by Kayla Norris | Sep 5, 2021 | Loving Jesus, Missionary Kids
I never really understood “winter”. In Hawaii, winter is the season you don’t have to worry about sweat stains, at least not every second. Up mountain, it’s blissfully cool—with that never-ending ocean view. But in town, it’s still suffocating. Not exactly the...
by Kayla Norris | Apr 23, 2021 | Grief, Missionary Kids
I know it’s bad when the flashbacks start. And they started a few weeks ago. They come in slow moments. When I’m washing dishes. Stuck in traffic. At work, patting a child’s back as they nod off for their afternoon nap. I mean, I’ve always had them. Especially since...
by Kayla Norris | May 5, 2020 | Missionary Kids
Dear Landlocked Citizen, I miss you, too. Terribly. But let me rewind. In your last letter, you said you don’t remember when we first met—but I sure do. Your dad is right, it was Hawaii to Canada in ‘94—you held my hand and pointed at the airplanes with this awestruck...
by Kayla Norris | Mar 19, 2020 | Missionary Kids
Dear International Travel, I miss you. Terribly. But let’s rewind. We’ve got history. I mean, I don’t even remember the first time I met you. My dad tells me it was Canada 1994. I’ve seen the pictures of my first New Zealand trip. Then Australia happened and we just...
by Kayla Norris | Oct 18, 2018 | Community, Loving Jesus, Missionary Kids, University, YWAM DTS
“Just go over to the house sometime, they’d love to meet you!” Fresh to Tauranga, New Zealand, friends had raved about the YWAM Furnace community. My new university was right next door to where their current Discipleship Training School was running, and I wanted to...
by Kayla Norris | May 26, 2018 | Kids & Teaching, Missionary Kids, University
“We can’t have unqualified teachers in the classroom—what’s the point of all the work we’re doing?” My college classmates had a point. New Zealand was shifting laws on charter schools, and one debate was whether or not teachers should be qualified. I’d gone...
