by Kim L. Abernethy
As a young missionary
in the mid-1980‘s living thousands of miles from home, I had to find a way to
communicate with family. Other than monthly conversations via ham radio, I
wrote letters and kept extensive journals. In the evenings when there was
generated power, I tapped away on my Selectric II typewriter (or wrote
long-handed when there was no electricity). At twenty-eight years old, I had a two-year old daughter and was
pregnant with my second while living in a remote town in Liberia, West Africa.
After living nearly
twenty years in West Africa, the journals, some emotive and raw, were complete.
Back in America as campus ministers, my parents gave me the gift of a lifetime:
the folder of my
journals and personal letters I had written to them. Their mandate was that I write our
unique story for others to read. My heart was both touched with their belief in
my ability to write out the adventures and fearful of how to start.
Over the following
three years, I dabbled in the art of procrastination with the writing project.
Some days I read through journals and letters for hours, making notes. In a
gradual evolving of clarity, the plan of how to put the stories in written form
came to me.
Below is a summary of
my strategy:
Initially
I made outlines of events in strict chronological order, but eventually a
mixture of thematic tidiness blended in.
Example: Stories pertaining
to our three Christmases spent in Liberia, I included in one chapter.
At first,
almost everything was incorporated into my draft except for the very ordinary
entries or those where strong emotion was expressed. As a young missionary, my journals had been a safe place
for me to vent about situations or people I was dealing with. Gradually, I
deleted stories that were too bland or others that would do more harm than good
if recited publicly.
There was a plethora
of treasured stories about my daughters. Gleaning
through dozens of kid stories, I cut many of them, though I did keep a few I
thought would help explain cultural collisions while raising children on the
mission field or show how a young mother might deal with life outside her
comfort zone. The comments
about my mothering stories (successes, failures, fears and struggles) and those
few clips about my children have been a hit with my readers. I’m inclined to believe if I would have
included all of them, they may have become a nuisance.
I had to
balance the mundane with the extraordinary.
If I would have deleted every mundane event and only included those that were
unusual, the book may have lost its credibility with some readers. Life has its
mundane moments no matter where you live. Sharing the ordinary with as much of
my own voice helped paint the picture.
As I
started writing and doing my read throughs (during the editing phase), more
stories were cut or moved to different places. That part was tedious but helped the book to flow smoothly.
Making memoirs from scratch was a challenge. But, as I hold the
books in my hand, I am content. My favorite comment from readers is this: Kim, when I was reading your book,
I felt as if you were sitting across from me telling me the stories.
Priceless.
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