transition Archives - Page 2 of 4

Rejoicing in New Life

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 28, 2015
Post category:gratitude transition

This week I fed our kids brown, free range eggs I bought from a neighbor, the first batch of regular eggs we plan to buy from her. Nothing wildly amazing about that on the surface (except oh sweet mama are they good!) but to me it is a victory. Why? Because it is one more small way I feel like I can see a good future here.

I have never witnessed the aftermath of a major storm, but I imagine that the first focus must be pragmatic – get the electricity running, the houses back together, the cracks filled. Do the things that must be done for life to function. What often cannot be rushed is for it to feel normal again, and for life to return. I’m talking about the animals rebuilding nests and the foliage coming back. It take time for a place to feel life-giving again.

Lately, I feel like I can look around and see the buds appearing. I see places where I can see a future. Our son started a new sport at school that he hopes to do all four years until he graduates. He came home from the first practice and said, “Mom, I finally feel like part of a group again.” And the people rejoiced. I walk into church and I know the majority of the people. How did that happen? The straw bales are in place for our garden and have decided to start growing grass without my permission or encouragement. Hey, at least they can grow something! I’m in a project at work I hope will continue long term. It feels like everything is coming up green.

The best part of losing something is that when you get it again, it tastes sweeter. That’s how this feels. I am doubly thankful because I know what it’s like to have been without. There’s new life all around.

Thankful

Post author:Gina B
Post published:November 27, 2014
Post category:gratitude

Thankful

As I stand in my kitchen this morning, preparing for Thanksgiving, I can’t help realizing that our time overseas has given me a new and deeper appreciation for certain things I didn’t have before.

I made a creme de menthe pie yesterday. Long story short, I had to make it twice.

All it required to remake it was a quick trip to the store for two inexpensive items. Overseas, I had to make the pie shell, make the marshmallow cream myself (with precious imported gelatin), make the whipping cream (purchased at great cost at the western grocery store 30 minutes away) and spend a few minutes convincing a person at Starbucks to give me three shots of mint flavoring.

I don’t take for granted that we can buy all the ingredients we need to make whatever people requested (in this house, in addition to the pie, it was green bean casserole and sweet potatoes with marshmallows). Not only are they available, but we can afford to buy them. In short, life is easier and cheaper here.

Not only that, we have a giant oven in which to cook food, and our microwave doubles as a conventional oven so I can cook them all at the same time. Our oven overseas was “big” because it wasn’t just a toaster oven. It wasn’t until our last three years there that we owned a refrigerator that was anything more than a glorified dorm fridge. That was ok though – chances were there was somewhere in your house cold enough to thaw a turkey. The problem was storing any leftovers.

And while we’re disappointed not to be spending the holidays with family, we have come to know the joy of celebrating with friends who feel like family. They, too, know what it’s like to not have this abundance. Today, we’ll be grateful together for all we have here.

As challenging as some of those experiences were overseas, I’m grateful for them too. They reminded us that the best gifts are not tangible. So maybe we didn’t have a turkey or the other traditional foods we knew. We have so much that cannot be taken from us – salvation, joy, eternal life, love. All these other gifts are above and beyond. My heart is thankful.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had these thoughts back on this side of the ocean. Here are a few other reflections:

Absence Makes the Heart Grateful

A Year of Thanks

Just When You Think You’re There

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 6, 2014
Post category:transition

I walked onto the field a few weeks ago for our daughter’s first scrimmage with a new club soccer team. It dawned on me that I had no idea which sideline parents were ours.

So I did what any person who is plain tired of initiating with others would do, and I used a lifeline to phone a friend. Safe in that conversation, I watched the game for 30 minutes until I had firmly established that I was, in fact, sitting with the opposite team’s parents.

Just when I think maybe we’re over this whole transition drama, it comes along to bite me in the behind. It crops up in the kids realizing that they don’t quite know what to do with themselves on the weekend because there aren’t a dozen friends within walking distance like there used to be, and it’s a fresh grief. Or when I once again get blindsided by the “present proof your children are immunized” process and I feel like an idiot outsider who can’t seem to get with the program.

