A milky veil of stars hung over the flame trees the night I refused to smoke the joint. “Hey,” Alex mumbled groggily as he thrust the joint towards me. The smoldering tip gnawed like a termite at the marijuana leaves. This was the moment I had feared.

“I pass,” I shrugged defensively.

“Whaat?” Alex whined. He was well on his way to getting plastered.

“I made a deal with Steve and Beaj,” I explained. “I’m not going to smoke anything tonight.” A loaded silence ensued. I refused to make eye contact with the group. It wasn’t that I was better than them; I wished they could understand that. It was only that I had made a promise to Steve and Beaj, teachers at my boarding school, and I didn’t want to break it. My back ached with tension. Alex broke the silence.

“I respect that—totally! I mean, how did you get ‘in’ with them anyway? Did you have to fill out an application or what?”

My body slumped with relief, then elation. Murmurs of “yeah” and “cool” bubbled up from the group. They were going to be cool with the fact that I wouldn’t smoke the joint! In fact, they were envious that someone cared so much for me.

Steve and Beaj, who were once MKs themselves, are the coolest people in the whole universe. I was an angry and confused teenager. They let me live in their space, eat their food, and take up their time. They stepped into my emptiness with a relevance, toughness, and generosity that stunned me. They said they loved me and, what’s more, that they liked me. Their love felt like being walloped with a big stick, enveloped in a warm blanket, and hounded by a pack of wolves—all at the same time!

One day, Steve took me to one of the nicest restaurants in town, and as we were eating he gave me a “promise” ring (a pledge to refrain from sexual activity until marriage). Dads give them to their daughters. Steve wasn’t my dad, but that didn’t stop him. He gave me this beautiful piece of jewelry, just like the ones he gave to his own daughters. I stared at him over my steaming plate of food as if he were mad. Why did he care? But what he did sank deep down into my soul like a stone monument—weighty, real, permanent. I remember thinking, “He won’t know if I have sex anyway.” But immediately I felt ashamed of myself. I resolved to do exactly as he asked.

When my parents had to leave the field, I refused to get on the airplane. Behind the scenes, Steve and Beaj championed my cause. “We’ll be her legal guardians,” they vouched. Papers were signed, and in the morning my mother told me, “You can stay. You have new guardians now.” I gazed at the buttery rays of dawn splitting the loaves of the African hills. I had been redeemed, saved, signed for. Who were these freaks that took a risk on me—rebellious, belligerent me? Later that year, I walked down the graduation aisle with two dozen childhood friends and clutched my diploma wrapped in goatskin. I will never forget that smell.

Steve and Beaj have been catalysts for transformation in dozens of lives—MKs, as well as children of diplomats and expatriate business people and local families of various religious backgrounds. Steve and Beaj have had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their love gave me a desire for that blood transfusion, too.

Uncle Steve and Aunt Beaj, I love you. I am changed forever because of Jesus in you. THANK YOU.

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