.
    Friends who turned away
    when I was too much, too broken, too inconvenient.
    A soulmate who wouldn’t walk with me
    through the messy truth of what happened —
    the trauma, the abuse, the parts of my story that aren’t tidy enough for newsletters.

    I was left to carry it alone.
    Ashamed.
    Exposed.
    Unchosen.

    And yet —
    even in all that,
    God never turned His face from me.

    He didn’t flinch.
    He didn’t walk away.
    He never said, “This is too much.”

    That’s the thing about fog.
    You can’t always see who’s standing beside you.

    But that doesn’t mean you’re alone.

    Faith is not the absence of fog.
    It’s the decision to walk through it anyway.

    Not with boldness, always —
    sometimes just with breath.

    Sometimes faith is a single step.
    A whispered prayer.
    A choice to keep the light on,
    even when the room feels empty.

    God isn’t less present in the fog.
    He’s just… less obvious.

    Like breath on glass,
    like wind through branches —
    still there.
    Still moving.
    Still holding.

    There’s a verse I come back to, over and over:

    “For we live by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7)

    It’s easier to quote than to live.
    But maybe that’s the whole point.

    Maybe real faith is forged here —
    in the grey,
    in the waiting,
    in the long nights where nothing makes sense,
    but we show up anyway.

    I don’t have clarity today.
    But I do have a candle.
    I do have breath.
    I do have the ache that reminds me I’m still alive
    and somehow, still reaching for God
    even when I can’t feel Him reach back.

    And maybe that’s enough for now.

  • The Expiry Date

    The questions start early, and they never really stop.

    “When’s your turn?”
    “Haven’t you found someone yet?”
    “I’m praying for your future husband.”

    As if I had an expiry date stamped across my forehead. As if love were something to be scheduled, arranged, predicted—like a train running neatly on its tracks, pulling into the station on time.

    As if I hadn’t already lost a love I would have died for.

    But no one asks if you’re still grieving. They ask when you’ll be ready to move on. They ask if you’ve tried dating apps, if you’re “putting yourself out there,” if you’ve considered lowering your standards—because apparently, at some point, that’s the logical next step. They ask, and you smile, nod, sip your coffee, and resist the urge to throw it in their lap. Because no one really wants to hear that some love doesn’t fade. That some shadows don’t lift. That some wounds ache even after they’ve healed.

    And in Christian spaces, it is worse.

    Dating isn’t just about finding someone; it’s a witness. A public display of patience and propriety, a carefully choreographed courtship where doors are left open—metaphorically and literally—so the whole community can watch your unfolding love story like a Hallmark movie they personally commissioned.

    Older Christians become self-appointed matchmakers, introducing you to their sons, their nephews, the “wonderful young men” they just know you’d hit it off with. They pray over you—not for healing, not for peace, but for a husband. Because marriage is the ultimate win, and your singlehood is a problem to be solved.

    And so, like a good sport, you try.

    You meet the nephews. You say yes to the coffee dates. You log onto the apps.

    And there are nice enough men. Kind, polite, ticking all the right boxes. But there’s no fire, no knowing. Just awkward small talk and the gnawing sense that you are performing—trying to look accomplished, interesting, credible enough to be seen as a whole person rather than just a placeholder for someone’s future wife.

    You leave those dates feeling more alone than ever.

    Because once, you had something real. Once, love wasn’t a transaction, a series of checklists, a strategic endeavor. Once, it was raw and deep, a connection that didn’t need explaining. But that love is gone, and now you are left to play the game.

    And the rules have always been clear.

    Boy likes girl. Boy asks girl’s father for permission. Father says yes. And before you’ve even caught your breath, you are engaged, because that is the natural progression of things. That is the path. That is the plan.

    And if you once tried to follow it—if you once, as a barely-grown woman, found yourself betrothed because that’s just what you do—you carry that weight with you, too. The knowing. The loss. The quiet exhaustion of a life mapped out before you had time to choose it.

    They say, “God will bring the right person.”

    But what if He already did, and I lost him?

    What if the plan didn’t unfold the way they said it would?

    What if—just maybe—love is not a prize for obedience, but a fragile, fleeting thing that sometimes, no matter how tightly we hold it, still slips through our fingers?

    And what if—after all the questions, all the waiting, all the tired smiles—you simply give in?

    Not to love. Not to some grand divine romance.

    But to the weight of time, to the unspoken deadline. To the quiet, creeping fear that you are unfinished without someone beside you and a baby in your arms. And so, with a steadying breath and a prayer that this time, it might hurt less, you take the leap. Hoping. Wishing. Wondering.

