Versatile Blogger Award

I was grateful to receive a Versatile Blogger Award nomination from Searching for Substance and humbled to read her description of my blog:

Between Worlds – a blog that cuts to the core of the things that matter, she writes often about topics that are too hard to talk about. like racism. or separation in the church. or marriage. or work. or immigration and resettlement. Difficult stuff, but expressed so eloquently and thoughtfully.

Thanks, Soapie. These words are the best part of the honor.

Part of the nomination is the write seven random things about me.  While I love reading such lists, I find them terribly difficult to write.  Here goes:

1. I once sang the Theme from Titanic (or the ‘Jack and Rose’ song as they called it) to a group of rural Thai school children.  The sad part is that I don’t sing very well and didn’t even know the words to the song, but it was the one thing they wanted to know about the US.
2. The hardest-superficial-part of traveling for me is the lack of uber-comfortable furniture and cold drinks.  Go ahead an slap an American flag on my forehead :).
3. I actually prefer squat toilets to sit-down ones.  Waaay more sanitary!
4. My guilty pleasure is watching cute animal videos on YouTube with my kids.  I have a hard time laughing sometimes and I love the reason to giggle. My absolute favorite are the BBC’s Walk on the Wild Side clips.
5. I’m an ocean girl.  Mountains are pretty and all, but I could sit beside the sea forever.
6. I hate to clean.  In fact, if you came to my house, you might actually find me comfortably writing away on the couch while my husband scrubs the floor.
7. Clearly, I married really well.

And now for my nominations:

Shalom is for the City.  Osheta writes with boldness and grace, honesty and gentleness about everything from   race to faith to church-planting to peace-making to mothering.  She will stun you with her wisdom and relax you with her humor.

The Beautiful Due.  John Blase’s poignant and beautiful poetry about the spiritual realities in every day life.

A life with Subtitles.  Sarah writes navigating the challenging and fun realities of bicultural and bilingual families.

Communicating Across Boundaries.  Marilyn’s writes about everything from third culture kids to growing up in Pakistan to Orthodoxy.  Her writing is both beautiful and practical, and she hosts a wide variety of guest authors speaking to cross-cultural topics.

Grace Biskie.  Grace is a biracial woman who writes with hopeful honesty about race, recovery from abuse, mental illness, and justice.