The doorbell rang while I was prepping the dining room table to get started with homeschool. When I opened the door, I found a Hello Fresh box sitting on my doorstep. I wasn’t a subscriber to Hello Fresh, but this was the second time someone’s box had accidentally been delivered to me. I picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen, contemplating what to do with it.

I could open it and enjoy it myself. After all, it wasn’t my fault it showed up here. But before I cut the box open, I decided to look up the address. The blue GPS line meandered its way to the destination and calculated the distance. The house was just one street over.

I sighed as I looked at the box of ingredients, knowing what needed to be done. I slipped my shoes on, scooped the box into my arms, and made my way to the neighbor’s house.

Once I reached the house, the door opened before I even had the chance to walk up and knock.

“That must be mine,” the woman said as she met me in the driveway.

We started chatting a little bit until she finally asked, “How long have you lived here?”

“We’ve been here since July,” I answered, intentionally leaving gaping holes in my response.

It’s at this point in conversations when I have to decide who I want to be in that moment. It’s a “choose your own adventure” of sorts. Am I a woman whose family just moved to the suburbs? Or do I explain how I live overseas and I have no idea how much longer I’ll be one of the neighbors? One response guarantees a simple conversation in which I feel like I fit in. The other response can conjure up everything from an abundance of questions to an incurious head nod with glazed-over eyes.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been caught in this predicament. It’s as if our lives are playing out like one of those interactive specials on Netflix. These are the moments where the scene pauses and gives you ten seconds to choose what to do next.

Let’s cover a few other potential Choose-Your-Own-Adventure scripts one might encounter when returning to the familiar (but increasingly more foreign) homeland country.

———

1. A situation in which someone asks you where you’re from.

Adventure #1: Answer honestly.

“Do you mean most recently, or where I was born, or where all I’ve lived in this country? Well, prior to this current location, I was in (insert name of foreign country). That’s where I’ve lived for the last several years. I still live there, actually. I come back every few years, but rarely to the same location. It all depends on where I can find a place to stay. But seeing as how it looks like you’re trying to visualize a map in your head and figure out where in the world that country is located, I’ll save you the headache. Let me tell you what it’s near, or tell you about a more well-known city in that country nowhere near or similar to where I live, or bring up a Hollywood blockbuster that was filmed there. I’m truly not trying to make you feel stupid for not knowing where that country is located. This is probably hurting me, socially, more than it’s hurting you. Let’s start over. I’ll just tell you some of the places I’ve lived in my passport country so we can start finding some common ground to stand on in this conversation before I fall into a deep abyss of embarrassment for deciding to answer your question this way.”

Adventure #2: Answer vaguely.

“I was born in (insert name of city) and I’ve moved around a few times since then.”

2. A situation in which you forgot how to do a basic skill.

Let’s take paying for your groceries as an example. First of all, the cashier is swiping those groceries and bagging them faster than you can put the bags in your cart. You’re a bit flustered when it’s time to pay, and you hand the employee your credit card. You stare at each other for a moment, wondering what’s happening. Why aren’t they taking my card out of my hand?

You ask, “Do you take credit card?”  

They motion to the credit card machine and give you an approving, “go ahead, the machine is right in front of your face” nod.

You laugh at yourself and say, “oh yeah, duh,” and swipe the card. The machine buzzes at you, announcing your second fumble as the cashier and fellow shoppers watch you like some alien trying to be human. The machine might as well say, “card denied because you’re behind the times,” on the screen. The cashier is staring at you, wondering if you’ve been living under a rock for half a decade.

“Whoops,” you laugh nervously. “Swiping is sooo two-thousand and late,” you joke, referencing a Black Eyed Peas song that’s over a decade old. (Side note: you should never try to joke in these situations. It won’t help.) You proceed to insert your card into the chip reader slot.

“That doesn’t work,” the cashier says, with a genuine look of concern on their face. “Just tap your card.”

You’ve made a complete buffoon of yourself. What do you say next?

Adventure #1: Give the backstory.

“I’ve been living in another country for the last few years, and they usually don’t even accept my credit card. I’m used to paying with cash, but I haven’t had the chance to find an ATM since being back here. You could probably throw a rock and hit an ATM where I live. Anyway, when the cashier does let me pay with my credit card, I have to hand the card to them, and they do the whole transaction with the card themselves. Obviously, I know how to do it, ha…ha… But, you see, I guess I’ve become accustomed to handing my card to the cashier—hence me handing my card to you.”

Adventure #2: Accept your defeat.

“Sorry, it’s been a long day.”

You proceed to awkwardly tap your card in different spots on the machine before it finally beeps with approval. You quickly push your cart away and resolve to find a different grocery store to shop at until you’re absolutely certain the employee (and fellow shoppers) have forgotten what you look like.

3. A situation in which someone does choose to engage you in conversation about your life abroad but makes stereotypical (and false) assumptions about the country and its people.

Depending on where you live in the world, the conversation will look a little different. Since I live in a country with the world’s largest Muslim population, the conversation usually leads to a person asking me, “Are you scared?” I have the option to going a few directions with this one.

Adventure #1: Dig deeper.

“Tell me what you mean by that question.” This is the response you give to someone with whom you have some sort of relationship, and you want to engage in a healthy conversation with them to get to the root of their question.

Adventure #2: Address the prejudice.

Of course, you’re not always receiving these kinds of questions and comments from friends and family. Sometimes, it’s coming from someone who you might never see again. This is the perfect time to give some food for thought for the person to chew on later.

“Am I afraid of living around Muslims? No. I interact with Muslims on a regular basis. They are my cashiers at the grocery store. They are the doctors I take my children to for a check-up; They are my dental hygienists. They are my neighbors and my friends. Sadly, xenophobia is perpetuated by certain news outlets and media outlets who cherry-pick the way they want to portray a particular group of people. This leads to people forming prejudices, believing stereotypes, and misunderstanding an entire group of people because of misinformation. But it’s interesting you ask me if I’m scared living here, because my friends on the other side of the globe ask me the same question—largely in part due to all the mass shootings happening on a regular basis in this country.”

Adventure #3: Answer matter-of-factly.

Sometimes, you must exercise discernment.
Sometimes, you have to ask yourself, is this the time and the place for such a layered conversation?
Sometimes, you just need to answer their question honestly and succinctly and move on with your life

“No, I’m not scared.”

———

These are only a few of the many situations in which you’ll find yourself choosing your own adventure. Sometimes you’ll like how the rest of the story plays out, and sometimes you’ll wish you could go back just a bit and try again. But the good news is (or maybe the bad news, depending on your perspective)—it’s highly likely the next adventure is just around the corner.

Maybe even literally, when you have to go deliver a Hello Fresh box to a neighbor and introduce yourself.

We started around the corner of West and Hortense. There’s a eucalyptus tree I've walked past hundreds of times. As if by instinct, I looked up at it as we passed. It danced with the wind against the bright blue sky the way it always does on afternoons in Southern California. The air smelled like fall, like back-to-school mornings, and trick-or-treat nights. The setting sun beat through the magnolia trees, the freshly mowed lawns smelled only the way freshly mowed lawns can, and school bells rang their afternoon song. Suddenly, I was back—walking to school with friends, coming too fast down the street corners on my razor scooter, getting nervous when we passed the cute boy’s house on family walks after dinner. 

This is the home that built me.

It’s the home that watched me grow from girl to grownup, the home that held me through my first heartbreaks, and the home I came back to in the summers. It’s the home that taught me where the utensils go and where the pots and pans should be. It’s the home that was the backdrop to it all—the best and the worst of every memory.

But now, I can only remember the good stuff—which is easy to do when you’ve been so far away for so long. I spent months trying hard not to daydream about this return trip. But as soon as the tickets were in our hands, I couldn’t stop myself. I imagined how it would feel to hug my dad. I daydreamed about what I would say when I saw family at the airport. I fantasized, as best I could, how an In-N-Out burger would taste.

