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Category: Africa Stories

#alt=Happy Valentine's Day 3, debbiejoneswarren.com
Happy Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day

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I stared out the window of the second-grade classroom at the tall, shady mango tree while colorful, tropical birds tweeted happily among the branches. The drone of the teacher’s voice faded quietly into the background at the boarding school for missionary children in Nigeria. My racing heartbeat slowed for a moment. Then the chalk screeched on the blackboard, and I quickly turned my head toward the front of the classroom. I don’t want to get yelled at again for daydreaming….

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#alt=A Strange Kind of Tag Day, debbiejoneswarren.com
A Strange Kind of Tag Day

A Strange Kind of Tag Day

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As I sat down for breakfast in the dining hall at Kent Academy, the air was filled with the chitter-chatter of two hundred boarding school kids. At my seat, a piece of paper two inches square, lay on the tablecloth. Each of my tablemates had one beside their plate, too. The dorm Uncle’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “The red card at your seat is called a tag. Today the staff in every section will be watching you closely during…

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#alt=The Blue Bird of Happiness, debbiejoneswarren.com
The Blue Bird of Happiness

The Blue Bird of Happiness

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Pushing her cat-eye glasses further up her slender nose, my fourth-grade teacher bends over my desk. “Debbie, it looks like you’re still having trouble counting American money.” I frown and point to number four on my workbook page with black marks and smudges all over. “I’ll never figure this out. Did I get this one right, yet?” Living in our missionary boarding school in Nigeria, I get confused by American coins. The teacher shakes her head and her floral perfume…

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#alt=Shoplifting, Getting Caught, and Finding Home at Last, debbiejoneswarren.com
Shoplifting, Getting Caught, and Finding Home at Last

Shoplifting, Getting Caught, and Finding Home at Last

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After an hour of shopping at Mervyn’s, my friend Grace and I agreed we had what we needed for our college outfits. The double doors swooshed open, and we stepped out from the clothing department into the bright sunlight of a balmy March afternoon in Fresno. I had recently moved into a small house that I rented with Grace and her sister while I attended Fresno City College. This was only my second semester in college, yet my fifth house…

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#alt=Adventures in Australia, debbiejoneswarren.com
Adventures in Australia

Adventures in Australia

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This is the last day of August, and I don’t want the month to end. For one thing, it’s my birthday month, and I don’t want the parties to end. Additionally, August is the month when I, as a child, typically flew away from home to live at boarding school four hundred miles away. You can read about the challenges in my previous blog posts. Now, however, I’ve just returned from an epic two-week vacation in Australia. Chris and I…

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#alt=Leaving for College, debbiejoneswarren.com
Leaving for College

Leaving for College

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In the summer of 1976, my older brother, Larry, graduated from Hillcrest High School in Jos, Nigeria. Mom and Dad took a leave from their ministry and brought our family of seven back to California for a one-year furlough. The purpose was to help Larry get settled into his first year of college. It seemed like an ideal plan, because I was a senior in high school, and my parents could help me adapt to the American culture, choose a…

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Harvesters Needed: Farm Girl Applies

Harvesters Needed: Farm Girl Applies

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During her 80s, my mom painstakingly wrote her memoir. Drawing on her memories of thirty years in Nigeria, she worked hard to summarize her life and the years she and my dad spent serving in Nigeria with SIM. To fill in her memory, she referred to the many letters she had written over the decades to family and friends back home in the US. When she turned 92, we finally published her magnum opus on Amazon KDP. The back of…

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#alt=Holiday Treasures, debbiejoneswarren.com
Holiday Travels and Treasures

Holiday Travels and Treasures

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Vacations can add many experiences to our lives–some challenging, as I wrote about in my previous post, and some beautiful, to be treasured forever. After two weeks in the Scottish Highlands, Chris and I relocated to the Lowlands. We rented a cottage near the city of Dunfermline, about twenty miles from Stirling. Our new home was a half mile down a dirt road, on the outskirts of the village of Powmill, centrally located between Glasgow and Edinburgh. “The city of…

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Holiday Treasures

Holiday Treasures

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Vacations can add many experiences to our lives–some challenging, as I wrote about in my previous post, and some beautiful, to be treasured forever. After two weeks in the Scottish Highlands, Chris and I relocated to the Lowlands. We rented a cottage near the city of Dunfermline, about twenty miles from Stirling. Our new home was a half mile down a dirt road, on the outskirts of the village of Powmill, centrally located between Glasgow and Edinburgh. “The city of…

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Decisions, Decisions!

Decisions, Decisions!

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“Do I need to fly back home to see my oral surgeon?” I rubbed my jaw, gently massaging my throbbing tooth. “We’ve only been in Scotland two weeks, and we have a whole month left of our holiday.” My husband looked up from his laptop where he sat across from me at the kitchen table in our brightly lit cottage near Loch Ness. “Everything will work out. We’ll find you a dentist and get you taken care of.” His fingers…

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