Thankfully, we have a little more emotional bank account to draw from these days, but it’s still tough. It’s no fun explaining to your kids that it might just be this way for good, or at least for awhile. It’s embarrassing to admit that you didn’t keep great records of your kids’ shots overseas because you never knew you’d have to produce them in order for them to go to school. It’s tiring to once again be the new girl trying to break in.

It’s a whole lot of emotions that keep getting stirred. The journey continues, and we press on.

Experiencing God

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 3, 2014
Post category:faith transition

I’ll never forget the phone call from my husband in Singapore, telling me that we’d been asked to move there. The blood drained from my face at the prospect. I didn’t even know where Singapore was. I thought it was near Fiji (it is not near Fiji).

With less than 5 months to process this change, many details had to fall into place. We arrived on a Thursday night, hours after our co-workers there had been given the key to our new apartment. The next morning, as we sat in our empty dining room, we prayed that our shipment would arrive (we’d heard not a peep from the movers). Within 5 minutes, the doorbell rang. It was the moving company.

Looking back on it, I felt God’s tenderness. He knew how hard it was for us to move to Singapore, to leave behind the life we had. All those details falling into place felt like gifts from Him, saying, “I’m going to get you through this.”

Five years later, when we moved back into East Asia, the process wasn’t so smooth. Visa and shipping issues tied us and pushed our leave date again and again. I finally cried out in exasperation, “God, last time you were so tender with us! Why don’t I see it now?”

His answer was clear, “Because that’s not what you need now.”

It was true. I was overjoyed to be moving back to our previous home. I didn’t need comfort. I needed restoration after a long two years of ill health and loneliness. That summer was three months of glorious God-given re-everything: restoration, refreshment, rejuvenation, re-you name it. And through it all, I felt God rejoicing in giving it to me, cause that’s just the kind of God He is.

After those times, I was curious to see what aspect of His character I would experience most in moving back to the U.S. We moved back two years ago today (what??), so I thought it would behoove me to reflect upon it (and also, I like the word “behoove”).

I think more than anything, I have experienced God as the rock who anchors me. He has been my constant, my solid place. He has kept me from drifting too far from home. He has been the place I can rest when the waves are too strong for me. His strength has tethered me when I have reached the end of my resources again and again. He is the deepest truth about who I am when everything else is shifting sands.

What will He show me next?

Back to Normal, for Now

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 7, 2014
Post category:third culture kids transition

The other day, our daughter said, “If we could bring Scout out here, I would want to stay here forever.”

So it seems she is enjoying the summer. And why wouldn’t she be? Two of her oldest and dearest friends are here with her, along with a couple dozen other TCKs (Third Culture Kids), for six weeks. Weekday mornings we have meetings, during which the kids are together doing fun activities. The rest of the time we all live together in college student housing all centered around a common courtyard. We’re back to the days of, “I don’t know where the kids are, but I know they’re having fun. They’ll probably come home when they’re hungry.” In other words, it’s their paradise.

It’s also their normal. Our kids came into the world when we lived in a building with 29 other people we worked with, as well as nine kids under the age of 5, most of us within 5 stories of one another. We bought a security door with our American neighbors and placed it 10 feet down the hallway (instead of each of us having our own outside our doors) so that we could leave our own doors open for the families to go back and forth at any time.

When we moved to Singapore, we again had numerous families we knew all centered around a common courtyard, this time with a pool. Every day at 2 pm, that’s where we were. Our last two years in Asia, most of the people from our office lived within a 2 mile radius of one another. Between us there were 60 school age kids, and most of them were homeschooled. There wasn’t a day that went by without friends.

Then we came to the States, and our kids didn’t know what to make of it. Ethan’s managed to find some friends a couple blocks away, and they are over as much as possible, but we’re still praying for Megan to have at least one good friend in the neighborhood. They are realizing that what they grew up with just wasn’t the norm.