But to my surprise, it wasn’t how I pictured it would be. It wasn’t worse or lackluster or disappointing, just…different. Familiar, but somehow foreign.

Nothing was coated in glitter. The first hugs lingered but normalness quickly settled in—even though it was anything but normal. And I felt the pull of a way of life I’d left behind: a proclivity for pleasing people, a bent toward overspending, a tendency to slip into anxiety. 

The same girl that ran up and down these cul-de-sacs, that left for prom from this front lawn, that tried so hard to be who everyone wanted her to be, was not the same girl now: pushing a double stroller up the hill, telling a toddler to shield her eyes from the harsh California sun, having traveled halfway around the world from the place she now calls home.  

__________

7,695 miles east, Nepal is just about as far away as you can get from Southern California. Home is down a stone-laid road off of a busy street where bicycling fruit vendors hug ivy-covered walls, with motorbikes, pedestrians, trucks, and buses all fighting for a turn down the narrow road. Would you grimace if I told you the two-year-old learned to ride her bike on this road? She stays on the yellow line, between us and the ivy wall. She maneuvers around sleeping street dogs and says “namaste” to the ones who stare at her red hair and fair, freckle-flecked skin.

“Do you like it here or there,” people often ask me. 

Five and a half years later, I’m still surprised to hear myself say, “here.”  

Here where doors are rarely locked and meetings rarely planned. Here where the faithful sing their songs loudly and pray their prayers boldly. Here where our girls were born, where our friends are,where tea is a rhetorical question and no one is ever not invited.

Here is where we’ve grown a life. This is the home that’s building me. 

The longer we stay, the less I can imagine leaving. The more the years go by, the more this place and its ways overwrite what I thought I knew about life and people and God. 

And about myself.

Patience has replaced expectation. People have become a priority over time. Clocks are suggestive and less helpful than they were. I’ve learned to linger, to wait for the right moment and not assume which one is the right one. And I’ve found God is nearer than I’d ever learned he was, working through the threads of everything we say and do, constantly calling us nearer still. 

__________

A porch swing and a glass of tea. A sky wide and vast, purpling with the onset of the evening. Fireflies hovering on the grass and a sweet Tennessee breeze filling the silence. 

There’s something about this place. It’s not home. It’s never been home. But it feels like home.

We come here every time we visit the States to see my husband’s dad. It’s an interruption to the chaos of the familiar back in California, where our calendars fill fast and there’s a no with every yes. Here, there is no one to see except each other. Here, everything is yes.

Here, where a toddler runs through backwoods chasing rabbits and stomps in giant piles of autumn leaves. Here, where tea is sweet and conversation is slow. Here, where nothing is familiar but everything is possible. Here, where home is all the things that could be. 

An unknown and foggy future that normally feels daunting feels less so from here—swinging on the front porch, watching thick clouds join together, reflecting off the glassy lake. The world feels big and scary, but Tennessee feels rich and welcoming. 

When I’m in Tennessee, I want things I’ve never wanted before. I want to walk among the dark green forests beyond the lake, filled with tall, old trees covered in vines and invasive species. I want to go for long, slow drives and stare at the bright, rolling hills rushing through the windows—a house appearing every now and again. 

But this isn’t my reality, and that could be the very thing that makes it so appealing. What isn’t has a way of inspiring in us a longing for what should be. Every day, every moment should be as sweet and delightful as an autumn afternoon on a porch in East Tennessee. We should feel as deeply rooted as the old oak trees that line the highway. We should be as unmoved as the Cherokee lake at dusk.

I’ll take these longings home with me—the desires for what was and what could be—and I’ll use them to make what is a little more special. 

Mom’s recipes and dad’s country music.
A Tennesseean’s habit for front porch sittin’ and neighborly wavin’.
The Nepali tendency to linger and leave doors open.

A nomadic heart is forever at home and never at home all at the same time. We’re always settling where we can, while also searching for something more—
something more exquisite
something closer to perfect. 

But we’re also quite good at making do with what we’ve got—sinking deep into the joy of what is and what was, knowing it’s not half as good as what is yet to come. 

Photo by Andrey Petrov on Unsplash

My husband and I celebrated our wedding ceremony in the Dominican Republic, where I am from. Several hours later, we jumped on an airplane that would take us to Florida. 

Wait, what? Isn’t the DR the perfect place to honeymoon? It is, it is. But, we were getting married through the fiancé visa, and the marriage license had to be signed in the States for us to be legally married. So, we arrived in Florida and spent our wedding night in separate bedrooms because my dad had been clear we couldn’t live together until the license was signed. (Don’t say it—I know what you are thinking). 

Early the next morning (a Sunday morning), we got on another flight to Atlanta where a pastor friend would sign the license at his church. We hoped to arrive before the service started…but no. It had begun and so we went (with a couple chaperones) to grab breakfast and wait. Finally, when the service was over, we made our way back to church. After greeting his congregants, our pastor friend took us to his study to sign the license—and he took his sweet time to do so.

“Let me tell you a story of this guy who got cold feet right before I signed the license, so I signed it before he did anything crazy,” he said. 

“Did you know I wrote a book? Let me sign a copy for you,” he continued.“Which church are you attending in OH? Oh! Your pastor is my friend! Let me sign a copy for him too.” 

And finally, to all the Dominican friends who had gathered to see us legally wed, he said, “Come on, everyone, picture time with the bride and groom.” 

When all was said and done, we couldn’t leave that building fast enough. Twenty six hours after our ceremony in the DR (yes, TWENTY SIX), we were finally alone. (Stop—I know what you are thinking now too). 

Thus began our cross-cultural marriage—navigating visa issues, family expectations, and cultural differences. After becoming an immigrant and later an expat, I noticed that learning to live in another country is very similar to learning to live with your spouse. So I thought I’d share some lessons for marriage, brought to you from our experience so far.

1. Become a fluent speaker in your spouse’s language and help your spouse become one, too.

Learning language is a high priority when you land in a new country. Yes, you need to buy furniture and enroll your kids in school, but you also want to be able to connect  with people and say more than, “where is the bathroom?” So you start the grueling effort of learning a new language.

Language learning and marriage have similarities. For starters, both have the goal of fluency. Just as we want to speak a new language clearly and gracefully, we also want to learn to speak the language that communicates love and respect for our spouse. There are Biblical principles that apply to marriages everywhere, but there are also ways we love and honor our spouse that are unique to them.

To know those things, we ask lots of questions, we observe them, and cultivate a delighted curiosity on what makes them them. Since marrying my husband, Ethan, I have been learning Ethanese. He, too, has been learning Aylinese, which leads me to another similarity. 

Just as we need native speakers to help us learn their language, we also need each other to achieve fluency in marriage. Not only do I need Ethan to teach me about himself, but *I* also need to teach *him* how to speak Aylinese, which hasn’t always come naturally to me.

I have hesitated to speak up about strong personal preferences because I don’t want to be a nagging, entitled wife. But over the years, that hasn’t really helped my husband in knowing important parts of who I am. While letting him into these sides of me can feel really vulnerable, the safety of Christ’s love enables me to be transparent with him. 

That is why both the work of language learning and the work of marriage are a work of faith. By faith we study both language and spouse, trusting Christ is gracious to enable our fluency, as well as theirs.

2. Become a cultural learner, not a cultural critic.

Language and culture are often very closely tied together. You learn language as you learn culture and vice versa. In the same way, a significant way you learn about your spouse is by understanding and learning the culture he comes from. Not only the country he comes from (if you are in a cross-cultural marriage, like me), but his family’s culture and even his personality’s culture. 

If you think about it, each person has a culture of their own—a strong set of values, a preference about how they do things, an idea of what life in community looks like, a definition of rest, a love or hate of risk, etc. That is why my husband and I love to say that in a very real sense, each marriage is cross-cultural. 

When we are learning a new culture that is different from ours, it is very easy to point out all the ways that culture is not as good as ours. We see their flaws  and their blind spots, and we want to fix them. But the best expats I know are the ones who have learned to see beauty in the culture they live in. They truly learn from the people around them and see how their culture is strong in areas in which they are weak. They are not filled with cynicism. They are grace-hunters—looking for and finding evidence of the grace and goodness around them.

