Mommy Musings at Month 5

It’s hard to believe that we’ve officially been away from friends and family for 5 months!  We are hitting this mile mark during the holidays, which is a rough time to be away from everyone, but we are doing well and have a good perspective on it all.  We must be settling into this lifestyle a bit as the idea of coming home at this point seems premature to everyone and the kids agree they want to continue as long as we are able, being home before the next school year arrives. 

In these 5 months, there have been many times that I’ve realized how I had always dreamed of experiencing this or that with my family and been in awe that God has given me the opportunity to actually live it out.  At first I felt guilty about having this year abroad, there are many opinions about life choices each of us make, but as believers in Jesus we are called to obey God's leading and we are also guaranteed trials; both of these will strengthen and intensify our faith if we stay focused.  One of the many privileges of living in community (even from afar) is that we get to support each other during hard times, and we also have the privilege of rejoicing with each other in the blessings – learning from the good and the bad, seeing God work in different circumstances, and appreciating how He can use so many out-of-the-box ways to grow us closer in relationship with Him.  We write this blog for our own keepsake first and foremost, and second, to keep friends and family up to date with our adventures.  While our year abroad can seem dream-like and hunky-dory, there are a lot of details that have gone into the planning, and prayers regarding our intentions, obedience, and direction.  We are blessed beyond what we can begin to comprehend that we are able to have this time together, yet we know we only grasp a glimpse of the many responsibilities we have because of what we are being exposed to, and this can be said for each of our lives, whether we’ve lived in the same house our whole lives or don’t have a place to call home.

 

As we’ve travelled and I’ve processed how challenging it’s been to leave the comforts of security, family, friends, and familiarity behind, I’ve reflected on how the initial seeds of travel were planted in my life.  This has caused me to grow in appreciation for my parents.  My Dad prepped me for living in a campervan and unique situations by turning everything behind the driver and co-pilot seats in our family’s Astro minivan into a platform “bed,” while we drove straight through to Florida and many other places as a child.  My Mom on the other-hand, researched for hours, finding all of the unique and “must-do” activities for each spot we visited on our travels (and without TripAdvisor or the Internet)!  They also supported me in college when I worked in Italy for a summer, and came to visit me and encouraged me through the adjustment of learning to sleep with pincher bugs in my bed!

However, even though we desired to jump out of our comfort zone and be stretched by this adventure, a friend sweetly reminded me that we are used to American comforts and recognizing this is the truth of our own American culture, just like other cultures have pros and cons.  This reality has made it challenging when we are stretching to serve and then also stretching in our accommodations (I have a greater understanding for why many mission trips don’t stay in the most bare bone accommodations) – being able to sleep well and be fully rested makes one more present to serve, process, and be available for the more important aspects of the visit.  So we’ve had to give ourselves some grace here as we realize the emotional toll this can take with the dynamics of our family.  And we’ve learned to have a sense of humor and be grateful for things that strip our pride, dignity and comfort away, giving us the heeby jeebies, such as wearing the same clothes all day and to bed for many days in a row (don’t look too closely at pictures), using a bath towel that we’ve all shared for several days, cockroach infested accommodations, and walking on strange floors barefoot just to name a few.

Prepping for this trip, I read many blogs of women who’ve traveled and taken notes on how what they recommend to pack and leave behind, I will confess that I’ve splurged on a few things to not be so ‘granola’.  When we swung back through the States, I picked up my favorite shampoo and several small things that make me feel cute, cleaner, and more attractive.  I’ve learned how much I take for granted and also what I rely on to make me feel good about myself – from a favorite coffee to an underwire bra, the reality is beauty and luxuries bombard us and I’ve learned how often I've felt entitled to some of them!  The purpose, for me, is not to forsake it all, but to constantly reevaluate what I consider beautiful and find a healthy balance.   I can’t tell you how many times my mood has improved to actually “splurge” and feel feminine, and while I need to strive for joy in all circumstances, I think my family would agree that if Mom’s happy everyone else has a better outlook also!  Oh, and I’ve been thankful a zillion times over that I brought my favorite jeans (a true backpackers #1 no-no).

