Crossing Paths

Today was a beautiful day with the sun shining and a blue sky. It was a perfect day for a walk. This weekend is the last big training walk before the big walk. Walking 12 miles does give some time for talking but also time for enjoying the beauty and thinking.

I was walking and looked up at the sky and saw the trails from two planes. I thought about how as missionaries our lives and paths cross with others. Some of those are the people that we meet overseas and some are the people that we meet that are friends of friends. I think this is one of the blessings of living overseas.

I have a good friend that was introduced to me from another friend because my friend was moving to Hong Kong.

We had a coworker in Taiwan that we have kept in touch with and now she is in Europe so we have gotten together at various times.

The wife of a mentor of my husband's was living in Hong Kong when we were there and she became a good friend. The fun part was we connected with her when we were in Taiwan. She had come to town for some meetings and visited the church we were attending. Of course my husband knew who she was and we chatted.

About 13 years ago there were some returning students from England that we met. They began to come to a Bible study in our home. Now 13 years later we are in that city in England and we have met the people that had a Bible study with that group of students.

I remember a friend connected me with a friend of hers when we were in Ukraine and that friend connected us with a lady in her church who was kind and spent a few days with us touring Kiev.

One of the blessings of living overseas is the people you meet both the people in the host country and the other people that are living there. My life has been deepened because of these relationships. My life has broadened because of these relationships.

Embrace and enjoy the relationships you develop overseas.

Beth

Living in Transition - Memories

I have written a various thoughts about living in transition -- homeschooling during transitions, kids in transition, living through transitions when the end is in sight, and the holidays while in transition.

Now are settled or maybe in some ways still settling in but we are no longer in transition. As I look back, I think one of the important things was making memories during the time of transition.

We have memories of friends we did things with, places we shopped at, things we ate, and many other things during that time of transition.

We talk about our memories but one of the biggest things that my children enjoy is looking through their scrapbooks. I create a family book and then a book for each of them.

Here is 4 1/2 inches of pages remembering ice cream sandwiches in Singapore, our day in San Francisco, birthdays, and other memories for the past 18 months or so.

This is my project since the middle of August to put the photos on pages for in the scrapbooks. I now need to go through that stack and sort what book they go into, put them in chronological order, and see what might be missing.

I need to order photos for August to now but just being this caught up is a good feeling. I think I will order the photos in January and that can be a project for the winter.

Do you keep scrapbooks or memory books for your family?

Beth

Living through Transitions - When the end is in sight.

The end is in sight. After more than a year of transitions, we are seeing the end to our transition. As we view the end it is interesting how things change. The emotions are excited but sad. We are moving on but sad to leave.

It is different when the end is in sight. The stress begins to increase as there are physical things to be done -- packing, cleaning, and last minute shopping. The emotions play into how we are feeling as we have to say good-bye, we are leaving things. There is also a spiritual element as we are preparing to serve in a new place.

We need extra patience at this time. For me it seems that as the stress increases the patience decreases. While that might be the natural tendency but I need to depend more on the Lord to give me the patience.

We have lots of little things to do but at the same time we are also trying to place some fun good-byes. We went to Yogurtland for the last time. We still want a trip to Krispy Kreme. We are using up our gift certificates. I have asked the kids what they would like to do so that we attempt to have some good-bye time here.

Just as we have gotten through this time of transition by resting in the fact that God has called us that is what continues to carry us through the last challenges. The last year has been a journey of faith and now we are beginning to have sight.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 

Hebrews 11:1

So we pack our suitcases, say our good-byes and begin a new journey of faith as we move. It is exciting to be at this point.


Beth

Homeschooling During Transition

This is an animal airplane that the children made. 

If you open it up, you will find it full of animals.  

This has been a year of transitions. Over a year ago we left our house on the east coast to spend some time on the west coast with our church here and supporters. We came thinking that we would be here for four months but those four months stretched into 13 months. In some ways we are settled but in many ways this is a time of transition.

Some of the things that I have learned during this time.

Keep going - Given the amount of time we had to keep doing school. School gave my children a routine that they were used to and kept at least that part of their life normal.

Make adjustments to curriculum - I couldn't have everything that we use and enjoy with us so you might have to make some adjustments to curriculum. When we came in February, I brought what we needed for the spring thinking that we would be settled for the fall. That didn't happen and so I had to make some adjustments. A time of transition might be a good time to do a unit study or some other learning activity. We are getting ready to do a unit study on Ancient Greece and Greek Myths.

Make adjustments to the schedule - The joy of homeschooling is the flexibility to the schedule. There were days that I put the books aside to meet emotional needs. A few days we need to just talk about we were feeling, what we missed, or what we looked forward to.

Look for new things to do - For us we have been here for longer than we planned but we have been able to do some things like swim team, co-op. We have done a few field trips maybe not as many as we could have but we did have fun.

Give grace - there were days that we need to give each other grace. There are times that we needed just a bit more patience with one another.

Guard your attitude - I know that my attitude sets the tone for our learning. I have to guard my heart. If I am complaining about the things we don't have, the children will pick up on that and add more comments.

At times living in transition has been difficult but homeschooling during the transition has helped us. We do have things that we are looking forward to unpacking and using. I trust that this has been a good family time for us and that we will look back with lots of memories.

Other posts about transition include:
Kids in Transition
Holidays while in Transition
T is for Transition


Beth

T is for Transition

What if the transition goes longer than you planned? What if you have no idea when transition will end? We did not plan to be in transition this long.