We need that spirit in marriage. The Lord has fit us for our spouse—not so that we can fix them, but so that we can learn from them and grow with them. 

3. Learn to live the ampersand life. 

On this side of Eternity, it serves us well to learn to live the “both/and” life. Until Christ returns, joy and sorrow coexist. If you have lived overseas longer than two months, you know this is true. Beauty and brokenness link arms together.

Marriage, too, is filled with this paradox—even the best of marriages. You really do lose your life to gain another one. There may be the loss of dreams, loss of yours or your spouse’s health, or loss of relationships. Circumstances might not be the ones you expected when you married. There might be patterns deeply ingrained that never seem to change. Your life is stressful and it seems like all the differences between you contribute to the struggle.

Grieving is appropriate, alongside joyfully receiving the gift of our spouse. We can lament our sin, and our spouses’ sin. Sometimes we grieve the sin and trauma in our extended families and its impact on our own family. 

Lamenting is not necessarily ungratefulness or discontent. It is a crucial part of learning to live in paradox. We have the most hope in our marriages when we allow our hearts to feel the gains and the losses that have come with them. Only then can we taste Christ’s sufficiency for us. 

4. Laugh.

Laughing keeps you sane when you live overseas. You learn to find humor in your language mistakes, in the ridiculous expectations you had, in the unexpected situations you find yourself in. You smile at the beauty you never knew existed. You treasure the memories you made in exhausting seasons. You even laugh at things your passport culture doesn’t think is funny.

And, oh man, laughing is quite the gift in marriage too. You laugh at things that are hilarious to just the two of you. You cherish the joy that your kids are. You look back on twists and turns and shake your heads in grateful bewilderment at God’s mysterious but certain hand on your journey. This propels you forward to face what’s ahead.

So, friend, embrace the home you are to your spouse and the one he is to you. Through the life of Christ in you—hope in God fiercely, love steadfastly, and with a confident heart, laugh.

Laugh with your spouse, laugh at yourself, and laugh at the days to come.

Photo by Taylor Hernandez on Unsplash

I have always loved Taylor Swift. (Fun fact: we went to the same Vacation Bible School in Pennsylvania in 1995 and no, I am not making that up.) But recently, I’ve realized one more thing we have in common: I, too, have been through many eras..

I’m six years into living overseas, and I can already see so many distinct seasons that have shaped our time here. How we’re spending our daily lives and who we’re doing it alongside now looks completely different than even just three years ago, despite having lived in the same neighborhood and worked at the same school our entire time here.

I know moving from season to season like this is not an expat-only phenomenon—everyone goes through different seasons of life. Everyone has to figure out how to grow and adapt to meet different demands. But it does seem like we have to make these adjustments so much more often than the average person—which I believe goes hand-in-hand with how transient overseas life is. 

There were our first years here, when my husband and I arrived kid-free and carefree, figuring it out alongside new friends who arrived literally the same day we did: our Fearless Era.

Then there was the year when we and those same friends all had our first babies and navigated how to hire a nanny and learned how to wash cloth diapers and passed the electric baby swing from one family to the next: the Lover Era.

Then there was, of course, the fever dream of the pandemic, where friends left suddenly and we were on lockdown and then our airport was closed and we taught online and wore masks and somehow also moved houses and navigated an epilepsy diagnosis for our toddler in the middle of all this: the Chaos Era (okay, I’m going off script because, really, what T.Swift era could capture all of that?)

At the beginning of this past year, it would have been so easy for us to fall into the Jaded Era. Two of our closest family friends—the ones who we had babies alongside—moved back to the States. Our go-to people were gone, and we were left a bit floundering. In the words of Taylor, “the road not taken was looking real good now.” And while it’s valid and good to grieve our losses, it also would have been really easy for us to get stuck there. I’m sure you can relate—when we’ve said goodbye so many times, it’s easy to feel disillusioned; like it’s not worth it to keep trying to make new friends and new rhythms, knowing they too might be just for a short season. 

But I am so glad that we didn’t get stuck there. Instead, we tried something different to make our way back to some sort of equilibrium: our Regrouping Era. We intentionally circled up with a new configuration of friends—two families we already knew, one who had just arrived—for a new tradition of weekly Sunday dinners. We rotate between our houses each week, enjoying food and time together while the kids run wild. One of these families is leaving at the end of this school year. We knew that going in. But even so, for this year, for where we’re at right now, these Sunday friends have been a true gift.

Our seasons are shaped so much by the people around us, and in a life where that constantly shifts, we find ourselves constantly having to regroup—whether we’re doing the moving or being left behind again. The rhythms that sustained our family for a season—like the every-other week supper club with all our coworkers who live in the same neighborhood, or the small group we were a part of hosted by an embassy family who would share their Costco tortilla chips with us—inevitably end as people move away. And we’re left piecing together a new way of life: a whole new era.

“I think I've seen this film before, and I didn't like the ending.”

Kendra Adachi at The Lazy Genius talks about the principle of ‘living in your season’. And while she might not have realized how quickly we flip through those seasons as expats, it’s still a good reminder. Right now you might be in a really lovely and beautiful rhythm—friend, live in that season. Enjoy it while it’s here without darkening its edges by looking ahead to its end. Right now, you might be caught in a tricky in-between. Maybe you’ve said goodbye to the people you did life with and haven’t quite found your footing yet in your new day-to-day. Friend, live in your season, knowing this too will pass at some point. 

We can be “happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time. It’s miserable and magical.” So right now, whether you’re wrapping up one era or firmly in the middle of the next, take a moment and take stock. Name your season, if you’d like—sometimes it can help to give words to things. And be sure to reach out to a friend who shaped one of your past eras to let them know they were “more than just a short time.” 

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Guest article by by Kelly Buchtien Jackson

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.

———

When we first arrived in Germany, I did everything I could to make our little temporary flat a home. I knew, a little bit, about what to expect. I knew I would be in a new place, a new culture, and I wanted to safeguard as much as I could against the fears and anxiety that would inevitably arise for a 27-year-old who’s never lived more than three hours away from her mom.

So, I took up valuable luggage space to include a few picture frames, the Texas scent of a “Homesick” candle my girlfriend gave me anxiety meds, and a couple other mementos to remind me of home. This, I told myself, would make the transition easier. 

However, what didn’t make it into my luggage is the true feeling of home. I wasn’t expecting the sorrow and struggle that followed me around our little flat—some days so severe I was unable to walk out the front door. 

But as the months passed, life began to settle in. Medicine supported me in the physical manifestations of my anxiety, but my therapist, husband, newfound friends, and the slow-paced life of Germany began to soften the blow of not being home. Before I knew it, Germany became home and Texas, my hometown, slowly faded into the background. 

———

Two years came and went, and it was time to begin the process of repatriation. We met with our relocation assistant, made attempts to terminate our cell phone contract early (not an easy feat in Germany #iykyk), and divided our belongings into “ship” and “plane” piles.

I made my final trips to the coffee roastery, the tea shop, and our neighborhood grocery to gather a few of our favorites. Once again, we were taking up valuable luggage space for a few things to remind us of home. 

But despite my best attempts, that true feeling of home still didn’t make it into my luggage. 

I was moving back home, after all, so I didn’t expect the sadness, heartbreak, or struggle that accompanied me when I returned to a former place, a former culture, a former home.

The wheels touched down, the deplaning shuffle began, the Houston humidity engulfed me, and grief wrapped its arms around me for the next year and a half. 

Everything you loved about living there is gone—this is home. The thought lingered in my head as I drove our rental car along the familiar roads back to my parent's home. 

———

We slipped back into hill country living, on the outside, with ease. Our house was still there, with most of the furniture intact, thanks to a sister and short-term renters who took care of our cookie-cutter home while we were gone. My white Ford Edge looked as great as ever, thanks to my mom who kept up with oil changes, tire rotations, and even replaced a windshield for me. 