Throughout our transition, this has been one of the places of deepest grief for our kids. As much as they want life to be the way they knew growing up, they simply cannot make it that way. They are still trying to figure out how to do without.

And then we come here, and life IS that way, and we’re all kinds of happy and thankful and relieved (it’s hard to think of things to do without friends!).

So what is my conclusion? I confess I’m tempted to look ahead and gather my emotional energy for the fallout of losing this environment once again. I’m trying instead to simply be grateful for the gift of having this amazing community.

After the Storm of Transition

Post author:Gina B
Post published:July 2, 2014
Post category:transition

Have you ever walked through the woods after a big storm? You can hear the water still dripping from the trees, the animals venturing out again. The ground is soft, you find new puddles, maybe some downed branches. There’s a quietness in comparison to the fury of the storm. It’s back to normal, it seems, but great storms rarely leave things unchanged.

My last post was over a month ago. I could blame the end of the school year, or travel (we’ve been up to Minnesota and are currently in Colorado helping with a training). I’ll admit that the frequency of my posting is often directly proportional to the amount of time I spend with God. That might be part of it.

But mostly, I don’t have much to say. I feel like I am wandering through the woods of our lives after a great storm, surveying the land, wondering, “What next?” I am so accustomed to life being turbulent, I don’t quite know what to make of the relative calm.

That’s not to say we’re done transitioning back to the U.S. A friend out here said the other day that she’d heard it takes one year for every four overseas. That leaves us with about 2-2 1/2 more years to go. That’s both overwhelming and comforting, strangely.

Our time out here involves training people who are about to move overseas and go through their own storms of transition, so I just might have more to say about it. At the least, I think it will help me make some sense of this new view after the worst of the storm.

Longing for the Past-the Pangs of Transition

Post author:Gina B
Post published:May 19, 2014
Post category:transition

My Enneathought for today was, “I release feeling jealous of others and their good fortune.” Apparently, the people at the Enneagram Institute are aware that my husband is currently staying in our old apartment on the other side of the world, enjoying plates of gong bao ji dingr and catching up with old friends. I want to go to there.

He’s asked me repeatedly what he can bring back for me, but it’s not an easy question to answer. Can you bring back some gan bian dou jiao? Some jiaozi? Yao guo ji dingr? A honey lemon with aloe CoCo drink? How about some Lao Beijing yogurt? Ok, I’m truly not a foodie, but how could I not ask?

Actually, what I’d like even more is if he could bring me a head massage, followed by a foot massage, followed by a full body massage, preferably by a blind masseuse. In addition I’d like an hour or two to peruse the jewelry floor at Hong Qiao, a stroll down a hutong or two for some photo ops, and why don’t you also throw in some kind of “I have to blog about this” crazy experience on the street? Maybe involving an animal someone’s trying to sell me? And then absolutely you must bring Sung and Tammy and Elaine and . . . and . . . and . . .

Sigh. “I release feelings of jealousy of others and their good fortune.” As long as he can figure out a way to bring me some of it.

The House Checklist

Post author:Gina B
Post published:May 2, 2014
Post category:transition

People often ask me here, “So, are you in Orlando for awhile?”

And I answer, “Yes” warily, like I’m putting all my chips on red and crossing my fingers.

The reason is that I have never been in a place I thought I might stay. It’s hard to imagine that we could be here for 10 years or more. To date, Erik and I have lived in eight places in 16 1/2 years, if you don’t count my parents house (and we should, because actually altogether we’ve probably spent more than 2 of those years living with them on trips back). You can understand why I don’t have a long term mentality about housing.

On the one hand, there’s something appealing about being grounded. I bet I would know a place well if I lived in it for 20 years. Our kids could say, “This is where I grew up,” at least partly. On the other hand, I hear people talk about other places and a part of me says, “Where do I sign up?” The thought of one place for that long sounds kind of boring.

