12 min read ⭑

Some couples are so in love that they do everything together, even write books. At least, that’s the case with Chad and Adaeze Brinkman (or Chadaeze if you use their couple name). Together, the two wrote “White Boy, Black Girl: What Our Differences Can Teach Us, One Conversation at a Time,” which details their experience as an interethnic couple — Adaeze as a Nigerian American who’s faced racism her entire life and Chad as a white man who’s grown up in primarily white spaces. But instead of trying to be perfect, Chad and Adaeze are simply committed to being honest, working through defensiveness or feelings of being misunderstood, and surrendering their pain and prejudice to Jesus Christ. Join us now as we dig deeper into Chad and Adaeze’s story, including how they enjoy their Sabbaths on motorcycles, how they wrestle through the temptation to people-please, and the new trail they’re blazing into bartending and higher education.

QUESTION #1: ACQUAINT

There’s much more to food than palate and preference. How does a go-to meal at your favorite hometown restaurant reveal the true you behind the web bio?

Mi Nidito in Tucson, Arizona, was the first restaurant we visited after moving into our new home. The food was so good that Adaeze took a bite and gave her plate a “How dare you be this amazing?” look, pushing it away in awe and wonder. This embodies our new season of life. We’ve started this huge move with career changes for both of us. It’s been a season in which we’re not afraid to try new things, like that Mi Nidito dish — it was something Adaeze had never heard of. We decided we weren’t going to let the fear hold us back, and we just want to live our best, abundant lives. This means we had to make a lot of changes, big and small, which have opened up so many new doors for new joy and new experiences. It’s introduced new discoveries for us, sometimes from our regular rhythms.

For example, Mi Nidito is a Mexican restaurant, which has always been our thing, our go-to — yet it still revealed something new to us. We’re learning so much about ourselves while still being the same us. We’re just able to express it more now. We’re freer to take risks to discover more of ourselves, more willing to step out on limbs than ever before. Just like that meal, we’re multifaceted with an adventurous side while loving our rhythm. It’s been mind blowing to see how good the changes we’ve been making have been for us.

QUESTION #2: REVEAL

We’ve all got quirky proclivities and out-of-the-way interests. So what are yours? What so-called “nonspiritual” activity (or activities) do you love engaging in, which also helps you find essential spiritual renewal?

Chad came home one day with a grand idea for Adaeze: he wanted a way to Sabbath well. Sure, he had a secondary motive in mind with this. Although he was trying to speak all holy, the little boy in him was crying out for an unspoken dream that he was starting to realize was growing and could no longer be ignored.

He said to Adaeze, “Babe, I think I want a motorcycle.” His convincing that followed worked. A couple of months later, he got his motorcycle license. Then, a few months after that, Adaeze got her motorcycle license! Not only did Adaeze see how much it helped Chad come alive, but it also unexpectedly had brought to life in her a sense of thrill, excitement, challenge and all the things that hadn’t been activated in that way before. Soon, the very thing Adaeze was nervous about Chad engaging in — even though she trusted his promises to be safe and the Lord’s protection over him — was beckoning her as well.

For Chad, this brought out his inner child, and the motorcycle started to teach him how to play again. Riding was a spiritual renewal practice and became a Sabbath activity as well. There’s something about getting out on the road, feeling the wind blow by you, hearing the bike, locking your brain into operating a machine, keeping your motorcycle on the corners and making sure you don’t run the motorcycle off the road that clears your mind and makes the world fall away. It just brings you back to the simple things and is truly a reminder of a good God. It’s a way to restore peace in the chaos. 

For Adaeze, it’s much of the same — as well as a liberating lesson the Holy Spirit’s taught her the past year about allowing herself to be misunderstood and still walking in contentment in the Lord. There are many stereotypes about motorcyclists, and when Adaeze is behind her helmet visor, she feels empowered not to care what others think of her or how they may misinterpret her. Riding her motorcycle is also a beautiful way to help her surrender the idol of people-pleasing, choose self-care over shamefully being concerned with others’ opinions and, ultimately, engage in what brings her more joy. Some of her favorite conversations with the Lord have happened while on her motorcycle.

QUESTION #3: CONFESS

Every superhero has a weakness. Every human too. We’re just good at faking it. But who are we kidding? We’re broken and in this thing together. So what’s your kryptonite, and how do you hide it?

Both of us tend to be people-pleasers, although it manifests differently for us. Sometimes, we have our “misunderstandments,” as we call them. For example, Adaeze wants Chad to understand her, so she reiterates something in the conversation. However, Chad just wants Adaeze to trust him, so when she reiterates something, he feels like she doesn’t think he’s trustworthy. Not to mention, because we both tend to be people-pleasers, we can sometimes belittle ourselves. 

