When I first step off the plane, turning the corner into the crowded terminal and before I even collect my suitcase from baggage claim, I’m hit by a deep, rich aroma of berbere. Berbere is a pepper that is fire-roasted, sun-dried, and ground into a red powder that spices nearly every dish in Ethiopian cuisine.…

We had been in Honduras for a few months when I decided to wander off in the crowded San Pedro Sula market to “look for care bears.” I was three years old, but I still remember my mother’s frantic expression, running through the rows of vendors, with my older sister in tow. “Busca mi nina,” she called over and over in her broken Spanish. She was sweating, half-crazed, and crying when she swooped me into her arms, shouting, “never do that again!”

When I was eleven, my dad picked me to go with him to church where a missionary would be sharing about her experiences serving in Africa. I remember being mesmerized by the photos and the stories she shared. After just an hour of being exposed to the world of foreign missions, I said to my dad on the way home, “I want to be a missionary when I grow up!”