    And finally, finally—at the ripe old age of middle adulthood—you are a proper grown-up.

    At least, that’s what they’ll say.

  • The Weight of Feeling

    There are those who move through the world untouched, passing through sorrow like shadows through a field. They hear stories but do not listen, nod but do not absorb. They stand at the edges of suffering, an arm’s length away, unmoved by the quiet devastation beneath another’s skin.

    And then, there are those who feel.

    To hold empathy is to carry a burden no one else sees. It is to wake with a heart already heavy, to step into a room and know, instantly, what is unspoken. It is to watch a stranger’s face and feel the tremor beneath their smile. It is to stand before the hurting and ache as if their pain were your own.

    I have always felt too much.

    Even as a child, I would watch the shifting tide of a conversation and sense the undercurrents beneath. I would hear the hesitation, the faltering breath, the words unsaid—and they would settle inside me, pressing into my ribs, demanding to be known. I could not turn away. I could not close my eyes and walk on.

    And yet, the world does not feel the same way.

    I have seen how quickly people look away, how swiftly they dismiss what is inconvenient. I have watched cruelty be excused, discomfort be avoided, wounds be ignored simply because tending to them requires effort. And I have stood in the wreckage of it all, bewildered, wondering how it is possible to care so little.

    In the moments when I needed tenderness, when I stood open and raw, offering my grief, my fear, my truth—I have been met with indifference. I have known what it is to speak into silence, to stretch out my hands only to find emptiness where comfort should be.

    I do not understand how people live so lightly, how they step past suffering without a backward glance. I do not know what it is to feel nothing.

    I only know what it is to carry too much.

    To be the one who notices. The one who lingers. The one who stays up at night replaying a conversation, feeling another’s sorrow as if it were my own. The one who grieves for things long past, for people I will never see again, for the wounds I could not heal.

    I wonder sometimes if it is a gift or a curse.

    To feel the weight of the world when no one else seems to bear it. To be the only one standing in the wreckage while others walk on, untouched. To hold, always, the ache of what could have been, what should have been, if only others had chosen kindness.

    But if the choice is between numbness and this—this aching, breaking, unrelenting knowing—then I will bear it.

    Because someone has to.

    And if not me, then who?

  • The Plank Between Us

    Nothing prepares you for grief that is still breathing.

    For the weight of loss when there is no funeral, no finality, no neat ending that lets you fold it away.

    For grieving someone who is still out there, still walking, still laughing, still moving through the world—but not with you.

    We stood at the edge for so long, both of us knowing, both of us feeling the wind shake beneath our feet. But neither of us could walk the plank. Neither of us could be the first to let go. So we stayed, not together, not apart, unraveling thread by thread, until one day, the rope was gone and we were left with nothing but the empty space between us.

    I thought that would be the worst of it.

    But nothing prepares you for the way the world closes in, how it folds over itself, muffling color, dulling sound. How familiar places become graveyards of memory, how the air itself feels thick with absence.
    And nothing—nothing—prepares you for the knife that twists deeper when you watch from the sidelines.

    Watching him become everything I hoped, dreamed, begged for. Watching him rise into the man I always knew he could be—just not for me. Watching him step into the life I imagined, the one we spoke of in whispers, the one I ached for, the one I would have followed him into blindfolded—except now, someone else stands beside him.

    The world does not teach you what to do with that kind of pain.

    No one tells you how to breathe when the air is thick with all you lost. How to move forward when your shadow still stretches back toward him. How to stand steady when every step feels like walking on the ghost of what was.

    The love does not go away.

    It stays, an ache beneath the ribs, a quiet hum in the background of a new life. It does not demand. It does not fade. It simply is. A part of you, woven in, stitched between the person you were and the person you are still becoming.

    But you learn.

    You grow around it.

    You stretch, you expand, you widen your arms to hold new love, new laughter, new pieces of a life that was never meant to stop. You learn that grief does not shrink, but you grow. You make space for both the ache and the joy.

    And one day, you find yourself standing in the light again, not because you stopped loving, but because you learned how to love more.

    Because the heart—when broken, when shattered, when left behind—does not shrink.

    It learns to hold more than it ever thought it could.

  • The Weight of the World

    Mission work is not for the faint of heart. It is a calling, a burden, a quiet surrender to something greater than oneself. It is the work of bridge-builders, of healers, of those who carry light into the forgotten corners of the world.

