I'm pleased to announce that you can now pre-order my new book, Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship, for a great discount on Amazon.com! Click here to order and to read more about the book: amazon.com/Your-Intercultural-Marriage-Healthy-Relationship/dp/0802418546/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1240867234&sr=8-2
Moody Publishers is releasing the book, and I'm thrilled to be working with them! It's so exciting to have this, my "heart book," finally come to fruition. Here's a sneak peek at some of the highlights:
-Personal stories, insights, and advice from hundreds of intercultural couples
-Tips for anticipating and working through conflict in a healthy way
-Relevant and vital questions to ask your fiance or spouse on a variety of topics, including food, finances, intimacy, family, child rearing, and more
-A close-up and intriguing look at the intercultural marriages in the Bible
-A list of fun intercultural movies to watch at the end of each chapter
-Practical resources and websites for further information, advice, and research
Now, you can download chapter one of the book for FREE on this website, Leap of Faith! Simply click on the box on the right on my home page. Enjoy!
lunes, 27 de abril de 2009
lunes, 20 de abril de 2009
Instead of Twiddling Your Thumbs...
After you've worked slavishly to complete and submit an article, manuscript, book, or other artistic masterpiece, you often feel so relieved that you just "veg out" for weeks... or even longer. Next time, use these methods to create income, hone your writing and build your platform while waiting for a response. Art Spikol presented these useful pointers in the latest issue of Writer's Digest:
1. Recycle. Revamp your previously published articles and pitch them to another magazine. Think of creative ways to re-package your existing work and sell it elsewhere. Look through your completed articles, short stories, poems, and book ideas, and glean the best possibiities.
2. Write on spec. Send out one article query a day. Go to your local bookstore and look through magazines to get info on the latest trends. Pitch ideas that can be used at any time of year.
3. Make multiple submissions. Get the most mileage out of your work by submitting to several publishers at once. Follow up with each publisher several weeks later.
4. Get intimate with your markets. Study the publishers and publications you want to break into. Take notes on what types of material and articles they are accepting. Tweak your ideas accordingly.
5. Write about research you're doing anyway. Cull through the books, stories, poems and articles you've written. What are you an expert on? Pitch some nonfiction articles on those topics.
6. Don't just sit there. Don't let slothfulness take over. Exercise. Attend writer's groups and conferences. Visit places you rarely go (the E.R., a local bowling alley, a diner, a comic book store) to get fresh ideas. Schedule interviews to get new material for articles.
7. Advertise yourself. Visit Vistaprint's website (vistaprint.com) and create some inexpensive, professional marketing tools for yourself and your ministry or business. Create flyers, postcards, brochures, and other materials and mail them out.
8. Find a collaborator. Join with other creative people (writers, designers, editors, videographers) to create material. Barter your services for theirs.
9. Ask for help. Network and connect with people you've met through interviews, conferences, writing groups, and more. Share your desire to ramp up your writing/speaking and see if they have a need. Discover how you can help them by offering your services to them.
*For more info, see Art Spikol's excellent article "The Freelance Dance" in Writer's Digest, May/June 2009, 14-15.
1. Recycle. Revamp your previously published articles and pitch them to another magazine. Think of creative ways to re-package your existing work and sell it elsewhere. Look through your completed articles, short stories, poems, and book ideas, and glean the best possibiities.
2. Write on spec. Send out one article query a day. Go to your local bookstore and look through magazines to get info on the latest trends. Pitch ideas that can be used at any time of year.
3. Make multiple submissions. Get the most mileage out of your work by submitting to several publishers at once. Follow up with each publisher several weeks later.
4. Get intimate with your markets. Study the publishers and publications you want to break into. Take notes on what types of material and articles they are accepting. Tweak your ideas accordingly.
5. Write about research you're doing anyway. Cull through the books, stories, poems and articles you've written. What are you an expert on? Pitch some nonfiction articles on those topics.
6. Don't just sit there. Don't let slothfulness take over. Exercise. Attend writer's groups and conferences. Visit places you rarely go (the E.R., a local bowling alley, a diner, a comic book store) to get fresh ideas. Schedule interviews to get new material for articles.
7. Advertise yourself. Visit Vistaprint's website (vistaprint.com) and create some inexpensive, professional marketing tools for yourself and your ministry or business. Create flyers, postcards, brochures, and other materials and mail them out.
8. Find a collaborator. Join with other creative people (writers, designers, editors, videographers) to create material. Barter your services for theirs.
