A Zebra Without Stripes

Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Thank you Dale Oak, Chuck Kessler, Rose Flaherty, and many others for tuning into my live video with Teer Hardy! Join me for my next live video in the app. Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Jonathan Tepper’s family wasn’t your typical missionary family. His dad was Jewish convert to evangelicalism. He had an MBA from Harvard but decided to be a missionary instead, first in Latin America then in the drug-riddled slums of Madrid, where he and his wife started Betel, what became a multi-country ministry that has rehabilitated thousands of drug addicts. When Jonathan was growing up, the AIDS crisis swept through the Betel community, and Jonathan lost multiple people he considered big brothers and sisters. He also lost one of his actual brothers, in a car accident.Unlike mine, his new book, Shooting Up: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Addiction, is not a commentary on missions or evangelicalism, and you’ll find he’s reticent to answer my questions along those lines. Instead, he has written a traditional, narrative memoir. Nonetheless, as an MK, I related to various thematic elements of his story, although at times, I was at times frustrated by his refusal to explicitly draw them out. But the general reader will be moved by this beautiful story of what it means to love across divides and in the face of overwhelming grief. Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to our dazzle of stripe-less zebras! Here we tell stories of belonging—finding it, losing it, making it, leaving the places you don’t belong, and ultimately being at home with your true self.I met Shayla Genegabus recently and randomly at a dinner and was captivated by her spirit and her story. She is a veteran, a mom, and a three-time surrogate or gestational carrier. She has worked with two same sex couples to make their dreams of parenthood come true. I think you’ll be moved and inspired by her generous heart and commitment to serving others, even at great sacrifice to herself. But I think she’d say she’s gotten as much out of giving of herself as she has put in. Intro/outro music:Home by Hotham | https://soundcloud.com/hothammusicMusic promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to our dazzle of stripe-less zebras! Here we tell stories of belonging—finding it, losing it, making it, leaving the places you don’t belong, and ultimately being at home with your true self.Will Selber is a retired Air Force officer who served multiple combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since retiring, he has worked to bring his Afghan colleagues to the US and help both them and returning American veterans adapt to life here. We talk about war and its aftermath and why “coming home is the hardest part.” To support American and Afghan veterans, subscribe to Will’s substack or donate to Will’s organization Afghan American Veterans Alliance.Intro/outro music:Home by Hotham | https://soundcloud.com/hothammusicMusic promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to our dazzle of stripe-less zebras! Here we tell stories of belonging—finding it, losing it, making it, leaving the places you don’t belong, and ultimately being at home with your true self.Author Cara Meredith and I talk about reckoning with and departing from white evangelicalism, a place she found community and a career for many years. She is the author of two beautiful books. The Color of Life: A Journey Toward Love and Racial Justice is about her coming to grips with race in America through her love for her husband, the son of civil rights icon James Meredith. And her new book, Church Camp: Bad Skits, Cry Night, and How White Evangelicalism Betrayed a Generation, is a excavation of the culture and theology of of evangelicalism through the programmatic week of the church camps that Cara spent decades attending, as a camper and a staffer. Intro/outro music:Home by Hotham | https://soundcloud.com/hothammusicMusic promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to our dazzle of stripe-less zebras! Here we tell stories of belonging—finding it, losing it, making it, leaving the places you don’t belong, and ultimately being at home with your true self.My friend Robin Lowenthal went to college to become a journalist, but couldn’t shake a feeling of wanting to be more useful in the world. So at the age of 30, she completely started over, going back school to become a medical doctor. She’s worked all over the world and currently works for Indian Health Services for the Navajo Nation. Here’s her story of departing from your original plan and following your gut.Intro/outro music:Home by Hotham | https://soundcloud.com/hothammusicMusic promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to our dazzle of stripe-less zebras! Here we tell stories of belonging—finding it, losing it, making it, leaving the places you don’t belong, and ultimately being at home with your true self.Here I talk to two of my personal heroes, siblings Richard Darr and Dianne Darr Couts. They endured horrific abuse from their parents’ fellow evangelical missionaries growing up in what is now Mali in the 1950s and 1960s. They have since become advocates for missionary kids, relentlessly exposing mission field abuse and pressing mission organizations to reckon with it. They tell their compelling stories, and then we talk about how white evangelical theology helps explain how this culture continues to foster and ignore abuse—and why so many white evangelicals support an abusive President of the United States. To learn more, you can read Dianne’s memoir,Watch the documentary All God’s Children about Mamou Academy, And learn more about/support MK Safety Net. Intro/outro music:Home by Hotham | https://soundcloud.com/hothammusicMusic promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to my new podcast! Here we tell stories of belonging—finding it, losing it, making it—leaving the places you don’t belong, and ultimately being at home with your true self.You’re going to be fascinated and inspired by my first guest, Katsiaryna Shmatsina, a Belarusian journalist who was forced to flee her country in 2020 under threat of arrest. She was subsequently tried in absentia and without evidence for trying to overthrow the government. She shares what it was like growing up in an authoritarian regime, becoming a dissident, and living a life without country. This lady is definitely a Zebra Without Stripes, her own amazing person who has forged community on the move around cherished ideals and the courage to fight for them. Intro/outro music: Home by Hotham | https://soundcloud.com/hothammusicMusic promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Get full access to A Zebra Without Stripes at hollyberkleyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe