The Real Coffeegirl

[what's brewing: fully-caffeinated, you know, the real deal]

On New Year’s Day, I received the following comment from a Coffeegirl regular:

I was wondering if I might ask you to fill in some blanks for me. If you have a profile on Facebook or something like that where these questions are answered then I could go there if you point me in the right direction. On the other hand, if you are choosing not to reveal this information I am curious as to why; I'd really like to understand.Forgive me, please, if I am being to forward. OK, so here go my questions: We know that your husband is Jason; what is your first name? We know that you are learning Spanish (if I am not mistaken); what country are you serving in? We know that you are fairly newly married; how old are you? Do you have a personal blog that we could follow outside of this one?

I wondered how long CG Confessions would run before someone asked these questions and I got my answer that day, 6 months and 29 days since my first posting. Perhaps you have had similar questions as you’ve been reading along – I know I would have. So what’s the story?

Through my own series of fortunate events, I came to know of Women of the Harvest as an excellent resource for women in cross-cultural service. Just as my life’s journey was leading me to the doorstep of missions, an idea was birthed in the WOTH office of documenting the first year of missionary life from a woman's point of view and sharing them through an online forum that would allow interaction from the WOTH readers. I was eventually drawn into discussions about the project and was selected to be the voice of the project. Before I began, a few guidelines were established to help ensure that the intention of the vision of the project would remain clear and connected to the WOTH mission.

Many times missionaries are defined by their demographics – where they live, which agency they serve with, single or married, children or no children, language abilities, etc. It can become easy to define missionaries by these factors, rather than the true experiences of their cross-cultural life (and many of you can probably attest to this after making a long tour on home assignment!). While there is often a camaraderie among missionaries based upon their shared experiences, points of dissimilarity can create subtle divisions:

Oh, well she’s single – she wouldn’t understand.
That family doesn’t look at things the way I do – they work in Europe.
Her agency allows for more frequent furloughs.
She doesn’t have children to manage on top of ministry responsibilities.
They live in a nicer area – they don’t understand people the way we do.

In an attempt to bypass these issues and focus on the heart of the writing, it was decided that the author would remain anonymous. The hope was that women would then be able to connect with the real issues at hand, to unite in their shared experiences, find freedom to voice their own experiences and not be divided by points of differentiation. The writing is meant to reflect the heart of a woman in cross-cultural service – she could be me, she could be you. Certainly there are details and personal struggles included here that are unique to me, but hopefully as you read along you’re able to see a reflection of yourself, your predecessors, your field leaders, your teammates, maybe even your enemies between the lines.

So while my “real” identity remains undisclosed, I assure you that I am real. I am Coffeegirl. Every bit of this blog is authentic and personal. You can confide in me, just as I confide in all of you each week. And as you do so, think of the women in your life who have been called to serve alongside you, for better or worse. As the blog description says,

Any woman who has embarked on the cross-cultural adventure of sharing the love of Christ outside her home culture has a piece of Coffeegirl within her.