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A great missionary memoir in the New York Times Modern Love Column!

chanson, October 30, 2009January 15, 2011

All I Wanted Was a Hug.

The story explores the crazy rules of homo-vs-hetero public displays of affection among missionaries — and it was written by one of the stars of the last Sunstone Symposium! check it out!

Testimony

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Comments (5)

  1. LdChino says:
    October 31, 2009 at 4:37 am

    My guess is that this good sister’s plight was probably exacerbated by the realities of serving (i.e., living) in Asia.

    I’m a fairly standard-issue American male and can count the number of times I’ve shed tears on one hand. One was when I returned home from Brazil and realized how cold and uncommunicative the people of my country of birth suddenly seemed to me. The other was after about six months into my first stay in Taiwan. I love my life here, but it is a much less expressive culture than even that of the US. Adapting takes time and, unlike the easy adaptation to the greater warmth of a Latin culture, finding one’s place in a colder society like Taiwan’s can often feel like compromising one’s humanity.

    Thank God for my Taiwanese wife, her intellectual curiosity, and her dedication to living a polyglot lifestyle.

  2. profxm says:
    October 31, 2009 at 5:29 am

    Looks like a good book!

  3. visitor says:
    October 31, 2009 at 10:46 am

    The coldness of that relationship where someone who “loved her best” would only allow her to touch his sleeve when he clearly knew she was in real distress is stunning!

  4. chanson says:
    November 1, 2009 at 5:17 pm

    Visitor — right, but you have to understand that in that culture, he would see his refusal to comfort her as being a noble sacrifice.

  5. aerin says:
    November 3, 2009 at 10:05 am

    Loved this article, well-written (congrats holly). Thanks for the tip chanson.

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