In hindsight, we all spent way too much time fine-tuning our wardrobes to fit into our backpacks, and making sure we had everything Dry Fit so that we’d be able to hand wash quickly and often.  In reality, the Dry Fit clothes have been a headache!  For the most part (especially in New Zealand & Australia), when we’ve done laundry we’ve had access to a dryer and are on a time crunch – so all of this ‘hanging things up to dry’ on our travel clothesline and finding additional space to lay out items, has been a PAIN!  But I suppose it all has it’s place, as here in Asia I’ve been spending hours hand washing in our Scrubba and driers are not available, so the few cotton socks and T-shirts that were brought with us can take days to dry in these hot and humid climates.  I’m getting to the point where paying to have our laundry done might seriously be worth it as it saves time and space, and is not that expensive as there are laundry places on every street in almost every place we’ve visited (so again, this is where having cotton all around might not have been so bad).

I also have been carrying around random ‘back-ups’ for many obscure scenarios, just in case we are in the middle of nowhere and don’t have access to something.  I’ve now emptied my backpack of these things as the reality is we have never been too far from being able to obtain something, that with a little creativity, could be used as a solution.  So farewell multiple doorstops with built in siren alarms, child leash, Keen-type-shoelaces, regular shoelaces, a dozen diapers just in case the little one gets diarrhea, and more.  As I wrote in an earlier post, back home I spent so much time making sure I was prepared and kept our family comfortable.  While these were sweet intentions, as I’m learning on this trip, it weighs me down and prevents my family from being exposed to reality and growing through dislikes and want, which is just real life!

The items that we’ve been grateful to have along include: HydroFlask 24 oz. water bottles (the narrow ones fit in our daypacks and still hold a significant amount of water while preventing the water from getting warm), Lavender Oil, Thieves Essential Oil, converters, Scrubba, Dermalogica Daily Resurfacer (for the times when there’s not water available and it’s been longer than we care to admit to having gone without a shower), and sleeping bag inserts for times when there is questionable bed coverage or not enough beds for everyone.  Baggies of all different sizes are also essential for everything from collecting sand or shells to separating soiled laundry – we’ve laughed as I’ve been caught telling others to “save that baggie” when we are on a tour and they offer one to protect one of our phones!

It’s definitely a challenge to not be consumers in the sense of accumulating things, as I often did many times a week at Target back home be it for a meal, entertainment purposes, decoration, or gift.  I’m amazed at how often we enjoy wandering a market (it's cultural and a bit therapeutic to our American minds at times), and then how hard it is to discern if the trinket we find is actually worthy of being carried in our already full backpacks.  It’s been a challenge for the kids too, as they would like souvenirs, yet it’s hard to determine what is practical.  We’ve started giving each kid a small amount of money in each country that they can spend as he or she likes.  Some of the items they are collecting are country patches, postcards, trinkets, necklace pendants, dolls, coins, rocks, gifts for friends, and t-shirts (for their school uniform – yes, guess who the practical planner son is J).  We’ve been blessed to have visits from family and Ray and they’ve been willing to take items home with them so that we have some memories from our travels.  We did send an item home from Australia because it was too large for our backpacks, but other than that we have not sent any packages home.

Our time away has taught me how much we are created to live in community.  Prior to traveling I considered myself an introvert, I am a slow processor who needs a lot of space to figure myself and my surroundings out.  But being away from family and community and not having the daily opportunities to bounce ideas off of and relate to others has made me realize how much I depend on family and friends to share exciting and also challenging moments, to inspire, and to keep a proper perspective.  At the same point, it's also taught me to be more discerning in regards to the weight that I allow others to have and influence my thoughts and actions, and to rely more on God's Word.  It’s been challenging to be away from friends and family when they have medical situations and I want real time updates since I can’t be present, but at times I’m in the middle of nowhere with no service.  I’ve learned to rely on prayer and believe in its power and value even more through this.  And as much as our family has our foot in many different groups of people/communities back home, and as many blogs of traveling families that we’ve read to prepare for this year – I’m fairly confident that I could not be a full-time nomad.  I like to have my group of people that know me, that are familiar with my quirks and struggles, and that I’m blessed to do life with. 