I have a list in my head of how long we have lived in different houses, and I am mentally checking them off as we pass each mark. So far, we have lived in Orlando only longer than the foreign student dorm (three months) and Bi Shui (13 months). Next up is our Minneapolis apartment at 17 months, followed closely by Euro-Asia Park at 18 months. Already, it’s feeling like we’ve been here “awhile.”

I don’t know if we’ll be here a long time or not. I guess I’m learning to hold places loosely. We’ll see if Orlando earns the record of “longest stay.”

You There Yet? Thoughts on Transition

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 25, 2014
Post category:transition

My due date with our first child was February 19th, 2000. Once that day passed, I had the vague feeling I had missed my chance and was therefore doomed to be pregnant forever. One of our teammates called from a trip in Thailand and asked me, “You have that baby yet?” I informed him that it was good thing he was in another country or I would have slapped him. Silly single guy. Never ask a pregnant woman that.

People sometimes ask me if we feel like we are through transitioning. If we’re “settled.” No worries – I don’t feel like slapping them when they ask, but I do feel like I wish there were a clearer due date, a definite answer. Sometimes it has felt like we’ll be in transition forever.

If transition is a mountain that we are trying to climb, then to be “through” transition should mean we’ll reach the top and start heading down the other side, right? And I would know if we’d done that. We haven’t.

The problem with mountains, though, is that there is no clear top. There’s no due date, no timeline. Instead, the top of a mountain is often flat, wide open spaces, with occasional ups and downs. You’re so close, but you’re still climbing.

That’s where I feel like we are, and may be for a while (thank God pregnancy’s not like that). It isn’t the arduous climb that it was, but all that took a lot out of us so all in all I’m a little tired of climbing. For the most part, we’re used to life here. Still, there are moments when I realize I operate from different values, different ways of doing things, different expectations. I still have moments when I ache for what we left behind. I’m not ready to fully embrace some aspects of life here.

But maybe the goal isn’t to be “done.” It’s to let all that we go through in life draw us closer to Him. It’s to enjoy whatever view we currently have, and I have to say, it’s a pretty good one these days. Transition is a big mountain, but it’s not the only mountain we’ve ever climbed or will climb. We just have to keep on going, trusting along the way. The journey goes on.

Transition Pass

Post author:Gina B
Post published:December 19, 2013
Post category:expectations transition

So the last couple months have felt like the steep transition learning curve has leveled off. It’s like when you’re mountain climbing (or maybe hill climbing – can’t say I’ve climbed that many mountains. Ok none. I’ve climbed none) and you get to that point where you can see the top. It starts to feel easier.

And then you turn a corner and there’s a sudden incline you didn’t anticipate. In my world, that’s called December.

I realized this morning that it’s been hard to admit this, for several reasons. First of all, it’s just tiring. I don’t like to keep feeling like I don’t have life figured out here. I don’t want to face the fact that I don’t have rhythms, routines, traditions, surrounding this time of year. I have empty spaces with no Christmas decorations because I lived for 13 years in places where they were hard to find. I feel like I should make Christmas desserts and give them to people, but after years of $5 bags of chocolate chips, I’m out of the habit. Are people expecting them? Who do we give Christmas cards to? Do I have to go to ALL these Christmas parties? The questions are endless.

Not only that, I can feel like there’s an expectation that we should be “over it.” People have said frequently, “So you’ve been here over a year now? You must be pretty settled.” Well, no, but now I FEEL like I should be. It’s easy to feel like I just need to get with the program and figure this season out. When I talk with friends who have been through this transition back to the States, they are quick to remind me that it’s not true – this creating a new normal takes time. I know that to be true. It’s just hard to be in the in between.

So I took some time Tuesday morning just to think about where we are and really what is important for us as a family. There are just some things that aren’t going to happen. Those 3 strands of Christmas lights I managed to buy (and then I realized I needed more like 8 to cover the house) will stay by the back door. They’re one of the things that we’ve decided get a “transition pass.” In my climbing analogy, this looks like me choosing not to try to summit that incline for now – I’m just going to circle around a little bit and try to enjoy the view from here.