We had our church community, our friends, and our favorite dining spots. Even our aging dogs were still with us, despite my fears of them making it over to Germany with us, but not making it back home. 

Every day back in our central Texas hometown was a reminder of all I lost when we got on that one-way plane back to the United States. Everything here is the same—yet everything, for me, is different—and I struggle to weave the same and the different together in a cohesive and fulfilling life. Living abroad changes you. It changed me in many ways, I think, for the better. I bike more. I advocate for sustainability options here. We imitate the Sunday Sabbath of German life. I do what I can to make our “new” home feel like our German home. It’s an unwritten script I’ve written for myself—“if I can make it feel like home, it will be home.” 

So, I grind the beans, drink the tea, and eat the snacks. I play the music. I set the mood. I even search YouTube for a “live German city” to play throughout the day as I work from home.

But, it still doesn’t feel like home. 

———

Our shipping container arrived with our German furniture. 

“It will finally feel like home,” I thought as I opened up boxes I’d long forgotten about. I displayed my photography from our time in Europe and decorated with the items picked up on our travels. 

The home feeling I was searching for still didn’t come. 

We decided it was time to make some changes in our life to reflect the change that had happened within us. We bought a new-to-us home. It was smaller than our previous home but the choice was intentional. It was near the city center, next to the park, and within biking distance of restaurants—all things that echoed our past life.   

It has begun to feel a little homier, but I still can’t get over the sadness I feel at times. 

———

I talk to my therapist about grief. 

“Am I still grieving this time, this place, and this home that became mine, even though it was 5,000 miles away from family, friends, and any sense of normalcy?” 

“It’s very likely,” she says. 

She flips through three years' worth of notes and lands on November 2018’s notes. She glances at me over her leather portfolio as she reads a few of the key phrases I spoke to her back then. We chuckle. They sound oddly familiar—just like the words I was speaking for this appointment about not fitting in, lack of confidence, and worrying over things that have yet to come to fruition.

I thought the process of coming home would be much easier than the process of leaving. A year and a half of evidence shows me that is not true. The process is slow, tiring, and even somewhat depressing. Nevertheless, this town that used to be mine is slowly becoming more like home again. It involves choosing, each day, to see the beauty of God’s creation here, even though it doesn’t feel like the beauty there. 

Many days I feel a deep sense of loss. Some days, though, there are small moments when I see the early morning sun beating down across the leaves as they slowly turn from yellow to orange. They’ll likely never be the reds, oranges, and purples that narrated my walks in Germany. 

But God’s beauty is here, too—and each day, I see it just a little bit more. 

Kelly Buchtien Jackson is a former teacher turned online entrepreneur while living abroad with her husband and two pups. She currently resides back in her hometown in Central Texas where she navigates the process of repatriation through writing, photography, reading, gardening, organizing every nook and cranny in her house, and binging Netflix when she can. Since moving home, she and her husband grew their family through fostering and look forward to sharing the impact of life abroad with their growing family. 

Follow Kelly on her blog and on Instagram.

Photo by Hans Isaacson on Unsplash

Guest article by Katie Walker

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.

 ———

Expat life, though built on a foundation of purpose and excitement, can maintain an undercurrent of instability. Visa problems, geopolitical issues, and family medical needs, among many other things, seem to just simmer in the background of our lives, threatening to boil over and upend the normalcy we strive so hard to create. 

Therefore, we find stability in the things we can control—maybe our education choices, the neighborhood in which we live, the food we eat, the people with whom we associate, or even the daily schedule we keep. If you are anything like me, it may feel unsettling to admit, but sometimes the rhythms, places, or people on which we have built our trust and found stability may need to change. I am learning it can be good to change my mind, make a concession, or shift for a semester. It can also be good to pause indefinitely or even permanently end a season. There is wisdom in recognizing when something is no longer serving the purpose it originally did, but shifting does not always mean something “wasn’t working.” It may just be the opportunity to try something new while leaving the option open to shift right back when the winds change again.

———

Have you ever felt both the ease of contentment and the draw towards change? For us, our education choice was once a non-negotiable based on what I knew to be true, but it began to become more negotiable when I realized our dynamics had changed. Maybe you have felt it too—what was once concrete, stable, and dependable may actually be more flexible than you originally thought. Pivots may provide the deep exhale of a breath you didn’t even realize you were holding. 

After we finished the tour of the school, that’s what we gave ourselves permission to do: pivot. 

———

As someone who struggled with the idea of false martyrdom during our first several years overseas, I wanted to present a life that appeared successful and exotic, yet humble, and never admit defeat to those watching me from the outside. I struggled with maintaining the persona of what I imagined others thought an expat’s life should look like. 

What would people think when I, a strong homeschooling advocate, suddenly thrust my children into a more traditional school setting? What would they think if we moved to a more “western” area of town? Would they raise eyebrows at the tuition costs? 

These are questions no one asked, yet I always cared what our personal pivots would lead others to believe about me. 

But we are not failures when we pivot. Rerouting our course can be good and necessary. Recognizing the changing needs of our families and seeking ways to meet them can support our longevity in the places we desire to be. Mourning what used to be and celebrating what could be can provide both the closure we need for one season and the encouragement we need to move forward into another.

———

After sending my oldest two kids to a brick and mortar school, I gripped my two kindergarteners a little tighter. I kept them at home, loosely schooling with lots of playing. However, I also found myself highly distracted during language study, pulling apart pesky Lego pieces, fixing snacks, and responding to calls from the bathroom. While I reveled in their still being at home, I felt at peace about allowing them to attend a local preschool for a few hours every morning when the opportunity presented itself. Having walked this road once, I knew what information I needed in order to make a wise decision. Though it added some logistical chaos to our daily schedule, it opened doors for relationships and growth.  It was our next right choice. 

———

Facing the choice to pivot or not has revealed my own sin, struggles, and selfish desires. Pride tells me to stand my ground, even at the expense of my family and my sanity. Shame tells me not to disappoint those watching from the outside. But thankfully, the Father has worked on my heart and revealed how tightly I’ve held onto  what I’d always deemed unchangeable. 

I am better at establishing healthy boundaries for my family. I am more aware of which routines help us flourish and which ones induce struggle. I now realized that nearly no one cares where we live or how we educate our kids. Many friends have cheered us on and celebrated our decisions as answers to prayers lifted diligently on our behalf.

In the moment, change is not usually the easier step, but it may be the next right one. It may be the rest you’ve desired or the push you’ve needed. As expats, we know situational dynamics are always changing, but we can move forward confidently to whatever comes next.  

Would a schooling shift help your family? A new neighborhood? Do you need to redefine your work focus? Or maybe turn some things down so that you can coast for a while? Well, here’s your permission to pivot.

This guest article is written by Katie Walker. Katie currently lives in the Balkans with her husband and four kids. She’s a physical therapist by trade with a heart for serving women in all stages of life. When she’s not studying language or running back and forth to the visa office, she’s in the kitchen making things from scratch that she could probably just purchase at the store. When she remembers, she writes on Instagram.

Guest article by Shaina Thiner

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. 

I’d been wanting to spend one of my quiet times on the roof—so this seemed to be the perfect opportunity. I grabbed my iPod and hurried outside, eager to climb up top before anyone saw me and interfered. Thankfully the ladder was still there leaning against the house, left from last month’s solar panel installation.

Reaching the top, I breathed a sigh of relief. Shifting my feet to stay balanced on the sloped cement, I remained standing for a bit, taking in the view. In one direction, I could see the ladies sweeping the yard and preparing the charcoal fire for breakfast. Before me was the beach, my preferred view: the crashing waves as the tide came in and the glassy-silver expanse of a sea, not yet touched by the light of morning. To the left of that was the wharf, already bustling with merchants disembarking the speedboat that had just carried them over from the small island across the bay. 

