I was born in Tarrytown, New York, USA. 

I met my Canadian-born husband, Andy Fleming, in Boston.

We were married in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1987,

where Andy had recently moved to lead a mission church  planting for the International Churches of Christ. 

Two years later, (when I was eight months' pregnant) we moved from Stockholm to London, England, for a period of training with a larger church. Our daughter, Britain Andrea, was born (three weeks early) in St. Thomas's Hospital -- right across the Thames River from Big Ben.

After Britain’s birth in London in 1989, we had been intending to return to Sweden, but instead, after the Berlin Wall fell in October of 1989,  we wound up moving to the Soviet Union with a team of mostly young Americans (and five Soviet citizens) in the summer of 1991. 

One year after Justin was born in Moscow, we were asked to take a position in the Los Angeles church of Christ; and so, dutifully, we moved our family back to the US. This was now the fourth trans-Atlantic move. I remember thinking that we might even have one more of those in store for us --  at some point. I laugh to myself now, looking back, as I realize what a gross underestimation that was!

Eight years later, my premonition came true. When our daughter graduated from high school, our son was about to turn nine, and my husband and I were 47 and 49, respectively, we sold our house in Mar Vista, California and moved to the heart of England -- Birmingham, UK. 

Who knows, if our son had decided to go to university in the UK, we might have officially become subjects of Queen Elizabeth and then King Charles, and still been living in Birmingham. He chose, however, to return to the States -- much in the same way our daughter chose to build a life in the place where she had spent her early childhood, which for her, was Eastern Europe. Britain graduated from University and went to work as a foreign missionary intern in a church in Kiev, Ukraine. She met and married her wonderful husband there, is raising her own family and putting down deep roots into the rich, Ukrainian soil. 

It was after Trans-Atlantic moves number six and seven, that Andy and I made a new home base in Kiev as retired missionaries. 

In another answer to prayer, we are thrilled that Justin proposed to his best friend just before Christmas in 2019 and married Allison Screen in a scaled-down but beautiful Covid wedding in June 2020. (I prayed that God would provide Justin with a woman who would adore him deeply. I adore him and I miss him a lot.) They met on the worship team in the Seattle church. We love her (and her family), admire her deeply, and visit the now-not-so-newlyweds every chance we can.

Here is Britain, grown up, with her son, Zaharii (born in Kyiv August 22nd, 2017):

We watched the fall of the Soviet Union, up close and personal, and spent the "Wild West"- nineties in Moscow. We saw some crazy things happen, the most wonderful of which was 850 people baptized in the first year of the church planting in Moscow. During the next 8 years, we planted six more churches and oversaw the planting of 29 in total. When we left Russia in 1999, that group of 17 people had multiplied to nearly 10,000, and had spread to congregations in all the former Soviet Republics --  all led by nationals -- and continued to plant more new churches. 

At the tenth anniversary celebration of the Moscow church planting in 2001, we took this photo (at left) of the ministry leaders who were serving at that time in the churches across the former Soviet Union. Though Hollywood (still!) persistently casts Russians as one of their favorite flavors for villainy -- so many of the Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and citizens of all the former Soviet republics whom we came to know in those first eight years living in Moscow have become like true family to us, now for nearly thirty years. We feel the same way about the people who became our good friends in the churches in the Nordic Countries, and in the UK.  

Another wonderful Moscow miracle was the very-happily-surprising birth of our son, Justin -- nine years after the birth of his sister. His birth was an answer to specific prayer — I had fertility issues, as did my mother. I asked God specifically for a son for my husband to raise and thanks to the faithful prayers of our friends, Tanya, Zhenya and Marina in Moscow, among others, I believe God responded and Justin was prayed into existence. I was 38 and Andy was 40. He traveled a lot with us in his first few months. I’m afraid we pummeled the desire for any kind of travel out of him in his early years, as we dragged him all over creation with us as we did our work.

This is a self-portrait Justin did of himself as he was starting university.

And now we are very proud of our Ukrainian grandson, Zaharii — or Zak as we call him in English. He’s doing great in three languages and in the last few weeks has been amazing us all with his aptitude for arithmetic and math. (The spirit of Poppa Art, Andy’s dad, lives on!)

 So far, our plans for retirement have not worked out looking like anything we had envisioned! We feel like we are learning the power of God working through closed doors. For years, looking ahead, we had thought we would be living in the Russian Federation and volunteering there. No. Then we thought — Kyiv. No. At least for now. And so — next stop: London.

"I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields -- and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life." Mark 10:29-30 NIV

 I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. Psalm 57:9 NIV

Updated October 2022