Peter's Wife

helping women connect with their world

Helpful Resources

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Living overseas can make it hard to find resources that help and encourage. However, I have been so blessed by some of the really good things available over the internet. These don’t rely on us living in our home country. As long as we can get on the internet, we have the world at our fingertips.

I enjoy my time in my home office finding good resources and writing articles for women across the world. The materials my husband has written have been translated into the two other languages most used in the world besides English; Mandarin and Spanish. We will never meet most of the people we have influenced through our web presence. What a wonderful age we live in to influence the world for our King.

This month I wanted to share some resources you may not know about. These are valuable resources that are free or inexpensive. I would love to add ones that you know about too. Please email suggestions for future link pages to: Diane

Resources for you and your family

Christian Audio has a huge range of books in audio format for sale. Every month they have a free book to download and other specials that only cost about $5. These make wonderful gifts to send to folks you can’t be with on their special days. It is an easy way to get good Christian literature anywhere in the world.

Today’s Christian Woman sends a weekly newsletter with articles of interest to Christian women. These articles are sometimes truncated, however. If you join for $10/year, you have access to the full articles and their extensive archive. They have collections of materials on many topics. You pay a one-time fee for each collection, but they allow you to make up to 1,000 copies for your ministry. Logging into Today’s Christian Woman also entitles you to access the free content on all the Christianity Today publications, like Her.meneutics, for women in ministry.

E-Sword is a very powerful, totally free Bible program for your computer. It is also available for i-Phone, i-Pad, and i-Pod. Check out their features page to see the breadth of content available on your local computer or apple device. It has well over 100 different language Bibles available for download.

Thrive Online Magazine for Global Women. Subscribe for free and receive a weekly newsletter full of inspiration and practical helps for those of us serving other cultures.

Faith Comes by Hearing provides audio Bibles in over 850 different languages. They can be downloaded as mp3 files for use on a wide range of devices. They also have the Deaf Bible with video translations in a variety of languages.

Brigada – is a web site with current resources, helps, and questions you might be able to answer for another overseas worker. Sign up for their free weekly email with the links to many helpful resources.

Some of Our Resources:

Intermin is our web site archive of much of my husband’s materials on Growing a Great Marriage, Positive Parenting and some downloadable resources. These are available in Mandarin and Spanish too.

Choosing for Life is a book for young adults on choosing a life partner. It is available in print, as an eBook or iBook, or as a pdf file. Email: mike@choosingforlife.com for the download link and password. It is available in Spanish at: Eligiendo Para Toda La Vida. It is also being translated into Mandarin and soon into Vietnamese.

First Steps Bulletins will be sent free of charge to anyone requesting them for Newborns through 3 years. They are monthly bulletins with the usual developmental markers for that month, what to expect next, how to help your child develop, and short articles of interest for parents with children that age. These are sent around the day of the month that the baby was born until they reach 3 years. Please request your subscription by completing the contact form or a sample for a friend by emailing me.

Knowing Jesus is a chronological study of the life and teachings of Jesus. It is an inductive Bible study for individuals or groups. Knowing Jesus is 13 weeks long with 5 lessons each week. Included are the answer sheets, topics for additional study, and discussion questions. Everything is free and downloadable. This study has also been translated into Mandarin.

Please let me know of other resources you have found very helpful, free or inexpensive, and easily available.

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Typical? What’s That?

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Recently Lori Wilhite wrote an article called, The Typical Pastor’s Wife is Dead. She talks about the ideal of the perfect pastor’s wife. The one who always has it together, never seems to struggle, plays the piano, attends every event, and meets everyone’s expectations. She goes on to describe how she doesn’t measure up to that standard. This image seems outdated in much of today’s Christian world. In fact, there seems to be a new typical.

Of course my thoughts jumped to PWs (as we call them in these letters). It’s my shorthand title for those of us who live and serve outside our home culture.

I remember well our first field, more than 33 years ago. There were two veteran PWs who lived in our apartment building on the grounds of the ministry we served. Now, they were typical PWs in my mind. They cooked only with local ingredients, they were as involved in the work as their husbands, one homeschooled her children, and the other one delivered her baby in a local hospital. In my newbie mind, they seemed like real PWs- whatever that was. I tried hard to come up to their standard, but with two small kids, homeschooling for the first time, never having lived in a developing nation, and fighting shyness, I constantly fell short of my expectations for myself. [Read more…]

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Joy!