But then I turned around and found my gaze lifted up—past the wall surrounding our compound, past the main road, past the rooftops of the village, to the very peaks of the mountains. Suddenly my heart felt an unfamiliar (of late) peace. I tiptoed around the solar panels, found an open spot, put my earbuds in, and sat down as I listened to worship music and watched the sun make its leisurely appearance in the sky. 

————

The lady with the machete was one of the reasons for my mental exhaustion. We were in the process of taking a struggling church under our wing and it seemed everywhere we turned she was there, standing (brandishing her machete)—making demands or spreading rumors or even threatening us. 

Then there was a little boy—the most adorable, precious boy with bouts of searing pains in his legs. His mother, frantic and distressed, had asked us for help. We didn’t have the resources to send her to a doctor to confirm it, but after questioning her and talking with a friend who was a licensed nurse, we were pretty sure he had severe anemia—possibly even sickle-cell. There was no cure, and so many of the treatments were beyond our means or capability in this country. 

Helpless—that’s what I felt. Helpless and useless and utterly unequipped to handle the circumstances in which I found myself. These were people and I was struggling to see them as image bearers of God, instead of “situations.” My heart felt like a battlefield of emotions. The guilt I felt about my ugly thoughts towards the lady with the machete struck blow after blow. Then a barrage of arrows—discouragement, heartbreak, despair—pierced my defenses as I desperately sought to find some way to do something to help this little boy experiencing so much pain. 

The feeling of uselessness reached an all-time high when we hosted a Kids’ Club at church the next week. Over 150 children showed up and there were only four of us to run it. Snacks ran out, the afternoon heat was stifling, the little boy was having another episode of pain, and then our vehicle ran out of fuel. 

At the beginning of the week I had felt like mud was encircling my feet, slowing down my efforts. By the end of the week, I felt like I was almost completely engulfed by it, gasping for breath, just barely holding my mouth above the miry flood. 

———

The music praising the Creator wove its way through my being as I sat on my rooftop. The first rays of light peered between the mountains and lit the tips of the palm fronds. All the tenseness and worry of the previous days began to melt away. Not that I forgot all that had happened, but it just didn’t weigh so heavily anymore. My helplessness was not what it was all about. For what were my feelings of helplessness but a desire for control over my situation? I realized that giving into these feelings had become my way of saying “I could handle this better than You, God.” I had become engrossed in my circumstances instead of turning to the One who can do so much more than I can. 

Sometimes we find ourselves in circumstances where it’s like our feet are stuck in the mud. Every time we get one foot out, the other one sinks farther in. When there’s mud surrounding us it’s really hard to look up. We want to focus on getting out of the mud, and how can we do that unless we’re looking down at it, surveying it, researching it, fighting against it? I mean, that makes the most sense, doesn’t it? 

But if the mud just keeps getting deeper, and thicker, and heavier, maybe it’s time to stop  struggling and turn our faces heavenward. Maybe it’s time to cease striving and believe that  God does know best, that He has a purpose in all of this. Maybe it’s time to be still and just  wait—wait for the sun to come out and dry up the pathway.

As I sat on my rooftop, that’s the day I remembered Who it’s really all about. It’s the day I climbed above my circumstances and got a fresh perspective. 

This guest article was written by Shaina Thiner. Shaina Thiner now resides in the Midwest U.S. with her husband and five stepchildren, after spending six years as a single expat worker in the Caribbean She continues her work with the same Caribbean-based organization as a vision team leader and keeper of the financial reports. She also teaches at a local school. In her free time, she loves to read, write, enjoy the outdoors, and try out new recipes.

Photo by Caroline Ellis

Guest article by Ruth Potinu

“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.  

Step one: Calm down my over-excited children. 
Step two: Assess the situation. Which neighbor? The one whose three kids are over at our house on a daily basis.
Step three: Clear up language confusion. The words for “head” and “hand or arm” in Tok Pisin are very similar words. In this case, our neighbor’s arm had been injured—not his head, as it first seemed. Thankfully, he was alive and on his way home. He did need stitches. 
Step four: Message my husband (who, of course, was currently taking that very same bus route on an overnight trip to collect some boxes we’d recently had shipped over). He had already heard the story. 
Step five: Make breakfast. 
Step six: Offer the neighbor’s son some bananas while he sat outside by a tree waiting for his dad to come home. 

The rest of the day progressed like “normal”.

———

I once had someone comment after reading a book I wrote on grief that reading about my life gave her compassion fatigue (insert laughing emoji or maybe crying emoji or maybe the laughing/crying emoji). How do you respond to a comment like that? How do you think I feel living in the middle of this mess? And yet, is it strange to say I mostly love it?

I don’t think it is healthy to work until burnout, and I know compassion fatigue is a very real thing. I know my neighbors experience even more trauma than I do. They don’t get the blessing of a six-month furlough. I live in a country with high rates of domestic violence. Poverty and substance abuse seem to go hand in hand. The average life expectancy for someone from Papua New Guinea is sixty-five years old, which is much lower than our neighbors in Australia where the average life expectancy is eighty-three years old. Medical care is often limited, especially for those in rural areas. However, those in the city struggle as well. 

Just last week, we had country-wide fuel shortages, long power blackouts several times during the week, and a day of no water throughout the city, which resulted in my son’s school closing early for the day. I could go on. I was talking to a friend about the things that happen in this country and how unreal it can all feel at times. Stranger than fiction, really. She agreed, and commented how boring life would be if we returned to more normal environments. This is true.

 ———

“Come to me,” God says “my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” 

Most days, it does not feel very easy. And yet, in an odd way, life does feel mostly meaningful. It does feel mostly beautiful. I don’t want to just live life because it is easy. I want to live a life of purpose, even if it means there is fatigue from balancing the good with the hard. 

Maybe this is why I rarely share some stories with friends from my passport country. Like the story of the man who was shot just one garden over from our house in the village when a fight over a land dispute broke out. It just takes too much emotional effort to even begin to explain the complexities of the situation, for one thing. 

And what about the fatigue of not having family nearby when you’re sick and you just want your mom to come over? What about the fatigue of support raising? What do you do with the emotional fatigue of having people constantly watching you? 

Maybe I don’t share because I don’t want to give someone else compassion fatigue. 

I don’t share because, as crazy as it probably sounds, this is the life I have chosen. This is a life that I love. I am grateful that my kids get to grow up in a flawed but incredible community. I am thankful that, in spite of the challenges, God meets our family here and continues to grow us daily. 

I don’t have all the answers, but my Shepherd has led me here to this place even with its proverbial wolves and lions. He is here giving me the peace that surpasses all understanding. He is here making a way when there is no way. He is here healing the broken-hearted, including my heart that seems to break continually. 

So I stay. And as I stay, the heavy yoke—the compassion fatigue—does feel lighter. He who has called me gives me rest. Not the rest of a day at the spa, but the rest that allows my heart to face one more day, take one more step, and be okay in the midst of circumstances that often feel the opposite of okay.

Is it easy? No. Is it beautiful? Yes. Do I want to quit on a much too frequent basis? Yes. Did I recently sign up for online counseling? Yes. Do I get compassion fatigue? Sometimes, but most days I just live one step at a time—one mundane moment at a time, one trauma at a time. What more can one do? Most days I get to rejoice with those who are rejoicing. I get to weep with those who are weeping.

And some days, I get to give bananas to a little boy who is quietly waiting for his dad to come home.

This guest article is written by Ruth Potinu. Ruth is the author of Permission to Mourn: Engaging with Culture, Story, and Scripture in a Quest for Healing with Hope. She works alongside her husband and their three children in Papua New Guinea. There they seek to minister to the vulnerable, especially widows and their children. She loves a good cup of chai, connecting with friends and writing whenever she can carve out the time. You can connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, or on her blog.

