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This is a quote I have come across many times in our years overseas. It has shown up in online retreats, books about Third Culture Kids, essays by expat writers, Instagram stories and Facebook posts. I have felt the sentiment behind these words to some extent during our visits back to the states in 2014, 2017, and 2019; the feeling growing stronger with each successive trip. However, with those journeys, we always had a returning, a coming home to what had become familiar, known and loved. 

And now after nine years of fighting to make our home here, we are looking ahead to the next time we will fly across worlds, and this time, there will not be a ticket to return us to our hard won home; this place of cultures and languages that are not our own, red dirt and thorns, veldt grass and lemon trees, goats and cows roaming freely and donkeys pulling carts, our neighbors we see during the day and party sounds we hear each night. 

Instead, sometime in May, we will head back to West Michigan. We will be taking up a life that will seem somewhat familiar, but we will be starting over in a new neighborhood, with two teenagers who carry childhood ideals about what life will be like. I am thankful we've been through this before and that I can anticipate the feelings of excitement and grief that will hit us all in the months to come. 

Darin and I have wrestled and prayed and wrestled some more as the timing of our return is a lot sooner than we have always talked about and planned for, but we both feel such an incredible amount of peace with our decision. We have seen God moving ahead of us and felt him walking beside us. We are excited about the opportunities that Tyson and Jori will have in the states, even as we mourn the relative ease of raising teenagers outside of the American culture. We are eager to live within a days travel of our families, yet we have already wept over having an ocean between us and the people God has given us as family here. We are excited about new possibilities and totally bummed about leaving the routines and familiarity of our life here. 

May is still a ways off, and we plan to fit a lot of fun into our time here, while also preparing for the fun things that await us wherever God sees fit to plant us. And while we now face living in the tension of being in a place that is home, but also not, we go forward together.









Comments

Anonymous said…
Sometimes it's so hard to live in the and! Things that are so hard and beautiful. Things that are what needs to happen and what will hurt! I've done this many times! And I'm so thankful for the God of the and
October 10, 2020 at 8:39 AM
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