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Isn’t that one of the themes of the Christmas season?

“Joy to the world!”

“I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people!”

So, where do we find that joy? Many of our readers know the answer to that question in a very deep and personal way. Even so, Christmas is a great time to remember where real joy has its source.

Sue Eenigenburg in More Screams, Different Deserts, wrote a chapter called ‘Joy in His Presence.’ I’m including part of that chapter (with Sue’s permission). She did a great job of putting words to some of my recent thoughts.

Sue bases her musings on Luke 10:38-42. Jesus is visiting one of his favorite places, the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus. As we well know, Martha had worry issues, and some irritability with her sister, too. Here’s Sue:

Mary knew that true joy in life was not found in her accomplishments or activities, but in her relationship with Jesus Christ. She would not allow herself to be distracted from her relationship with the Lord by things to do.

[Read more…]

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Leap of Faith

This month we have a guest writer sharing her story. Shelly Miller tells about her biggest leap of faith and challenges us to take a good look at our lives and see if anything is keeping us from making a fresh leap of faith.

Diane

It must have been at least twenty minutes before my husband and I realized we’d been staring silently at strangers pulling carry-on luggage past us in the terminal. Seated against the wall, coats draped over our laps, we were waiting at the gate for an early morning departure from Dallas, trapped in a torrent of thoughts. While children were flitting through rows of seats to look at airplanes out a nearby wall of windows, we were making mental assessments, replaying the past 48 hours.

“What have we just done?” I said to him with a deadlock of focus on a piece of bubble gum stuck to a pillar.

He shook his head like awakening from a trance.

We were in Dallas at the invitation of my husband’s boss. He assumed we were coming to scout neighborhoods and schools for relocation, but we surprised him with some news after lunch.

We’ve sensed God is telling us this season of leadership in the church planting movement that we love is over. God is calling us to England.

Truthfully, that was the extent of our knowledge; we had no idea what that meant. For the first time in twenty-four years of marriage and ministry together, God was asking us to let go and take a leap of faith before knowing details and outcomes.
[Read more…]

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What We Have Learned

This month I wanted to do something different. My husband and I came up with the following list of things we have learned. Some are from our time in Africa and SE Asia, some are from our family, and some are general lessons we’ve learned. Enjoy reading our list. I’m sure you have your own list of lessons you’ve learned.

  • We have learned that homesickness will go away if you don’t entertain it.
  • We have learned that most people will love you if you let them.
  • We have learned that soup can be spicy without being red.
  • We have learned that Korean candy doesn’t taste half as good as it looks.
  • We have learned that marriage is like a garden. It flourishes if you take care of it and dies if you don’t.
  • We have learned that a good cup of hot tea is better therapy than two hours with any psychiatrist. The same is true of sunrises, sunsets, cool breezes and true friends.
  • We have learned that when your wife is better than you at details, it’s better to let her do them.
  • We have learned that when your husband is better at directions, it’s better to go the way he says.
  • We have learned that American saltine crackers are poor, wimpy imitations of British cream crackers.
  • We have learned that most mistakes are not fatal if you are honest about them.
  • We have learned that if you take the time, the classics are really worth it.
  • We have learned that Bach is better brain food than rock.
  • We have learned that the gift of a teddy bear can make a grown woman smile.
  • We have learned that it is useless to choose an airline on the basis of the food they serve. It’s all the brown stuff or the white stuff and rubber omelets.
  • We have learned that PMS is neither permanent nor fatal. It just seems like it at the time.
  • We have learned that America is not the center of the world, that other cultures have riches to bestow on us and that God’s love looks great on any face.
  • We have learned that in the tropics you choose your seat by its proximity to the fan.
  • We have learned that when they tell you not to drink the water, they really mean it.
  • We have learned that the good relationships grow richer with time, like vegetable soup simmering slowly.
  • We have learned that good friendship can instantly pick up where it left off, like a CD when you push the play button.
  • We have learned that rest is neither sin nor weakness, but a God-created necessity.
  • We have learned that durian (an Asian fruit) and blue cheese have this in common, they both smell bad to those who don’t like them and great to those who do. The same with people.
  • We have learned that it is best to cross the street the way the locals do. They know which way to look, when to wait, and when you better go.
  • We have learned that wilderness companions are seldom who you expected.
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