Photo by Paul Jai on Unsplash

One of the expat influencers I follow on Instagram, Cecilia, lives on Svalbard—an island close to the North Pole. As you can imagine, it’s cold there. The extremely low daily temperature features heavily in this influencer’s stories. On Svalbard, there are no trees. The land is frozen tundra—permafrost—so there are no gardens. The sun shines twenty-four hours a day through the summer, but the high is only six degrees celsius. They call that the Polar Day. And in the winter, Svalbard experiences four months of complete darkness, called the Polar Night, and even longer without actually seeing the sun. It’s fun that Svalbard claims to be Santa Claus’ home, but it is literally the last place on earth I even want to visit, much less live. 

In spite of all the reasons I can think of that make this part of God’s creation uninhabitable, including weekly snowstorms, shoveling snow, always wearing multiple layers and waterproof outerwear, carrying a shotgun to protect oneself from polar bears, and the fact that the phrase “where the sun don’t shine” applies in the literal sense, this influencer makes a living showcasing why Svalbard is the best place to live, and, more than that, I believe her!

Somehow, Cecilia has convinced me, a self-avowed warm weather person who loves trees, sandy beaches and visiting the tropical house at the zoo in what I like to call Marchuary (because it's still not warm enough for me) that Svalbard is a magical place.

How does she do it? And, more importantly, why does it matter?

Cecilia, an expat herself, is a naturally cheerful person and a gifted videographer. She also does what some people on the internet call “romanticizing your life.” On the surface, this trend popularized on the clock app preferred by Gen Z (you know the one, even if you don’t have it on your phone) seems like a superficial avenue for creating more highlight reels for your social media channels. I’m sure some people use it that way, but I’m here to argue that there’s value in acknowledging the highlights, especially in expat life. 

According to a quick google search, romanticizing your life means “taking the time to appreciate your day-to-day life, no matter how mundane some parts might be. It means understanding that even the small things in your life are important and valuable to your happiness.”

That sounds lovely, right? The foreigner’s daily life is so often muddled by expat paperwork, language bungles, making friends and raising kids in unfamiliar cultures, learning to enjoy food that is different from what we ate growing up, growing immunities to new viruses (which is another way to say fighting illnesses), cooking the building blocks of every meal from scratch, and bearing the scrutiny of neighbors. Is it possible to romanticize life that is frequently stressful and rarely boring? 

And for some of you, “frequently stressful and rarely boring,” has meant loss, terror, and sacrifice. Months of darkness have descended, uninvited, because of your circumstances. You might use words like “permafrost” and “barren” to describe relationships on the field. Your children have gotten terribly sick, your spouse hospitalized. You’ve had to leave your home immediately and under the cover of darkness. A massive earthquake tore through your town, or an army invaded. You ran out of money. Your marriage suffered. Depression settled upon you, unprovoked. Maintaining a habit of enjoying small pleasures or keeping a gratitude list will help in a season like that. But we must also remember that we are called to weep with those who weep. Sometimes we will simply sit in our sorrows, (or sit with our friends in their sorrows), and make our laments, and that too is part of expat life.

Regardless of the reason the flame has nearly been stamped out, here are five ways to kickstart a little romanticism for your life abroad. You don’t have to share on social media, but think about things in the spirit of social media: life is not a highlight reel, but it is good to acknowledge the highlights. The hard things will still be hard, but maybe, while things are hard, you can notice what’s good and beautiful and be grateful for it.

1. Shift your perspective. Lots of people dream about and make plans to move abroad, but you actually did it! You live abroad. Yes, sometimes that means to face extra unique challenges that are extremely frustrating, but it also means you’ve done something brave and exciting. Your expat life might not feel very romantic while you’re waiting for the fourth load of laundry to finish in your barbie-sized washing machine, but it is!

2. Enjoy the food. Your host country surely boasts a delicious treat that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. Maybe it’s a noodle dish from the street vendor down the block, organic coffee that was grown, picked and roasted in the same place, or the comfort food that is Spanish churros with chocolate.

3. Celebrate your language and culture acquisition. If you’ve learned (or are still learning) to communicate in a second language, next time you do so successfully, take note. It’s absolutely incredible to me that I understand jokes in a language I didn’t grow up speaking. Not all the jokes, mind you, but some. Speaking multiple languages is a miracle.

4. Go outside. Your host country has unique flora and fauna. Have you ever taken a walk to see how many different flowers you can find growing on bushes, between sidewalk cracks, or on your neighbor’s balcony? Take photos, even bad ones. One of our writers keeps a folder on her phone of beautiful photos she’s taken in her host country.

5. Take a staycation. A staycation is the ultimate act of romanticizing your life, because it offers the opportunity to enjoy an experience you might have taken for granted. For example, when the sun hasn’t yet arrived in Svalbard but the sky has a light, bluish tint to it, Cecilia posts stories about Cabin Season. Groups of friends take snowmobiles to different parts of the island, where they stay in old cabins previously used by miners. I dislike being cold, camping, and using inadequate facilities, three things encompassed by cabin season on Svalbard. Yet when Cecilia posts videos of her cabin trips, I believe I would enjoy eating homemade waffles by lantern-light while sitting on a pile of snow.

Romanticizing your life is just trendy talk for enjoying the little things. As an expat, so many of the "little things" are really the big things because they're done differently in a new context. The world is so full of wonder. Acknowledge moments of awe, both big and small, to stoke the fire and breathe new life into the flame. That will keep you warm when you feel frosty towards your expat life.

In this episode, we’re doing our second round of “ask us anything.” We didn’t have time to cover all the questions, but we do discuss boundaries, hosting guests, our expat marriages, advice for our first year selves, emotional/mental health, and the most interesting gifts we received from our host culture friends. We also give some rapid-fire answers to questions about books, music, recipes and what we would buy if money and luggage weight wasn’t an issue. Oh, and how good is your Victorian slang? Let’s find out via a pop quiz!

Connect with us!
 Denise
 Melissa
Alicia

Questions discussed in this episode: 

What advice for your first-year expat self?

How do you adjust your boundaries to fit your expat life w/out just tossing them away?

What would your best tip be for hosting visitors from passport country?

What is the funniest, best, or most interesting gift you received?

What is one thing you’ve done for your emotional/mental health?

What is the best thing you’ve done for your marriage while overseas?

What is your go to recipe?

What are you reading?

What are you listening to?

What are you watching?

One thing from Amazon you want (if money and shipping was not an option)?

Mentioned in this episode:

You Asked, We Answered: First Installment

Victorian Slang Article

A True Day in the Life by Taylor May

Alicia’s Dance Playlist

Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham

Gentle and Lowly by Dane C. Ortland

The Lady’s Guide to Fortune Hunting by Sophie Irwan

Phoolan Devi, Rebel Queen by Claire Fauvel

The Good Left Undone by Adriana Trigiani

Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown

So Many Beginnings: A Little Women’s Remix by Bethany C. Morrow

José González Music

Cunk on Earth (a little crass)

Survivor Season 43

Big Bang Theory

Frasier!!

Vegetarian Gyros

Pour Over Pie Crust (for Chicken Pot Pie)

Alicia’s Recipe:

Quotes from this Episode:

“I always relate it to having to borrow someone's clothes. Let's say your luggage didn't show up—you know, it got lost somewhere. It's going to show up later, but you have to borrow a few things to get by. It's not fitting well. It's not your style. It's not what you would have picked off the rack. But you have to use it until you get your own clothes back—until you feel like yourself again. You figure out how to be yourself in a new culture. It is possible, but it takes some time.” —Alicia

 “You don’t know anything.” —Melissa

 “You have to find the things your family is going to root in that you don't want to give up and then see how you can fit it in with the culture the best way possible. And sometimes the answer is it can’t.” —Denise

 “Learn by doing.” —Alicia quoting her husband, David

 “I like to find creative projects for me to work on—like this podcast. Those things are just good for me. I can listen to a book and do something creative—something productive that’s measurable.” —Denise

 “We had these previous roles in America where (my husband) took care of this and that and he knew how to do it. Then, all of a sudden, we're in a place where he doesn't know how to do everything. That's normal. Things are going to change in your relationship as far as who does what and whose role is what.” —Melissa

Find us online:

Join us on Instagram. 