9. Ask for help. Network and connect with people you've met through interviews, conferences, writing groups, and more. Share your desire to ramp up your writing/speaking and see if they have a need. Discover how you can help them by offering your services to them.
*For more info, see Art Spikol's excellent article "The Freelance Dance" in Writer's Digest, May/June 2009, 14-15.
domingo, 19 de abril de 2009
Advice from Bestselling Author John Updike
The late great John Updike offered this crucial advice to writers: "Try to develop steady work habits, maybe a more modest quota, but keep to it. Don't be thin-skinned or easily discouraged because it's an odds-long proposition; all of the arts are. Many are called, few are chosen, but it might be you."
-John Updike
-John Updike
viernes, 17 de abril de 2009
Provide Hope and Help by Joining our Mentoring Network
Are you involved in an intercultural marriage? Are you a pastor, counselor, writer, teacher or someone else who is interested in mentoring intercultural couples? Catalin and I are expanding our mentoring network and are looking for men and women who are interested in joining. If you'd like more info, please e-mail me at marla_alupoaicei@yahoo.com. Thank you!
domingo, 12 de abril de 2009
Sticking Together through the Four Seasons of Marriage
The Four Stages of Marriage
"The development of a good marriage is not a natural process. It is an achievement." -David and Vera Mace
Just as a person journeys through the stages of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, every marriage passes through seasons of fruitfulness and seasons of dryness. In his book The Four Seasons of Marriage, Gary Chapman writes:
My experience, both in my own marriage and in counseling couples for more than thirty years, suggests that marriages are perpetually in a state of transition, continually moving from one season to another. . . . Sometimes we find ourselves in winter . . . other times we experience springtime, with its openness, hope, and anticipation. On still other occasions we bask in the warmth of summer—comfortable, relaxed, enjoying life. And then comes fall with its uncertainty, negligence, and apprehension. The cycle repeats itself many times throughout the life of a marriage, just as the seasons repeat themselves in nature.
Think about the stage your own relationship may be in as you read the descriptions of each season below.
Spring
Marriages begin in the honeymoon period of spring, with the soaring emotions that accompany the experience of falling head-over-heels in love with a person from another culture. One newlywed describes her marriage this way: “It’s full of joy! It’s exciting to watch our relationship grow and develop. That ‘in love’ high just deepens and becomes richer each day. Every day is an opportunity to find a way to live out my love for my husband.”
Summer
The summer season of marriage manifests a deepening of love, a strengthening of a couple’s connection to each other. The initial honeymoon effects of spring may have waned, but summer marriages reflect a sense of security, commitment, and satisfaction. Julia, married for sixteen years, says: “Summer feels good. We’re on the same page, and that makes our marriage fun. It opens up my heart to communication.”
Fall
Fall is the prelude to winter. Couples in the fall season recognize that the winds of change are blowing and that their relationship is facing trouble. A man who has been married for thirty-one years said, “I feel dejected, disheartened, and unappreciated. It’s not a good place to be. I am not content with my marriage. Something has got to change or we’re not going to make it.”
Winter
The winter season of marriage is characterized by stormy weather: emotions of hurt, anger, disappointment, loneliness, grief, and rejection. Dr. Chapman writes, “What brings a couple to the winter season of marriage? In a word: rigidity—the unwillingness to consider the other person’s perspective and to work toward a meaningful compromise.”
What’s a couple in the winter season to do? These seven strategies, outlined in greater detail in the book The Four Seasons of Marriage, will enable a struggling intercultural couple to move through winter toward spring.
1. Deal with past failures.
2. Choose a winning attitude.
3. Learn to speak your spouse’s love language.
4. Develop the awesome power of empathetic listening.
5. Discover the joy of helping your spouse succeed.
6. Maximize your differences.
7. Implement the power of positive influence.
Every marriage will pass through these seasons, but thankfully, winter doesn’t last forever. Spring is right around the corner! My prayer is that understanding the implications of these intercultural marriage models and patterns will help you improve your communication as a couple. Practicing these principles will empower you and your spouse to create deeper bonds of love and unity as an intercultural couple.
*This material is drawn from Marla Alupoaicei's book Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship (Moody Publishers, June 2009). To order, see amazon.com/Your-Intercultural-Marriage-Healthy-Relationship/dp/0802418546/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239998973&sr=1-3. Enjoy!
