I’ve been cutting roots since childhood—not
in a garden, but in my life. I’m a Navy brat;
my dad was in the military for twenty-two
years, and during those years, he and my mom moved seventeen times.
It was good practice for me, I suppose. I
caught “the bug”: After spending two years in any given place, I’m ready to move on to something new. This was a wonderful help when I left home at age twenty-two to spend two years as a missionary in Bangladesh. It helped again when I left for East Africa at age twenty-six. Being uprooted wasn’t very painful for me.