In a few days we will mark one year that we moved out of our house. Our plan was to be on the west coast until the beginning of July then training and settle in our new house in a new country in August. That didn't go as we had planned. We are still in transition, still waiting.

As this has gone on longer than we planned, the one verse that comes to my mind is Isaiah 55:8, 9, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

We are trusting that God's timing is perfect and that he has a reason for us being here longer than we planned.

We are keeping busy with school and work.

We are doing fun things like taking a knitting class, art classes.

We are doing family things like celebrating birthdays.

Those things and more are helping but at times all we can do is cling to the truth that God is in control and he will work all the details out in his timing.

We wait with hope for what God is going to do.

The other thoughts about transition are Kids in Transition and The Holidays while in Transition.

Beth

The Holidays while in Transition

I wrote previously a bit about kids in transition. We are still in transition and with the holidays approaching it brings new and different feelings, emotions, and challenges.

The dictionary defines transition as "passage from one state, stage, subject or place to another." It sounds so simple and easy. At our training this summer, the illustration that was given for transition was the trapeze artist between swinging bars, that short time letting go of the one bar and grabbing the next swinging bar. That in between time is transition. Most move quickly from one bar to the next. For our family we are still in that in between place called transition.

So we currently live in transition.  We didn't plan to be in transition this long. We packed our boxes in February and thought we would be unpacking in September in the UK but God had other plans. We are waiting. We are still praying that we will be able to move in January.

Turkeys are on sale. Christmas tree stands are popping up in parking lots. Christmas stamps are available at the Post Office. We are living in the mission house, waiting, in transition.

So how do we celebrate the holidays?

Don't mourn what we don't have. I planned to have my Christmas things by the holidays so I didn't keep even little things to make it feel special. I have to guard my mind and not allow myself to mourn the things that we don't have -- the special stockings that my friend found with my son and daughter's name at the LL Bean outlet, the stockings I made, the Jesse tree ornaments, even some of my recipes, Christmas CD's and DVD's, or books. We are far from family. I cannot allow myself to dwell on those things.

Celebrate what we have. We are together as a family. We have a house to stay in and Bob found some Christmas decorations in the house. I also found some cookie cutters. We have friends here.

Look for ways to enjoy the traditions. There are some things that are hard to do because of the transition but looks for ways to enjoy the traditions you have enjoyed. We can drink hot chocolate and drive around and look at the lights. We might be able to find a live nativity to visit. I bought some socks to use as stockings.

Create new ways to celebrate. We have friends here and so we will enjoy our time with them. Someone told me about their tradition, everyone gets their favorite cereal. She even wraps them up because as she said they look great under the tree. That might be a fun tradition to our Christmas morning.

Remember the purpose, reason for the transition. Our family has been called to go overseas. We are waiting for our visa. I need to rest in the fact that this is where God wants us at this time. This is not about me and my family but about God and His plan for the world.

Remember the reason for the holidays. Thanksgiving is the time to remember and think of the things that we are thankful for. This year we are going through the alphabet listing things that we are thankful for. I will share the list later. Christmas is that time of celebrating Christ's coming to earth.

I am writing this because I needed the reminder myself. I also know that I set the tone of our family this holiday season. I might need to go back and read this a few times this holiday season.

What memories do you have of holidays while in transition?


Beth

Kids in Transition

Yesterday J was having a rough day. He ended up spending most of the day in his bedroom. He did tell me that he fell asleep on the floor. Maybe that was part of his reason for a rough day. He started out better this morning. Then there was another squabble between the siblings and I realized I needed to do something before we repeated yesterday. Running to his room today was not going to be the answer. I had been praying all morning for wisdom and strength. I did the old standby trick that moms use sit in a chair and look at your sibling. After sitting for some time, I asked him to say something he liked about his sister. The first thing he said was nice with a bit of a twist but we kept going. She said something nice and we went back and forth with me adding some positive things in there as well.

Somehow that lead to a bit part of the issue yesterday and today -- missing friends and family. He sat and cried which I assured him was okay. He misses his best friend with his three brothers where he would often spend a Sunday afternoon. They were on the same soccer team for three years. He misses his friends that he would hang out with during small group. He missed his friend from our first co-op and also goes to our church. He missed his friend that he would visit on Sunday. He misses going to the Rock with other homeschoolers from church. God has blessed him with many friends there in the four years that we lived there. He misses going to Grandpa and Grandma's house and spending time with cousins. He misses his aunts and uncles. He cried has he doesn't feel like he has friends here. Moving is hard. Transition is difficult.

As parents, we made the decision to "Go ye into all the world. . ." J is excited but the reality is it is hard and at times lonely. It is hard to watch a child hurt and grieve.

I learned that sometimes one behavior might be hiding another feeling. The squabble was wrong and needed to be dealt with but we also needed to find what was deeper and needed to dealt with. In this case he just needed to talk about it.

I needed to be willing to put things aside and listen and even pull it out of him. I know it was worth it because at least twice today he told me "thank you."

In the hard times there are joys. Listening to the two of them tell things they liked about the other was encouraging. J liked the way Miss K dances. Miss K said J likes to ride his bike and fly a kite. I know that they love each other.

I am thankful that I was there and was sensitive to listen to him today. I am praying that he feel free to share. It has also opened the opportunity for us to talk about this some more.

So when you pray for missionaries, pray for their children. Pray that in all the transitions in their lives they will be comforted.

We do have some things in place for the fall if we are here -- a co-op and a swim team for homeschoolers (how exciting is that).


Beth, who was going to write about siblings but this came out instead, praying that it will bless you.