"The development of a good marriage is not a natural process. It is an achievement." -David and Vera Mace
Just as a person journeys through the stages of childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, every marriage passes through seasons of fruitfulness and seasons of dryness. In his book The Four Seasons of Marriage, Gary Chapman writes:
My experience, both in my own marriage and in counseling couples for more than thirty years, suggests that marriages are perpetually in a state of transition, continually moving from one season to another. . . . Sometimes we find ourselves in winter . . . other times we experience springtime, with its openness, hope, and anticipation. On still other occasions we bask in the warmth of summer—comfortable, relaxed, enjoying life. And then comes fall with its uncertainty, negligence, and apprehension. The cycle repeats itself many times throughout the life of a marriage, just as the seasons repeat themselves in nature.
Think about the stage your own relationship may be in as you read the descriptions of each season below.
Spring
Marriages begin in the honeymoon period of spring, with the soaring emotions that accompany the experience of falling head-over-heels in love with a person from another culture. One newlywed describes her marriage this way: “It’s full of joy! It’s exciting to watch our relationship grow and develop. That ‘in love’ high just deepens and becomes richer each day. Every day is an opportunity to find a way to live out my love for my husband.”
Summer
The summer season of marriage manifests a deepening of love, a strengthening of a couple’s connection to each other. The initial honeymoon effects of spring may have waned, but summer marriages reflect a sense of security, commitment, and satisfaction. Julia, married for sixteen years, says: “Summer feels good. We’re on the same page, and that makes our marriage fun. It opens up my heart to communication.”
Fall
Fall is the prelude to winter. Couples in the fall season recognize that the winds of change are blowing and that their relationship is facing trouble. A man who has been married for thirty-one years said, “I feel dejected, disheartened, and unappreciated. It’s not a good place to be. I am not content with my marriage. Something has got to change or we’re not going to make it.”
Winter
The winter season of marriage is characterized by stormy weather: emotions of hurt, anger, disappointment, loneliness, grief, and rejection. Dr. Chapman writes, “What brings a couple to the winter season of marriage? In a word: rigidity—the unwillingness to consider the other person’s perspective and to work toward a meaningful compromise.”
What’s a couple in the winter season to do? These seven strategies, outlined in greater detail in the book The Four Seasons of Marriage, will enable a struggling intercultural couple to move through winter toward spring.
1. Deal with past failures.
2. Choose a winning attitude.
3. Learn to speak your spouse’s love language.
4. Develop the awesome power of empathetic listening.
5. Discover the joy of helping your spouse succeed.
6. Maximize your differences.
7. Implement the power of positive influence.
Every marriage will pass through these seasons, but thankfully, winter doesn’t last forever. Spring is right around the corner! My prayer is that understanding the implications of these intercultural marriage models and patterns will help you improve your communication as a couple. Practicing these principles will empower you and your spouse to create deeper bonds of love and unity as an intercultural couple.
*This material is drawn from Marla Alupoaicei's book Your Intercultural Marriage: A Guide to a Healthy, Happy Relationship (Moody Publishers, June 2009). To order, see amazon.com/Your-Intercultural-Marriage-Healthy-Relationship/dp/0802418546/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239998973&sr=1-3. Enjoy!
sábado, 11 de abril de 2009
Quote for the Day
Frederick Buechner, one of my favorite Christian authors, wrote this. I found it fitting as we reflect on the sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross over two thousand years ago:
"What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup."
-Frederick Buechner, Godric
Rejoicing in new life,
Marla
"What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup."
-Frederick Buechner, Godric
Rejoicing in new life,
Marla
The Mom I Want to Be
At the Book Expo, I enjoyed talking with Suzie Eller, the author of the book The Mom I Want to Be (Harvest House). Her life stories, as shared through her book, had a powerful impact on me as my husband and I prepare to welcome our first baby into the world. Suzie was able to turn her abusive past into a blessing and to learn from her parents' mistakes so that she would not repeat them with her own children. A gifted author, speaker and mentor to young people, Suzie writes in a fresh, compelling style that I really enjoy. One of her most powerful points is that we must discover and rest in our own identity in Christ (as daughters of the Most High God) before we will be able to teach our sons and daughters to have a strong, positive self-identity.
Thanks, Suzie, for sharing your insights! To buy Suzie's book, see amazon.com/Mom-Want-Be-Rising-Future/dp/0736917551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239459124&sr=8-1. Enjoy!
Thanks, Suzie, for sharing your insights! To buy Suzie's book, see amazon.com/Mom-Want-Be-Rising-Future/dp/0736917551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239459124&sr=8-1. Enjoy!
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