During the years we were preparing to move abroad, I was a stay-at-home-mom with a full time job fundraising support, and my husband continued to work at his job. Raising our salary for living abroad took a long time, for various reasons, so my daughter was already six when we left for language school. Her little years were spent in suburban paradise: we lived in an affluent, exclusive neighborhood with trails, pools, parks, and neighborly friends and acquaintances. Our home was a three-bedroom condo on the second floor, so I often felt like a fraud among the homeowners maintaining expansive HGTV-level homes with private yards. Yet, smallest home on the block aside, I belonged. I went to mom groups, coffee dates with friends, and had neighbors on whom I could pop in. We attended church with my husband’s family, spent every weekend playing with cousins, and deepened roots in our hometown that had been growing since we were babies.
Read More
I was standing by the soundboard turning on the projector and the mics when I saw her enter. From her shiny brown hair and trendy clothes, I could tell she was young—maybe college aged—and possibly an international student. She stepped timidly into our meeting room and looked around for a free seat. Once she found one, she gently pulled it away from the rest of the row. Social distancing has made everyone think they must sit alone if they come alone, putting a seat in between ourselves and someone else. So, she sat alone, and I had a sense that what she needed was company. One person spoke to her, and I could tell from her halting Spanish that she was from my own passport country.
Read More
Hey girl,
I know you’re busy. You live in a bustling international city, your kids go to school 25 minutes away, they're both involved in activities, and you're teaching a class on Sunday mornings. You also lead the Bible club lesson on Friday, and you've got local friends you want to see and grow with after the family-centered Christmas holidays and travel.
You still need to take the driving test and the language exam and let's not even get into the things you just want to do: an online theology course, a schedule for being creative, a workout program, a little supplemental nature study or reading lessons with the kids, a day trip for a host country history lesson.
Take a deep breath and enjoy it all because, in two months, you'll be moving into "unprecedented times."
Read More
As I’ve watched the events following the death of George Floyd unfold in the United States, I’ve been tempted to despair. Despair systemic racism and the ignored cries of people of color. Despair for George Floyd and his cries for his mother. Despair for Americans whose ancestors were enslaved by people honored by statues and that wretched flag that stands for the defense of slavery. Despair that although black Americans are no longer enslaved, slavery is alive and well throughout the world. Despair that the consequences of the slave trade, segregation and racism still seem to prevail, and that Civil Rights are still trickling in less that 70 years later.
I have despaired. It’s easy to think that my passport country is broken beyond repair.
Read More
I have the hair of a Mediterranean sea goddess. I discovered this last fall when our family traveled to Malta for a conference, and every single one of my ringlets was living its best life every day. One morning, I came out of the bathroom after catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror and shrieked to my husband, “I actually woke up like this!” They were so tight and bouncy I got compliments on my “haircut” when I posted photos.
The humidity, the sea breeze, the silky hotel pillowcase and the relaxed atmosphere of the conference that enabled me to primp a bit in the morning created the perfect environment for my curls to thrive. I only needed to wash my hair two times the whole week. The rest of the time I spritzed with a little water, added a tiny bit of product to combat the frizz, and twisted the few disobedient ringlets back in shape. To my amazement, they stayed all day.
Read More
This past year, I fluctuated between two extremes with my phone: either I was mindlessly scrolling too late at night or I was obsessively attentive to a few accounts I thought were really helping me — both at the cost of actual time with my family. My feeds infiltrated my thoughts to a point where I wasn’t sure where social media ended and my real thoughts began. I had convinced myself that I was using Instagram intentionally because of how carefully I curated who I followed. My feed was full of beauty and joy, homeschooling, theology, inspirational expats, real life friends and funnies, and I was super interested in it.
Read More
Everyone in my family loves olives, thanks to a long heritage from my Greek great grandmother. There were always bowls of the briny treats on the dinner table, and my grandpa purchased them in enormous tins to accommodate our large gatherings. You could call them our “Big, Fat Greek” gatherings, but the truth is our family is much more international than that. My Greek great grandma was adopted as a little girl by a French family living in Istanbul. She married a Russian man and raised three boys who all married foreigners, and she immigrated to the United States with her middle son, my grandpa, who had married an American from Washington State.
Read More
I can find anything I need for a kitchen here in Spain, as we have Ikea, department stores and even Costco (which sells stuff that’s too big for our place). However, it’s all much more expensive than in the States, so we shipped a lot when we moved, and most of it was kitchen items. I brought my knives, stainless steel cookware, cast iron, and my Kitchen-aid mixer. I still haven’t purchased a converter though, so the mixer has yet to run.
Read More
Our journey to living abroad has been marked by "last times" and living like nomads. Like many who embark on new lives across an ocean, we experienced a last Christmas, a last set of seasons at home, a last time for certain experiences, and the list goes on. When we sold our home in the foothills of the Cascades with a view of Mt. Rainier, we lived temporarily with family for three weeks before we drove across the United States to spend a year in Texas. After a week of hard work, we put our condo on the market. I took a photo, wrote a caption, and claimed a hashtag so I could look back on the defining moment for years to come (#goodbyeklahaniehome). We then spent two weeks celebrating Christmas as we knew it before we said goodbye to the place where my husband and I had grown up and where we started a family. Now, we were leaving this place.
Read More
Early in my twenties, I married a grounded and reliable man who shared my growing faith. We bought a house, brought two children into the world, and started to put down our roots. But despite my desire for roots and security, our family was meant for a big international move. We knew this also meant lots of goodbyes, paring down favorite things, and sleeping in unfamiliar homes. Here we had worked so hard to build a life of constancy for our children, and now we were dragging them all over the country and then across the world, away from everything they had known. It was difficult for me, watching my children struggle with all the uncertainty. I wanted to create a life where they felt safe and secure – something far different than the life of loss and abandonment I had experienced in my own childhood.
Read More
It seems like our journey to our host country took an eternity, so I had plenty of time to prepare. Then, when we arrived, we felt woefully unprepared! How did that happen?As we near a year overseas, I have been remembering how I felt in the stressful months leading up to our move. If my future self could have walked alongside her, what would I have said? If I could write a letter to my pre-expat self, what would I tell her? That depends on how far in the past I could send my letter! I’d tell my high school self to apply herself in Spanish class, study abroad, and keep it up because 15 years later, she’ll be living in Spain. I’d tell my college self to make friends with international students. I’d tell that young married couple not to get a cat because giving him away to a stranger will feel like abandoning a child. (Although, I can't imagine those tender first years without him.)
Read More
When we moved overseas, I had the unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to start over with my home decor, and I didn't want to squander it. I had a vision for a home that would help us breathe, make others feel welcome, and inspire me to do more of what I wanted and needed to do -- like be creative and hospitable, rather than stare at my phone, procrastinate, and mope. My goal was to strike a balance between minimal, for sanity’s sake, and showing off all the stuff I love, for joy and beauty.
Read More