While our ability to communicate has been limited at times, I am so grateful for the many people who remember us and reach out as there are times that we don’t interact beyond a surface level with anyone in our language for weeks!  We try to be more outgoing than is natural to us, but the reality is that striking up a conversation with a local is challenging as we try to focus on someone speaking to us with their native accent while managing our children in a foreign land.  Most people are drawn to us because of our daughter, but that also can be tricky to navigate as many people don't understand why we would bring someone into our family, especially someone with a different skin color (adoptive parents will know the challenges we face with this in the US, multiply it time 100 on a trip like this)!  We try our best to learn language basics everywhere we go, but that only gets us so far - the people we do get to interact with are such a blessing to us because of their language skills, and I think we all agree we need to focus more intently on a learning another language when we get home.

And I think we would all agree, that the times when we feel most connected to people, are when we are serving and interacting.  We enjoyed our time in New Zealand and Australia, but working together and with others having a common goal or passion creates unity and bonding.  It's been our goal to bless missionaries as we travel, to turn inside out the short-term mission concept.  Unfortunately, because of our lack of language skills, we still require work and effort on the part of the people we are trying to serve.  As our pastor commissioned us when our oldest and I were in Ethiopia earlier this year, 'try to out-serve those that are serving us,' and we pray that the people we've interacted with have been encouraged and felt a bit of respite in an out-of-the-box kind of way.

One of the biggest blessings to me as we travel is the ability to fellowship with other believers, to worship alongside one another.  It's incredibly amazing to see how the Holy Spirit is working in so many different cultures and encouraging to feel the enthusiasm and strength of other's faith.  It took a bit of getting used to, but I love when we sing worship songs in English along with the community who is singing in their native language - it's a glimpse of what heaven will truly be like!

Thankfully, 5 months in, I continue to be amazed by my husband who stays calm and picks up the many areas where I fall short, always even-keel, making all of the contacts that we need as we travel, and blessing us with his insight and perspective, which was one of my dreams for this trip – that the boys would see his wisdom and experience it.  While it’s not constantly appreciated by the kids, they are having so many opportunities to better appreciate the man their father is.

We are cherishing family life together overall.  Of course it has its challenges, as every family with a permanent residence does also.  We are all together practically 100% of our time each day, most times sharing beds at night, and not having a room to escape to just to be alone.  This provides many opportunities to be humbled and for growth when we are in an optimistic mindset, and for creative problem solving when we have to deal with the challenges.  This in and of itself is interesting as many of the discipline techniques we use of removing oneself from a situation, missing an opportunity, etc are almost impossible to carry out on the road.  However, this constant life together also requires intentionality to connect with each person and not just assume we know how he/she is processing everything.  It takes intentionality to verbalize what we assume others know we feel, and sometimes the familiarity of just being together can mask the intentionality that’s required to truly care and be present and encouraging of heart matters.  We work at being creative and making the most of each time we find ourselves able to mix up our family dynamics.  We rejoice when we have appropriate accommodations to leave the kids and feel comfortable enough to sneak in a date night or coffee date to focus on our marriage and connect a little.  We also recognize how hard it is for our kids as they don't have the ability to 'get away' and be with their individual friends and instead have to share almost everything and every experience.  We are thrilled when we are places where the kids are able to interact with other kids, as this is not always a given due to many factors, and it’s been great to see the kids become more outgoing with children of different cultures and dive in, even initiating interaction.

The other day we were teaching an English class to students whose primary language is Khmer.  They asked each of us what we’ve learned since we began traveling and it was a challenge but interesting how each of us responded in a short concise answer:

Dad: Every country is so unique

Mom: Time is a gift

C: The world is very big

CB: Patience

G: I am blessed and have a lot of things

SJ:  I’m learning my letters

Several people have referred to us as “radical” in our adventure of travels this year.  While there is a popular Christian book of this title written by David Platt, I hadn’t read it in full prior to our trip.  Our intentions and obedience to spend this time overseas is not to make a statement but to have family time together, show our kids the world and open their eyes to God at work while living without all of the stuff we are used to in life.  On a long van ride yesterday, I was able to finish the Radical book and found the following quotes inspiring in regards to how we are spending this year and as we head into the new year of 2016:

"the challenge is to use the freedoms, resources and opportunities God has entrusted to use for His purpose in the world, all the while remaining careful not to embrace the ideas, values and assumptions that contradict what God has said in His word."

“We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of this world. Instead, we will wish we had given more of ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing the praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship.”

"give liberally. go urgently. live dangerously."

Be blessed friends and HAPPY NEW YEAR!