Socially, when we are unhealthy, we each may distance ourselves from others or become chameleons. But both of those options end up being detrimental to us. After all, if Adaeze chameleons, how can anyone understand the real her? (Spoiler alert: they can’t and don’t.) If Chad chameleons, people may see him tone shift, and he comes across as untrustworthy. The very thing we do in an attempt to attain what we want in our own power ends up completely robbing us of the thing we want. We know in our heads that’s not the answer, but sometimes the feet don’t do well with the walking.

QUESTION #4: FIRE UP

Tell us about your toil. How are you investing your professional time right now? What’s your current obsession? And why should it be ours?

Well, we wrote a book! It’s called “White Boy, Black Girl: What Our Differences Can Teach Us, One Conversation at a Time.” Our lives are interesting because we’re not full-time authors, and we have other things going on in our world. But we have a heart for helping others figure out how to bridge gaps in interethnic relationships in God-honoring ways.

This desire started because of our lived experience: we really liked each other, but there were tough hurdles to jump over. We’re proud of the book we wrote because we believe it’s a good idea for people to eavesdrop on conversations that are really difficult in order to get some new perspective. We’re continuing to have these conversations through different podcast outlets related to the book, which we’re so thankful for.

Outside of that, after 10 years of full-time worship ministry, Adaeze is going back to school pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Graphic Design while bartending on the side (and loving it). After six years of clinical work as a physical therapist, Chad is starting his road into academia and now works at the University of Arizona, intending to pursue a Ph.D. soon. Safe to say, we’re not your typical authors. We’re just a wild-about-each-other couple doing life together who also happened to write a book out of said life-doing.

So what’s our toil? Both of us going back to school after having already done a plethora of academic learning and thinking we were done with it for good? Trying all the new restaurants in the City of Gastronomy that is Tucson? Honestly, we would say it’s just enjoying the twists and turns of life together as we evolve and grow.

QUESTION #5: BOOST

Cashiers, CEOs, contractors or customer service reps, we all need grace flowing into us and back out into the world. How does the Holy Spirit invigorate your work? And how do you know it’s God when it happens?

The bar is not typically where one may think an encounter with the one true God may happen, especially after working in vocational ministry for a decade. For Adaeze, working at a church was fulfilling in its own way for a time, yet there was a lot of pressure on her. It ended up feeling like God wasn’t at the center of it. Now, she works at a bar, where she gets creative with pretty and fun drinks she makes for customers. One might think bartending is the least spiritual thing, but God shows up in opportunities to rub shoulders with people who may never walk into a church on Sunday. Adaeze often has conversations that allow her to speak into someone’s life unexpectedly, and it’s authentic and raw. It’s not “Christianese”; it’s just a subtle door God opens that allows the Holy Spirit to speak and bring healing. Adaeze knows it’s God when it happens because it’s echoing God’s command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (see Lev. 19:18, Mark 12:31). This has flung wide the “who is our neighbor?” box that we like to keep small. The truth is, it’s whoever the Lord puts in front of you to love.

Chad is in a season where the Holy Spirit is using a new work opportunity to bring internal restoration. He sees the Holy Spirit at work in everything he’s doing right now. The story’s a bit too long to flesh out for the purposes of this interview, but what we can say is he’s seeing the Lord move through a four-year-long trail of breadcrumbs that has led to this moment. Being here now, he knows that it’s God working because of a new wholeness in him — a new joy, a new peace. It’s the fruit of the Spirit at work and abounding in him.

QUESTION #6: inspire

Scripture and tradition beckon us into the rich and varied habits that open our hearts to the presence of God. So let us in. Which spiritual practice is working best for you right now?

Disclaimer: even if our language sounds somewhat antichurch, that’s not how we feel. We’ve had to reorient our spiritual practices outside of the four walls of the church, which has been difficult. It’s also been so beautiful. Being in the church to the point where we were succumbing to “Churchianity” has required some detoxing.

However, the spiritual practice that has sustained us and grown our faith is silence and solitude. In this time when we have been restructuring everything we know about, well, faith, really, the Lord has grown us so significantly. Every day, we get up early in the morning with a cup of coffee or matcha tea and grab our Bibles and journals, individually letting the Word of God shower us and restore our souls.

It’s an act of defiance to go slow and choose this practice that is genuinely otherworldly. It’s also the most life-changing and life-giving practice modeled to us by Jesus. It’s permeated so much of our being that we decided to make some drastic changes and leave a big city for a smaller community. Inspired by Jesus’ call of the simple rhythm to put first things first and seek first his kingdom, we’ve started decluttering and removing the distractions of the world. (This is a huge reason you won’t find either of us on social media — we both realized separately it just wasn’t for us.)

QUESTION #7: FOCUS

Looking backward, considering the full sweep of your unique faith journey and all you encountered along the way, what top three resources stand out to you? What changed the game and changed your heart? What radically altered your life? What changed your reality?

Only three? Fine. First, going along with the theme we just talked about, is the Bible. And we know that answer is bordering on “Christianese.” However, the Bible is what gives weight to all the other resources we recommend. So if you don’t know the Bible before all these other things, you’re missing the root. At the risk of the eye-rolls and friendly judgment, we have to say it.