Interact with other expats on our private Facebook group. 

Search for expat articles on our blog.

Get monthly curated resources monthly via our newsletter.

Show credits: 

Hosted by Denise James, Alicia Boyce, and Melissa Faraday // produced and edited by Melissa Faraday // content managed by Kim Johnson.

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Guest article by Jennie Schultz

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.

After breakfast that morning, I stole away to my friend’s second story open-air living room, the only place with phone reception on the property. I called both my parents, and my heart sank as each of the calls dropped. 

 I then resorted to texting my mom, seeking answers to the burning questions I had: “Is there any new information that I don’t know yet?” 

It felt maddeningly isolating to be so far away from family and feel as though I had only half the information about my dad’s condition.

 Tears began to flow as the responses trickled in. It was worse than I had thought.

 “You might want to consider coming once you’re done visiting your friends.”
“No way to know how long he has.”
“We’ve talked about final arrangements.”

By the end of the day, we were on the overnight ferry headed back to our island. After packing a single suitcase for all four of us, we flew to the capital city to start our international journey. Within the first twenty-four hours home, I broke our self-imposed COVID distancing precaution and ugly-cried on my dad’s shoulder. It was such a bittersweet relief to be physically with him.

Fast-forward about a month, and things were looking better than we had dared hope. He was told he could have anywhere from nine to twelve more months with continued treatment. My husband and I began to talk about our plans for returning to our island home.

Then, with one phone call, our five-week visit turned into an indefinite “special leave.” I was diagnosed with breast cancer. The shock and grief were joined by feelings of displacement. Our lives came to a screeching halt, or so it felt. Half our hearts were half a world away, along with our home and ninety-five percent of our belongings. But the lifesaving treatment I needed was right here in Boston, which is where God had us for such a time as this. 

I happened to be studying 1 Samuel at the time, alongside a handful of amazing ladies scattered around the globe (WhatsApp Bible study, anyone?). I began to identify with David in a way I had never been able to before. Have you ever noticed how circuitous David’s path to the throne was? For me, I guess I had taken it for granted. He was anointed, yes, but then had to wait for God’s perfect timing before taking the throne. Talk about displacement—he was forced to be a fugitive for no fault of his own and even flee to enemy territory to be safe from Saul, never mind all the hideouts in the wilderness for stretches of time. Very rarely does any story in Scripture (or in life) progress in what we think to be a logical, sequential order. There are detours, hardships, wilderness wanderings. How often did Paul write about his desire to go to a particular city or visit a certain church, only to be detained elsewhere?

With all that has happened in our family over the last year, you’d think I would just be grateful to be here in the States to receive the care I need and to have precious bonus time with my dad. While I am grateful, it isn’t so simple when you have two different homes in two different countries. However, the trouble comes when I start to elevate one of those homes above the other, thinking I am only able to please God when I am living in a particular place. 

When will it finally sink in that place has never been a requirement? 
It’s always been about a Person.

David didn’t need to be sitting on that throne to feel that God was pleased with him. He knew without a doubt that God was with him and for him wherever he happened to be—with sheep, hiding in caves, acting the fool in enemy territory. Not only was he comforted by God, but he also treasured Him. He wasn’t pining for a place or anything else because he knew he already had the ultimate inheritance in God and His promise of a true and forever-reigning King:

 “Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance” (Psalm 16:5-6 ESV).

John Piper paraphrases the sixth verse in this way: “Your sovereign goodness has fenced me in to God himself. The borders of my life are boundaries around where God is.” 

As I write this, I’m not sweating on my couch in our host country but wrapped in a heated blanket in a chemo infusion chair. I’m currently “bound” by a medical diagnosis and need for treatment which I am privileged enough to receive. God isn’t over on our island waiting for me to return so that He can resume working in and through me. How delightful that He, by His goodness, is right here with me, inviting me to be satisfied in Him alone. The hope remains to return to our home, but my location in no way influences my value to God, and I shouldn’t let it affect how I value Him either. No matter where I’m living, I want to be able to say with David, “the boundary lines have indeed fallen for me in pleasant places.”

What are the “borders” of your life? What circumstances brought you to a certain place, either physically or emotionally? Do you find yourself pushing against those boundaries, or do you see them as pleasant? 

This guest article was written by Jennie Schultz. Jennie currently lives in the Northeast U.S. with her husband, five-year-old son, and two-year-old daughter. Their island home is in Southeast Asia where they help run a tree-to-bar chocolate business. When she isn’t birding on nature walks with her family, you can find her curled up with her kids and a pile of library books, eating all the cheese, bagels, and berries. You can follow along with her cancer journey and cross-cultural life on Instagram.

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.

And then, suddenly, the support was raised, the condo was sold, and we left.

A single-family home in that neighborhood with the big monthly dues and the multiple  pools used to be our dream, but it was totally out of reach now. More importantly, it was not part of the plan we chose to follow. We didn’t really belong there anymore, and that was okay.

After we sold our condo, we went to Texas to live on the campus of a Bible college that featured a language school. Simply by parking our car in the carport of one of the cookie cutter apartments built for families, we belonged.

Shared faith, shared desires to serve, shared love for Spanish-speaking people and shared need to learn Spanish made us part of the community before anyone even knew our names. The warmth, hospitality, and care we experienced at language school filled us up for the challenges we knew we would face in the years ahead.

We were unique among our language school colleagues in one major way: our destination was Spain, not a country in Central or South America. We needed to learn a strange conjugation for speaking in plural you, to lisp the c and z sounds in Spanish words, and craft a flair for the dramatic—not to mention cultivate thick skin, if we wanted to fit in in our host country.

After language school, while we applied for visas to move to Spain, we spent six more spurious months in a rental near our former affluent neighborhood. The house was small, but the yard was big. We belonged because we used to live there. We also didn’t belong because we were about to leave again. 

Finally, we packed a lot of bags and bins and set off on our global adventure. Becoming an expat means belonging to yet another exclusive club. But–strange dichotomy–it’s a club full of people who live where they don’t belong. Learning the language, the cultural norms, and the common body language of the local people has enabled me to fit in. But as soon as I open my mouth and say the words, my accent gives me away. I have practiced and adjusted and pushed my tongue into unnatural patterns to master the phonetics of my second language, but there’s no mistaking my foreignness. It seems I don’t even have to speak. Just as I walk down the street, people say “hello” instead of “hola,” knowing immediately that I might be a willing recipient of their English practice. I’m constantly looking around in my host country, asking myself how I can make myself belong.

The timing of our first home assignment worked out so that I could attend my twentieth high school reunion. I dressed up, wore makeup, and had it in my mind that I might gloat, just a little, about my interesting, international life abroad. The route to the brewery in the foothills of the Cascades was an hour on windy back highways, which allowed me to revel in the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, so unlike my host country. As I passed country farms and U-pick fields, crossed bridges over small rivers, I thought of how I enjoyed being “back home” to do something fun and distinctly American, like a twenty-year reunion. Soon I was driving through a town I recognized as one we might have lived in, if we hadn’t moved abroad. That small condo was stifling at times, and we imagined moving a little further from the suburbs to get an actual house. We used to drive around these towns, trying to decide how far away from the city we could tolerate. Today, even these homes are way out of reach, and I had another thought: all this is not even for me. This is for people who live here. The judgmental refrain filled my mind: I don’t belong here. And, a moment later: that's ok, I don't actually live here!

It was a hard truth for me to learn that just because I don’t feel I belong in my host country does not mean that I will feel like I belong in my passport country. That ship has sailed. I've been changed by my time abroad. Yet, reflecting on my experiences before, during, and after my first term abroad, I see now how the yearning to belong has been an advantage. It's not a bad or uncommon thing to give up on fitting in by the way you look or the language you speak. We must redraw the lines of what makes us belong. While "expat" might be a fairly exclusive club, people looking for community exist in every corner of the world. Everywhere I live, I look for those people, and they become the place where I belong.

Guest article by Tanya Crossman

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. 

