Christine Elizabeth, Author at TEAM Christian Missions Blog

Maintaining Friendships While Living Abroad

A group of women laugh and talk together.

Maintaining friendships can be a challenge — especially when there are oceans of separation. Keep reading to see some helpful ways to maintain the relationships.

Jul 28 2020

Long distance friendships are hard. In the last year, whether we live far away or not, we’ve all had to find new and creative ways to maintain relationships while being physically distant from each other. For those of us who live a plane ride away from close friends and family, this is nothing new. Here are some of the ideas and truths I’ve learned over years of maintaining friendships while living abroad. Choose What Apps Work for You What a blessing it is to live in an age with such great technology available to us! While Facebook and Instagram are…

TEAM missionary Christine Elizabeth put together her top list of blogs, podcasts and online resources for missionaries. Did yours make the list?

Mar 23 2017

Living away from my home country brings its set of challenges — one of which is wanting to find connections with people who also are living outside their home culture. I’ve always been intrigued by the power of connection through social media, but over the last two years of living in Manila, I’ve learned even more about the power posting can have on building relationships. Here is a list of online resources that have helped me connect with other missionaries and their stories from around the world. Blogs for Missionaries 1. A Life Overseas This blog has been a lifeline to…

In 2016, Christine and her husband started a missional coffee shop in Manila, Philippines. Here are her best tips for other people interested in business as mission. Photos courtesy of Narrative Coffee Company

Mar 06 2017

We came to the Philippines wide-eyed and idealistic. Let’s start a coffee shop: make money for missions and make good coffee. How hard can it be? Nineteen months later, what started as a vision for a large coffee shop with meeting rooms has turned into a small pour-over bar in a 10 square meter entryway within a co-working space. What started as a desire to make money for missions turned into a vision to mobilize and equip other entrepreneurs to use their business to serve God and people — here and abroad. What began as a small dream that “might…

Trent and Christine spend their days smelling like coffee and dreaming of the day when they will open up their first missional coffee shop in Manila, Philippines.

May 03 2016

For the past year, Trent and Christine* have lived in Manila learning everything they can about Filipino culture and coffee in order to open up their first missional coffee shop, Narrative, later this year. Scroll through their photo journal to see how, in a city of millions, they are making disciples one cup of coffee at a time. Meet Trent and Christine (and Gordon, too) Mabuhay! We are Trent and Christine and we’ve lived in Manila, Philippines, together for just over a year (Trent since 2010). We have the best job in the world: setting up a specialty coffee shop in…

Creating a place to call home in a new environment can be challenging without access to favorite stores. But making your house a home is a critical step to thriving overseas.

Apr 07 2016

A week after we landed in Manila, we moved into our condo. Our first morning in our new home, I sat on the floor amidst the half-unpacked suitcases and boxes and cried. We had a table. We had no chairs. We slept on an air mattress we bought the night before. The task before us of settling in, of creating this to be a space of our own, felt daunting and distant. But trying to create a home overseas is more than the actual furniture. What I have written here is 80 percent personal narrative and 20 percent how-to. I…

Author - Christine Elizabeth

Maintaining Friendships While Living Abroad

Blogs, Podcasts + Other Online Resources for Missionaries

Five Tips For Starting a Business as Mission

When God Calls You to Open Up a Coffee Shop [Photo Journal]

How to Create a Home Overseas