    In places where language flickers like a candle in the wind, missionaries hold the flame steady. They transcribe, they preserve, they speak words aloud so they will not be lost to time. They build schools where none stood before, open clinics where sickness once reigned unchecked. They fly where roads do not go, where rivers run deep and untamed, carrying hope in the belly of their planes. They carve airstrips from the wilderness, taming mountains and marshlands so that when the moment comes—when the radio crackles with an urgent plea, when a life hangs in the balance—help can reach the unreachable.

    They do not just bring supplies; they bring rescue. They lift the wounded from places the world has forgotten, from villages where accusations turn deadly, where hands meant for work are bound instead, where the innocent suffer beneath suspicion’s shadow. They go where others will not, stepping into the darkness to pull life from its grasp. And they do it not for recognition, nor for wealth, but because it must be done.

    Without them, what would be left? A world where voices fade, where knowledge is buried beneath the weight of progress, where the sick suffer without a hand to hold, without medicine to ease the pain.

    And yet, in a world brimming with noise about about the sins of those who came before, the work of missions is met with skepticism. The word itself is tangled in narratives of oppression, of histories rewritten to erase the good, to cast a shadow over the selflessness of those who go. But are these voices not speaking from places of comfort, from lives built on the very institutions they now scorn? They do not see the child grasping a pencil for the first time, the mother receiving life-saving medicine, the elder hearing their own tongue written on paper, preserved from vanishing forever.

    I walked those roads, I stood in those villages, I listened to the murmurs of a culture that was not my own, and I felt the weight of being an outsider. I had come to serve, to help, to give, and yet I was seen as other. My skin marked me, my presence unsettled. They spoke in words I did not understand, laughter curling at the edges, glances passing between them like secrets I would never know.

    I felt the sting of being foreign in a place where I had come only to love. I felt the walls rise around me, unseen but unyielding. I knew what it was to give everything and still be met with suspicion, to pour out and yet be turned away.

    But does that make the work any less important?

    Missionaries stand in the gap where no one else will. They step into the unknown, offering what they have, believing that even if they are not welcomed, their work will speak for itself. In nations straining beneath the weight of change, where ancient ways meet modern rule, missionaries are the steady hands, the voices of reason, the ones who hold fast when the ground shifts beneath them.

    The world moves forward, indifferent to what is lost along the way. But still, the work continues. The languages are written down. The sick are cared for. The airstrips are carved into the earth. The tortured are lifted from the ashes. The children learn to read. The planes take flight, skimming over jungle canopies, carrying medicine, carrying food, carrying prayers wrapped in aluminum wings.

    And maybe, one day, the world will see.

  • International Women’s Day

    Today is International Women’s Day—a day meant to celebrate the strength, resilience, and achievements of women. But I find myself reflecting on the ways women have also been the architects of some of my deepest wounds.

    In a world where women already face scrutiny, dismissal, and injustice, I never expected that my greatest injuries would come from the very people who should have stood beside me. Women who pried into my life under the guise of accountability. Women who whispered behind closed doors, who disguised their judgment as concern, who demanded answers they were never entitled to. Women who, instead of lifting me up, placed weights upon my shoulders that I was never meant to carry.

    Living as a woman in a place that already struggled to see our worth was hard enough. My gender was a constant reason to be dismissed. My age, my race, my marital status, my presence—reasons to be overlooked, questioned, and mocked on a daily basis. And yet, instead of refuge, I found further injury in the company of women. The ones who should have understood. The ones who should have known better.

    And now, when I speak of the pain that was inflicted, I am told that I should be more uplifting. That my words should inspire, not burden. That I should move on, heal, be grateful for the suffering that has somehow made me stronger. As though I chose this suffering. As though these wounds were self-inflicted, instead of the result of hands that tore down rather than built up.

    Even my deepest heartbreak—the loss of the one who taught me what it meant to love—was in part shaped by these wounds. By the endless scrutiny, the whispered accusations, the quiet destruction wrought by those who saw themselves as righteous. And yet, when I grieve, I am told that I should be silent. That faith should mend what was broken, that trust in God should be enough to erase the scars.

    But faith is not the absence of suffering, and healing is not the same as forgetting. Christ carried His cross, not because He deserved to suffer, but because He chose to bear the weight of what others placed upon Him. And while I am no savior, I, too, find myself bearing burdens I did not ask for, carrying wounds that were never mine to inflict.

    So on this International Women’s Day, I do not simply call for celebration. I call for reckoning. For a recognition of the ways we, as women, have failed one another. For a shift in how we see each other—not as competition, not as projects to fix or control, not as threats—but as fellow sojourners in a world that is already too heavy with injustice.

