Blog Entries

Newsletters as an Adventure?

A Book Review


Love Amy: An Accidental Memoir told in Newsletters from China by Amy Young. Self-published, 2017, Paperback, 252 pages, ISBN-13: 978-1546743293, Kindle. Available at Amazon.

Living abroad can be an adventure. Guess what? So can reading a book by someone who learned to kill mice with a frying pan, spent time in a coma in a Chinese hospital, and visited students in a countryside school—all the while seeing God at work in and around her. 
Excerpt from the introduction to Love Amy: An Accidental Memoir Told in Newsletters from China

Laughing, cringing, reminiscing, and learning; reading my way through Amy Young’s Love, Amy: An Accidental Memoir told in Newsletters from China was indeed an adventure. The collected newsletters cover Amy’s initial transition as an English teacher through to the difficult decision of leaving after nine years of living and serving as a foreigner in China.

Along the way, ups and downs presented with humor, honesty, and hope made me want to start writing newsletters again myself, even though I’m not overseas anymore. Accounts of unwanted animals, sweet student letters, awkward moments, and culture clashes give a sneak preview for anyone considering overseas service themselves, and a familiar trip for those who have been before.

Amy’s desire is not simply to share an interesting story, but to encourage those living overseas with newsletters on their “to do” list, to tell their stories with interest and purpose. She leads us in the journey of coming to see her newsletter writing as “another slice of my calling and ministry.” In between her own collection of letters sent home from China, short sections address newsletter writing itself—like top five mistakes, top five things done well, and even tips on reading newsletters well.

In sharing Amy’s adventures, my perspective of my own everyday life was renewed from seeing how she viewed the fun and frustration of normal life overseas as a storyteller—remembering the bigger picture, holding on to hope, and presenting an eternal perspective. She shows us how newsletter writing can be a gift to our readers, giving them a glimpse of another person’s daily life, a bigger view of God’s work in the world, an invitation to pray, and an opportunity to share in the adventure.

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Angela Robb

Angela Robb

Angela Robb lived with her family in China for six years of her life, mostly as a teenager. She moved back to New Zealand in 2012 and is now studying agriculture at Lincoln University, finding it fun to surprise international Chinese students by speaking Mandarin more fluently than they expect.View Full Bio


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