La vie de Julia

Photos by jcduin

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My Newsweek piece on the evangelical adoption movement.

This is one of the best pieces I've written all year for Newsweek. If you didn't see it in June, please read it now and remember the parents who are in impossible situations.

It’s been more than a year that I began work as Newsweek’s religion correspondent and in June, I got to post a story on the difficulties that the evangelical adoption movement has encountered. I thought up the headline: Evangelical Christian Adoption Movement Hit by “Tsunami” of Mentally Ill Children, because, well, it’s true. If you have not already, you can read the story here. It…

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What I thought about Christianity Today's cover story on singles who adopt

What I thought about Christianity Today’s cover story on singles who adopt

Me with my daughter Veeka after we came home from Kazakhstan in early 2007. I was so happy to be a mom. Someone sent me Christianity Today’s new story on singles who are adopting, asking why I wasn’t quoted. Heck if I know. Yes, I’ve written more on it than anyone else has (who else has a blog dedicated exclusively to the topic?), so obviously the writer didn’t google experts on the matter. But…

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Mongolia part 3 and what happened next

"Mongolia part 3 and what happened next" tells of Julia's last week in Mongolia, her visit to a ger camp and other adventures including the Tour de Lavender in Sequim.

The winter palace of the Bogd Khan looks most impressive from the outside.

  A typical Mongolian feast with tea, fermented mare’s milk and a whole tray of sheep parts.

It’s been three months since I returned from Mongolia and I think of it often, especially since I’ve been working on articles about the place since I got back. Sometimes I break open a bag of salted herbal milk tea that I bought in…

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This is the bed I had in a yurt about 50 miles east of Ulaanbaatar. Got up in in the middle of the night to use a pit toilet and look at the full moon and sleeping sheep. https://www.instagram.com/p/B0KctoCBVR7/?igshid=1u0ymp9jtvf8f

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Celebrating Nadaam

Without that glove on my right hand, that nice bird would have clawed me quite severely.

Before I get into this past week’s Nadaam festivities, I want to describe a day trip we took on this my second week in Mongolia. (For a description of my first week and why I am in Mongolia, please scroll back to last week’s blog entry. Anyway, we (my hosts Yanjmaa and her husband, Khudree and I) had just…

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This is part of the cool family showing me around central Mongolia. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bz3DPW7hQNG/?igshid=1xpknxmianp82

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Dressed in a traditional Mongolian ‘del,’ I am about to enter the opening ceremonies for the Nadaam festival. Yes, it was hot. (at Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) https://www.instagram.com/p/BzyOsVuBxhm/?igshid=nbg41acggaln

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The capital of cashmere

The capital of cashmere is Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia where Gobi Cashmere has gorgeous fabrics. It's also the home of Yanjmaa Jutmaan, an extraordinary Mongolian woman who wants to establish a Christian counseling center in Ulaanbaatar.

I’m discovering there’s quite the lively art scene in Ulaanbaatar. A lot has nomad and landscape themes but this painting, representing the great Mongol queens, reaches back to the 13th century.

I will say that flying into Ulaanbaatar was beautiful and frightening at the same time; frightening because there was a nasty-looking storm close by and I didn’t want us flying into it. However, there…

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Off to Mongolia

In the dead of winter: Yanjmaa Jutmaan and husband Khudree Agvaanluvsan.

In the 5 months since I last wrote, there’s been a sea change in my household; I’ve published a lot of articles and I’m heading to Mongolia in less than two weeks. The last first: I will be helping a talented woman, Yanjmaa Jutmaan, put together a book about her fascinating life. We met through Good Samaritan Ministries of…

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Freezing my tail off at Mt. Bachelor (Oregon) this afternoon.45 mph winds! I lasted 2 hours. https://www.instagram.com/p/Bv5S2lmhTuC/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=16h1mcza2hhz1

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Drippy January

Veeka on one of the wooden boats on South Lake Union on a Sunday afternoon.

It’s truly a drippy January here, but one thing brightening up my week was my piece for Religion News Service (that just came out) about a new opera premiering at Kennedy Centerthis weekend on serpent handling. You heard that right. The composer and librettist were searching for something authentically American, so they…

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A golden fall and hiking Mt. Rainier

A golden fall and hiking Mt. Rainier

The walkway to the main building at Malibu. My Nootka 3 cabin was on the middle floor overlooking the water.

The winter rains have begun here after a truly golden fall. When my family first moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1971, the falls were very monochrome. In the past 45 years, maybe some maples have moved in, as leaves are far brighter and more colorful than they once were. Veeka has…

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Older and special-needs adoptions

Older and special-needs adoptions

Although I may not blog as frequently as I like about single Christians adopting, it’s not for the lack of interest or passion. Remember folks, the statistics are quite favorable. In April, Pew Research Center came out with this reporton how one third of all American children are living with an unmarried parent. Back in 1968, 13 percent of all kids lived with a single parent. In 2017, it was 32…

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Sunshine Coast and my weird summer

Sunshine Coast and my weird summer

The summer of 2018 has been probably the most unusual one in my life. It started out well. I’d wanted to travel Canada’s Sunshine Coast, which is the area north of Vancouver. We planned to end up on Texada Island, the largest of the Canadian gulf islands, and a trip that required 3 ferries to get there. Coming along was Joey Marguerite, a college friend from Lewis & Clark. Our first crisis was…

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Visit to Iceland (finally)

Visit to Iceland (finally)

The lovely AirBNB near Hallgrimskirkja

Yes, almost two months have passed since I went to Iceland. Did you know that Icelandair names its fleet of planes after its many volcanoes? The one I took into Reykjavik was named Snaefells. We flew just to the west of Hudson Bay and over Greenland. I looked in vain for the northern lights, as two kids screaming behind me all night made sleep impossible.…

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Another month, another contest won

Another month, another contest won

In this photo taken by my brother, I’m speaking at Chaparral Books in downtown Portland. Interested onlookers included one dog. Lots has happened recently with the best being my winning another contest; this one being the annual Wilbur awards given out by the Religion Communicators Council. I was amazed to learn in late February that my piece on Paula White for The Washington Post Magazine won…

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Single folks adopt in Japan as well

Single folks adopt in Japan as well

Cynthia Ruble is an American expatriate and single Christian woman who adopted a Japanese son, Micah, who has Down Syndrome. | Undated photo from Life Hope Network

February is always a meaningful time for my little family, as it was the month – 11 years ago – when I brought my daughter home from Kazakhstan. I went to court on Jan. 25; all the papers were finalized on Feb. 10 and on Feb. 17, we…

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