    May we, instead of wounding, learn to heal. May we, instead of judging, learn to understand. And may we never again be the ones placing the cross on another woman’s back.

  • Becoming Strangers

    We spoke in whispers, soft and low,
    In laughter’s light, in embers’ glow.
    In quiet prayers and silver streams,
    We wove our hearts, we built our dreams.

    You knew my fears, my weary sighs,
    The light that danced behind my eyes.
    You held my hope, you knew my name,
    Before the silence, before it changed.

    I did not choose to walk away,
    But winds arose, I could not stay.
    The tether snapped, the distance grew,
    And love turned ghostly, pale and blue.

    I knocked, I called, I sent my plea,
    But doors don’t open without a key.
    And echoes fade behind cold walls,
    No matter how a heartbeat calls.

    Yet if I spoke, it would be low,
    A whisper soft, a sorrowed glow.
    If I could see you, just once more,
    I’d smile like I had done before.

    Not for the ache, not for the pain,
    But for the love that still remains.

  • When Prayers Feel Like Echoes

    I have been prayed over more times than I can count. Hands resting on my shoulders, voices lifting like incense, curling into the air, into the restless hours of the night. I was sent to sleep with ardent prayers for my settling, for peace to take root in my spirit. But I did not settle. I unraveled. I shattered.

    I prayed in desperation, in the rawness of exhaustion and sorrow. I prayed that what I clung to by my fingernails would not slip, would not crash to the ground and shatter beyond repair. I begged for time to rewind, for the future I had built in my heart to remain intact. But time is merciless, and prayers do not always hold back the tide.

    And then, when I realized I was asking too much, I stopped praying for rescue and only pleaded for the pain to end. For sleep to come. For my gut not to twist each morning as I woke up to the nightmare I was living. I prayed for numbness, for silence, for a reprieve from the endless ache.

    God sent me lifeboats and I turned each one away. They were not what I wanted. I did not want friendship; I wanted love. I did not want an offer of a job; I wanted my old life. I did not want questions from nosey family members; I wanted answers for why this was happening to me. I did not want a diagnosis; I wanted healing. I did not want consolations; I wanted the prize I had spent years nurturing for a future I had already seen. I did not want their prayers; I wanted his whispers pouring over me as I fell asleep. I wanted what had been mine, whole and unbroken.

    In the bleakest nights, I called home. My family’s voices, steady and sure, became my lifeline. Across the miles, they prayed for me—words spilling over crackling phone lines, reaching into the ache I could not name. They believed when I could not. They called on hope when I had none. And yet, even after I returned home, I prayed for things to be made right. I prayed for restoration, for justice, for a reversal of what had been taken from me.

    Some prayers do not get answered. At least, not in the way we expect. At least, not yet.

    My faith was shaken. My despair was deep. A curse had been spoken over my life, and I felt its weight pressing down, unseen but inescapable. I carried it, even as I whispered prayers into the quiet, wondering if they rose beyond the ceiling, if they faded before they reached the heavens. I searched for signs, for something that might tell me I had not been forgotten.

    And yet—somewhere in the long unraveling of time—light seeped in. A different path emerged, soft-footed, unexpected. It was not the answer I had begged for, not the restoration I had envisioned. But it was something. A quiet shift, a tender mercy. Maybe prayers are answered in ways we do not recognize at first. Maybe hope, slow as the tide, is still coming for me.

    And maybe, just maybe, the lifeboat I had once turned away has circled back—no longer the vessel I fought for, but one I can finally step into, weary, but willing, at last.

  • Phases of Us

    The moon would light my way to you,
    a silver hush, a pearly hue.
    Through shadowed paths and whispering trees,
    we met beneath the midnight breeze.

    The world lay still, the echoes died,
    as time unspooled and opened wide.
    No eyes but hers to see us there,
    soft glow upon your face laid bare.

    She waxed and waned, and so did I,
    bright and bold, then shrinking shy.
    A crescent thin, a silent plea,
    or full and fierce—untamed, set free.

    Yet always, when the dark grew deep,
    when others fell to dream-lost sleep,
    I’d find you where the fireflies gleamed,
    as if the night was how we dreamed.

    Now years have passed, her light remains,
    soft fingers tracing old refrains.
    She pulls the tides, she pulls my mind,
    to moments only we could find.

    For moons will change, but never fade,
    and love, once lit, still holds its shade.