Taking Route

What Makes a House a Home?

I sat on my couch, sipping coffee, looking at a photograph of our recent trip to Colorado displayed on our smart TV. The Indie folk I started listening to while living abroad was humming along in the background.

It had been a year and a half since we stepped back on American soil. I still remember the mugginess I felt as we walked off the plane and into the jetway. It was quite different from the crisp, fall, morning air that greeted us in 2018 when we landed in Munich, Germany.

Our time abroad was officially over and the heartache of leaving a place that quickly became home began to set in.

Current Collection, Home & HospitalityGuest WriterApril 17, 2023Comment

Permission to Pivot

I really wanted to hate it. And in an embarrassing admission of my own pride, I wanted my kids to hate it too.

When we finished the tour of the school that day, I didn’t hate it, and neither did my kids. In fact, we loved it. We all agreed it was our next right choice.

Sending my kids to international school was not on my radar. We started out our expat adventure in a corner of the world where homeschooling was our only viable option, and because we loved it, I assumed we would never entertain another route. Then, as people like us do, we moved. We found ourselves in a place with more options and in a season of our kids having different needs.

Current Collection, Family & TCKsGuest WriterApril 17, 2023Comment

Climbing Above

It was barely dawn when my eyes opened, yet I was fully awake. My long week—intensified by the mounting heat and humidity of the rainy season—had left me completely exhausted, and I hadn’t slept well. It wasn’t yet 6:30 a.m., and the air around me was already sticky and hot. Realizing the likelihood of falling back asleep was low, I rolled my eyes and flopped out of bed.

Current Collection, Life Lessons Learned, Culture Shock and StressGuest WriterApril 17, 2023Comment

Compassion Fatigue

“Is he ok? Are you ok?”

My friend’s message surprised me. She had innocently asked how my day was going and I told her how our neighbor was attacked with a bush knife while coming home by public bus. Was I ok? Not really—and yet, somehow I was.

I think at times my abnormal life becomes so “normal” I no longer take time to process traumatic events. Being woken up by the cries of my sister-in-law telling the story of how thugs stopped the bus our neighbor was on and how he was attacked in the process was, of course, an unsettling way to start the day.

Current Collection, Culture Shock and StressGuest WriterApril 17, 2023Comment

Pleasant Borders

I awoke with a heavy sadness clinging to me like the humid, tropical air around me. I’ve had vivid dreams before, but this one had felt so real. In the dream I was forced to say a final goodbye to my dad over the phone from 10,000 miles away. In real life, my dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer eight months previously, and we had just found out it was inoperable, making his diagnosis terminal. We already had plans to return to the States to visit, but that was still three weeks away. Not only that, we were currently visiting friends on a remote island an overnight ferry ride away from our home.

Life Lessons LearnedGuest WriterJanuary 16, 2023 Comment

Journeying Through Limbo

In February 2004, I arrived in Beijing, China for a study-abroad year, excited about all the interesting things ahead of me. What I never saw coming was that it would change my entire life’s direction, and that this city would eventually feel like home more than any other city in the world.

In March 2020, I left Beijing for a three week business trip, excited about all the interesting things ahead of me. What I never saw coming was that my work permit would be canceled without warning, barring me from returning to my home and my husband. I didn’t know I would never return to China, and that my husband and I would still be living on separate continents nearly three years later.

Mental HealthGuest WriterJanuary 16, 2023Comment

We're Just Going to Move Again

When I moved to Germany with my husband and one year old child, we figured we’d have two years to live here, three if we were lucky. We packed six large suitcases, bought three one-way plane tickets, and moved into a very tiny apartment we furnished on a tight budget from the IKEA discount section. I stocked my home with what we needed to get by. Why settle in when we only had a couple years here?

I stocked my heart in a similar fashion.

Building CommunityGuest WriterJanuary 16, 2023 Comment

A Liturgy for Making Things from Scratch

A little over a year ago, I hopped on a plane with my husband and our young daughter and moved across the ocean. For years, we had been praying and planning for this day. We participated in trainings about living overseas, received our undergraduate degrees in ESL education so we could teach in a different country, and completed courses on what felt like every element of what it means to live as an expat. However,I soon learned some elements of expat life can’t be taught via a training—they have to be experienced.

Culture Shock and StressGuest WriterJanuary 16, 2023 Comments

Couches on Helicopters: Supporting Families Living Abroad

Family & TCKs, Mental HealthGuest WriterOctober 14, 2022Comment

Moving Abroad with Me, Myself, and I

Moving AbroadGuest WriterOctober 14, 2022 Comment

Grace for Childlike Grief

Mental HealthGuest WriterOctober 14, 2022Comment

Sink or Swim—Or Float

Culture Shock and Stress, Mental HealthGuest WriterOctober 14, 2022 Comment

The Scooter

TransitionGuest WriterOctober 14, 2022Comment

The Global Cultural Practice of “Colorism”

I remember standing on my balcony in Cambodia when I was younger, the streets bustling with life below, and watching the sunset take over the sky with such theatrical colors of warm pinks, peaches and gold. It was so brilliant. Too brilliant, perhaps.

In the USA, people like to bask in that brilliance, you know? Get a nice, golden tan. Where I grew up, people shielded themselves from that same brilliance (well, those who could afford to). The Cambodian sun is hot, brutal, and unforgiving.

What Good Thing Could Come From This?

Can I just say that COVID-19 is really messing up some things? Like my plans. My husband and I had a much-needed weekend away planned. That came and went and is still much needed. My daughter is a senior this year. Her cap and gown are sitting in the packaging and she is making jokes about graduating online after all. We homeschooled for so long and she was looking forward to a graduation with her class. Her prom dress is hanging with the tags still on it in her room, and I’m trying to brainstorm a get together that fits in with the current restrictions on gatherings where we are. Our friends are trapped in country with expiring visas. Global workers who are stateside are having their much-needed fundraising functions cancelled. Schools are closing. Oh, the list goes on.

“The only good thing to come out of this are the memes,” I’ve muttered to my family.

But then I had to repent.

Reflections From AbroadGuest WriterMarch 21, 2020pandemic, Coronavirus, COVID-19, isolation, Velvet Ashes retreat, retreat, fearComment

Here's the First Thing You Need to Read Once You've Moved Overseas

So, you’re going to do it.

You’re moving to a country that’s foreign to you, with a language you don’t understand, a climate that you’re not used to, and a whole lot of people you don’t know.

You’ve got your reasons, and I’m sure they’re tremendous. You’ve got your plans and your goals, and maybe you’ve even got a calling. Those are all good things, so as someone who’s lived abroad longer than some (and shorter than others), I’d like to welcome you and say CONGRATULATIONS!

In addition to a hearty welcome, I’d also like to offer some musings for the move. Here are some concepts and resources that have been a deep well of help for me, and many others too.