I’ve been reflecting on my journey a lot recently, as I’ve facilitated a coaching and community group for people who had been displaced from China/Hong Kong since the start of the pandemic. Even though I’m the facilitator—creating and sharing content, bringing icebreaker questions to the group—I feel as much a participant as anyone. It’s a wonderful experience to walk alongside each other as we unpack different elements of our journeys. We have been through similar experiences in the same context, and we understood. Shared stories are a blessing.

I was able to share about precious possessions that were lost forever due to a miscommunication and about the grief of not being present to say goodbye to—well, anything or anyone. I was able to share about how long it took me to realize: I don’t live in China anymore. And I was also able to share something I’ve explored a lot, in personal reflections and through therapy, over the last few years: the impact of living in limbo.

I have been living with my parents, in their home, in the house they bought when I was ten-years-old, for nearly three years. I am a married woman, and I turned forty while living here. This was most definitely not the plan. I’m not supposed to be here. I’m supposed to be in my own home, with my husband. 

When we realized I would not be able to return to China any time soon (and nearly three years later, that is still the case), we chose to leave. But as we do not share the same citizenship, that meant choosing immigration for one of us. For various reasons, we decided I would immigrate to his country. We have been working on that process for over eighteen months. 

This all means I have lived a ‘temporary’ sort of life for nearly three years now—living in a place I won’t stay, in a house that isn’t mine. My work is virtual/remote, as is my husband, and most of my friends as well. Most of my ‘in-person’ time is spent with family. I cherish this time (especially with my young niece and nephews) precisely because I know it is finite. At some undefined point in the future I will move to the other side of the world and no longer have access to them. Until then, I live here, in the in-between.

It can be very draining, emotionally and spiritually and physically, to live in the in-between. 

In between places, spaces, people, lives. 

Waiting for a shipping container to arrive, a job to be offered, an immigration visa to be granted, or an offer on a house to be accepted. 

Waiting for a sense of direction, to know where to next. 

Through my prolonged experience of limbo I have learned many lessons about how to do limbo life well–and how to do it badly! I have had times of joy and delight, and I’ve experienced times of deep depression. Most of what I’ve learned centers around one idea: movement. 

I am not stuck in limbo but rather am in a process of journeying through limbo. 

When we’re in a season of limbo, we generally don’t know when or how it’s going to end—when we’ll move, where we’ll move to, what our next job will be. This can leave us feeling stuck. I definitely feel that way sometimes. 

“I’m stuck in this country” or “I’m stuck in my parents’ house.” 

Yet even in seasons of limbo we can create movement. 

I can create small routines—be they weekly, or even daily. 

I can create small anticipations, and practice the emotion of excitement—whether it’s a TV show I’m watching with someone, or a visit to a cafe I like. 

I can also create goals which include expressions of creativity, hobbies, connection, or nature. If I make a goal to read three books, for example, and I finish three books before my season of limbo is over—I get a sense of accomplishment and movement, and can set a new goal. If my season of limbo is over first, I can continue working toward my goal in a new place. 

These goals come with a changed perspective of what my life ‘should’ look like. During this season of my life, thriving looks different. Rather than seeking to be on top of my game at everything, thriving during limbo means finding balance. I seek peace. And so I honor my mind and body for keeping me going through incredible stresses. I also honor my family—including my husband—for supporting me in this journey. 

Limbo tempts us to stuck-ness—to feel powerless and hopeless, especially when there is so much so visibly outside our control. Journeying through limbo means—without ever denying the pain of these external pressures—we get to choose how to move through life in the midst of them. 

—-

To learn more about the Displaced Lives community group mentioned, click here.

Tanya Crossman is an Adult TCK from Australia who lived most of her adult life in China. She currently lives with her parents in Australia (doting on her young niece and nephews!) while she awaits permission to join her husband in the US. She is the Director of Research and Education Services at TCK Training. Learn more about her at tanyacrossman.com and see her contributions to TCK research at tcktraining.com/research

Facebook/Instagram: @misunderstoodtck
Twitter: @tanyatck 
linkedin: tanya.crossman

Guest article by Jaclyn Rios Hoselton

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.

The initial transition period for an expat involves many pressures. In my situation, basic life skills had to be relearned or adjusted. Not only were we experiencing the stress of moving, but I was also learning the language, figuring out new social cues, adapting to the culture, and even new weather patterns. Moreover, my expat story involved being a new mom, and only two years into marriage. Everything was new.

Additionally, we needed to build a community. Our original goal for this was ambitious. We desired to make friends with locals, and not lean comfortably into the American or English-speaking expats bubbles. We were determined to actually practice the language. While the idea was good, my particular personality found it very difficult to put into practice. Making friends as an adult is a chore for most, and, as an introvert, even more complicated. On top of all the other changes going on in my life, the energy needed to build a community in a new language, in a new country, was incredibly difficult for me to summon.

For the first three years of my expat life, I struggled. Was building a community worth the effort if we were just going to move again? 

There were times I did not accept or reciprocate friendship because we were not “settling” here. This led me to project my unsettled, anxious subconscious onto my relationships. When I introduced myself to someone, I would often tack on “we may be moving soon” into the conversation. As a young mom, this did not only affect my own friendships, but also the friendships of my children. My extroverted husband didn’t seem to have a problem with this. No matter where we went, it seemed natural to him to integrate and pursue relationships. Why was I having such a difficult time?

“I don’t know where we’ll be next year,” I’d continue to tell myself.

But, does anyone?

Things started to change in year four when we were pregnant with baby number three and moving out of our tiny, let’s-just-get-by-apartment. We had not planned to be here for four years, but my husband unexpectedly got a job at the university. It seemed obvious our stay would be indefinite.

I got tired of waiting around for life to start. It slowly began to dawn on me that I had already wasted so much time by holding back for something that had yet to happen. Life is now. I would not get another season of having babies and toddlers. I would never be in my early thirties again. Slowly, my mindset started to change and I stopped tacking on, “we may be moving soon,” to all my conversations.

There were many factors involved in this mindset change. It wasn’t anything dramatic, but rather, a layering of various complex developments. One large component of it was that I enrolled in a degree program at the local university. By giving myself a specific and personal goal to work towards—not tied to anything but myself and this city—Germany began to feel more like home. Also, the work that I put into language learning slowly began to produce fruit. While I wasn’t fluent, it became easier to read emails or ask questions in German. Though cross-cultural relationships were still difficult for me to make, I was gradually making more efforts. 

It’s been eight years now and I am still living in the same city. I have learned that “not being settled” did not need to consume me in those early years, nor does it need to consume me now. While these were natural reactions, it is good not to worry about long-term eventualities. Simply stewarding what I am given each day is enough.

To the “just-arrived expat,” I would like to say: live as though you are planted in your new country, even if it’s for a short amount of time. Invest in where you are. Don’t view this move as an interruption to long term plans, but as an investment into your life and an opportunity to cultivate new and rich understandings of the world. 

This doesn’t have to be on a grand scale and you don’t need to tackle everything at once. Take it one small step at a time. Don’t worry if you will be around long enough to fluently learn the language. You need the language today, so learn some words and phrases. A local is reaching out? Reciprocate. Care for this person without wondering if the relationship will last long term. Make efforts to love your neighbor, even if they seem like small efforts.

I am still working towards putting this mentality into practice, but this mental shift has been rewarding and worthwhile. Living insularly, preoccupied with the self, is not loving to others, and will not allow you to thrive. If we think about our time and activity abroad as both investing into our future and engaging with the local community, it can be an enriching cultural experience that expands our horizons—even if we might be moving soon.

This guest article was written by Jaclyn Rios Hoselton. Jaclyn is an American expat living in Heidelberg, Germany. She has an MA in English Literature from Universität Heidelberg and is a wife and mom of three. She alternates between being hunched over the desk writing down words, and bursting out of the front door to run, bike, or garden. She loves a good story and exploring new cultures. You can follow her on Instagram @jaclynsbooks or Twitter @jaclynmarina.