Second: is Chad allowed to say one author’s entire bibliography? John Mark Comer is an insightful Bible nerd (that’s meant as a huge compliment) who is gifted at weaving in current social ideas and applying a Christian lens to life now. If Chad had to choose one of John’s books, it would be “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.” It’s so timely for our society and culture, and it’s reshaped how Chad views the world and lives day to day.

Adaeze’s second resource is “Power Moves” by Sarah Jakes Roberts. This was one of the first books that had her repeatedly saying aloud, “Why she comin’ fo’ me?” It’s such an on-point book that gets deep down into the crevices of the internal programming that has distorted our confidence and kept us stuck in negative cycles. There’s some chain-breaking power backing this book. The heart lessons the Lord brought out in Adaeze’s post-reading journaling sessions were pivotal for her.

Third for Chad: this book isn’t specifically Christian, but Chad is pretty sure the author is a man of faith. “The Lion Tracker’s Guide to Life” by Boyd Vardy is just so good. It’s a short, easy read, and Boyd is a skillful storyteller. He’ll draw you into his writing with his vivid imagery, but the real gold of this book is his nuggets of wisdom riddled through the pages. It’s a book Chad will likely go back and read over and over again because it’s a needed perspective in our current day and age.

The final resource Adaeze would recommend is another book that isn’t overtly Christian, yet it holds extremely helpful tips for helping us be more confident in who we are in Christ. “The Book of Boundaries” by Melissa Urban has been highly freeing for Adaeze. It’s helped her reframe the lie she once believed that, in order to be Christ-like, she can’t have any boundaries. It’s helped her see that, in reality, the loving and kind thing to do in relationships is to be clear about her boundaries instead of playing small for others’ comfort or harboring resentment against someone who keeps crossing her boundaries. The Lord taught her through this book that boundaries help us love others well without losing the best of who we are. For our fellow recovering people-pleasers, this one’s for you. It even comes with a ton of scripts for different realms (like work, family, in-laws, strangers, food, alcohol, body image and kids) for us to apply to our situations where boundary-setting can be extra difficult! For real, it’s a gift of a book.

We all have things we cling to to survive (or even thrive) in tough times — times like these! Name one resource you’re savoring and/or finding indispensable in this current season, and tell us what it’s doing for you.

For Chad, it’s the “Become Good Soil” podcast. He just keeps coming back to this one because the content always ends up making him forget about whatever’s happening in life and in the world — and it’s intriguing. It challenges life, and yet it’s also this peaceful space, especially for men. There are a lot of conflicting ideas about what it means to be a good man in the world today, how men should act, and how men should think. This podcast is for men who are trying to be good followers of Jesus, and it teaches in a way that’s God-fearing and not emasculating.

As for Adaeze, she knows this isn’t a “resource” per se, but here it is: ritual. Letting the Lord speak to her through ritualistic devotion, like caring for plants. This calming, therapeutic practice puts her in the perspective of the Lord nurturing and caring for her. It teaches her so much about who she is while humbling her and teaching her the reality of complete dependence on God. While our relationship with Jesus is not about rituals, having habits and rhythms that cause us to slow down and recognize our Creator in the small things amid our busy days is refreshing.

QUESTION #8: dream

God is continually stirring new things in each of us. So give us the scoop! What’s beginning to stir in you but not yet fully awakened? What can we expect from you in the future?

We’re continuing to do interviews and podcasts for our book, “White Boy, Black Girl,” which just came out. So keep an eye out for those anywhere you listen to podcasts! We’re excited to see what the Lord does with this, and we don’t know what’s next. That’s just honest. As we said, it’s not like we’re authors with a plan for a four-book series. The Lord is continuing to stir new things in us, but we’ll see where this wave goes. All we know is we’re excited to have the opportunity to be a voice for interethnic couples and for reconciliation, helping to bring different communities together.

It’s shocking to imagine it now, but there was a time when interethnic marriage was illegal in the United States — as recently as 60 years ago. When that law was officially abolished in 1967, interethnic couples made up only 3% of marriages nationwide. Since then, that number has risen to 11% in 2019, and 20% among newlyweds specifically, according to Pew Research.

Although laws and attitudes regarding interethnic marriage have certainly changed, it doesn’t mean such commitments are always easy. Many of us still have a long way to go in truly laying down our defenses and understanding one another.

But as more couples like Adaeze and Chad speak up about their experiences and what Jesus is teaching them, the more interethnic couples can be honest with each other, work through their differences and, as the Bible commands us, “outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom. 12:10b, ESV).

Chad and Adaeze Brinkman (together known as Chadaeze) are a couple living in Tucson, Arizona, where Adaeze is back in school and Chad works at the University of Arizona. They recently wrote their first book, White Boy, Black Girl: What Our Differences Can Teach Us, One Honest Conversation at a Time, which was released in 2024. Together, they love to adventure, enjoy the outdoors and continue to be a voice for interethnic reconciliation.

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