That was 33 years ago, so my gap year extended to be slightly longer than I anticipated.

I had a lot of arrogance with God, telling him, “I hope you appreciate all the sacrifices I’m making for you here. I’m giving up my job. I’m giving up my flat. I’m giving up my salary…But after about six months, my mindset changed considerably, and I realized, no I’m actually the one who’s privileged here, and I’m the honored one who gets to participle in what God’s doing in the world.

I was quite intrigued by the “face-saving” reasons people gave for why they left the field, and then in personal interviews hearing the real reasons why they left.

I became a controlling leader, as many insecure leaders become.

I have no idea what she’s even talking about, but she seems enthusiastic enough, so why don’t we have her?

For the first six months, survival is an achievement.

If you could not disappoint God, and if God gave you all the freedom and said, “Son, what do you want to do with your life?” What would you do?

We also don’t want to be overly disturbed by not having perfectly pure motives because I don’t think any of us has entirely pure motives for serving God.

God is picking humans because he wants humans. If he wanted angels, he would have sent angels.

A lot of the inner voices of a lot of missionaries are the discrepancies between what they feel they should be interested in and passionate about and spend their lives doing, and their inner desires.

Loads of Christian workers are far more comfortable doing for God than they are being with God.

If you really look at how your relationship with Jesus is, is it the kind of relationship you would want other people to have?

There was a season in my life where I was like, “God, I’m fed up selling something that I don’t have myself.”

Until you change something in my heart, this whole evangelism thing is on hold.

Everything that isn’t processed is buried alive.

Questions, accusations, and disappointments need to be talked out with God; expressed, rather than buried.

Some food needs to be digested, and some of it needs to be vomited out.

Unless I apply the Gospel to myself, I have very little to give.

A lot of people don’t rest because they do not have a cooking clue what to do when they’re not working.

When I ask people what they do for fun, I get a lot of blank looks.

What is actually restful and life-giving to me? Then if I don’t know that, I work by default because I want to avoid boredom.

As I grow older, one of the costs of singleness has been the lack of that one person with whom there is continuity. 

I think it’s a wrong assumption that it’s only the singles who are lonely and the marrieds are not. Loneliness is a human challenge.

My 30s was a decade, making the very conscious decision that I don’t want to spend my life in the waiting room. I didn’t want to put my life on hold and assume that life only begins when I’m married.

God really challenged me and said, “You know, your being single is not a value statement about you. It doesn’t diminish who you are.

When I’m needy and when I’m tired, I could easily be prone to do something very stupid. And so I put accountability for myself in place, but I also looked at, ok, how do I ensure myself that I don’t get to this needy place where I’m so hungry that I’m no longer selective in what I’m eating?