Keep Climbing

You know those guys who lead mountain climbing expeditions up Mt. Everest? The ones who seem unstoppable, who go without oxygen and on whom you can trust your life? My husband could be one of those guys. That's how he lives, like he's got 6 extra hours in every day and nothing phases him. You think I do a lot? He can run circles around me (actually, back when we first tried running together, he literally would run circles around me. Not great for my self-esteem. Hence, we do not run together).

If I were on an expedition to Everest . . . well, I just probably would never do it. It sounds hard and cold and life-threatening, and I tend to avoid those three, certainly any combination of them. This is why I have my husband - he helps me keep climbing.

In coming back to Orlando after a wonderful summer in Minnesota and Colorado, I feel like I'm coming back to a mountain climbing expedition in the form of continued transition. Over the summer we had a glorious break from trying to figure out how to do life. Within 24 hours of getting here, I had this vague, overwhelmed, tired feeling and I realized, "Oh right, I have to go back to climbing this mountain."

There's no way around it. It's the steep learning curve of finding our bearings. Transition can feel like that - you're striving toward that place where it's easy, where relationships are already formed, where routines are established, where you've got this, but you're not there yet. You won't get there if you just give up and stop climbing.

We've made a lot of progress in the right direction and I'm thankful. Still, even though we've been in the States for almost a year, this is our first fall in Orlando and it brings lots of new experiences to be conquered. We're getting higher but we're not done.

So I have to daily ask God for help to keep climbing, to put forth the effort to initiate, to seek out what we need, to face the areas where I still feel unsure, to keep engaging with our hearts. I know eventually we'll get to a place where the terrain evens out a little and we can just enjoy the view for a little while. Until then, deep breath, one step at a time.

Don't blame location

When Erik first told me we were moving to Singapore in 2004, I had to look it up on a map. I had an idea that it was near Fiji.

It is not near Fiji.

I quickly learned more about our new tropical island home than its location, just short of the equator and connected by bridges to Malaysia. I learned that it was the cleanest, safest, most efficient, most affluent, and most beautiful place I've ever been. What's not to love about Singapore?

And yet, through our time there, I met plenty of women who hated Singapore. Couldn't find a thing to like about it. Really? How is that possible? It's a tropical island for Pete's sake. You live where people dream of vacationing.

The reason was that it wasn't Singapore they hated. It was their circumstances. Singapore just happened to be the unlucky backdrop. These women generally were expat women in transition, uprooted from all they loved, their homes, their families, and dropped into a lifestyle quite unlike what they'd ever known. They were lost, lonely, bored. They probably would have been lost, lonely, and bored in whatever country God dropped them, but they happened to be in Singapore and so it was at fault.

I learned two things from those women - first, that every place has its ups and downs, and you have to make a choice to focus on the ups. Second, and more importantly (because truthfully, some places do have fewer ups) I have to separate how I'm doing internally from where I am or I will miss growth.

People have started asking me how we like living in Orlando, and I have to remind myself to stop and take away the lens of transition that colors our first six months there. Though Orlando has been the context for some tough moments, it is not the cause of them. When I do that, I can say that yes, we really do enjoy living there.


Blaming location misses the real issues. It's easy to say "I just don't like this place. Life would be better somewhere else" rather than to acknowledge and deal with what our circumstances are doing to our hearts. The great news is that sometimes we can't change location, but we can always change how we look at them.

Do you miss China?

People often ask me if I miss China. I really don't know how to answer this question, because what comes to mind is the pollution this year that has been so high it's unmeasurable by the current systems. Obviously I can live without that. I miss friends terribly, but several of them have also left in the last year as well, so I know that life there would be very different now. I confess I find America a little boring at times - I go to the store and nothing weird happens, ever. Is that enough to make me miss China? No. I can make my own weird.

We spent time recently with friends we knew in Singapore. We talked about how, initially, my friend missed it so much after moving back here that she just wanted to go back to Singapore, but the reality was, it wouldn't be the same. We agreed that what we miss wasn't necessarily the place itself, it's the intangibles.

It's things like community. I miss meeting people for the first time and being dear friends with them a month later, because that's how things work overseas. I miss bonding like soldiers during war time, hunkering down together when the waves of living cross-culturally are too rough.

It's feeling competent, knowing how to be an adult in the place where you are. I don't know how to own a house. I don't know the norms of being a parent in America. One day I will figure out this DVR thing.

It's being known and understood, having routine, being more comfortable being the only white face than looking like everyone else. These are the things I miss, because they are the things I think we all desire from anywhere we live (except maybe the white face thing. That was just our normal).

I had those things. I miss having them. I know I'll gradually get them back, over time, for the most part. So do I miss China? Let's just say "I miss that life."

Almost There

We're almost there.

It was more than a year ago that the possibility of Orlando snuck into our lives through a series of phone calls that led us from, "No thank you" to "Wow, I guess we're really doing this." That's a long  limbo.

The waiting can be wearying, draining, frustrating, full of "let's just get to the next step!" It's hard to stay engaged. It can also be exciting as we ponder the new, the novel, the "what's ahead."

Thankfully, these last few months of the waiting between there and here has been spent quite pleasantly. Sort of like having to circle the airport but in the meantime they bump you up to first class. We've had the blessing of a slower schedule, a comfortable place, plenty of time with friends and family. It's been good.

In two days we will begin the three day journey to Orlando. We'll take my parents and my sister, our two dogs, two mini-vans and a trailer, drive to Milwaukee and pick up my brother and sister-in-law and their dog, and drive to the other end of America. By this time next week, we'll be Floridians (technically. Can I retain Minnesota status?)

We're excited. The waiting is almost done. At least once a day one or more of us says, "Can we just go now?"Soon. We're almost there.

The Familiar

People might guess that our 13 years overseas in various locations means I'm a girl who loves adventure, but this would be an erroneous thought. I like familiarity. I like routine. I like consistency. I eat the same thing every day for breakfast, almost without fail. That's how I roll.

One of our last weeks in Asia, I was driving a new friend around town, and she said, "I can't wait until I know this city like you do. You just seem to know how to get anywhere." Indeed, it was very familiar to me.

So here we are in Orlando this week, our future home, and I find myself longing for that kind of knowledge. I want to sense, as I'm driving down the 417, how much further it is to our exit. I want to have a need for a certain store and know instinctively how far it is from where I am. I want to be able to drive on mental auto-pilot to other parts of town. I want to know this place.

As I was pondering this yesterday, God reminded me that I do already have something constant, something familiar, and it is Him. In every new place, He is there. He is the same here as He was in Asia. His character and His ways toward me are steady and unchanging.

This is where I need to put my focus, my faith. My city view may change, but He remains the same.

Who will you be?

Sometime in the summer I was reading the story of Moses sending the spies ahead into Canaan. All but two of them came back with a report that, although the land was flowing with milk and honey, the people there were strong and the cities fortified and large. These latter things were unappealing to them.

But then Caleb stepped up and said, basically, "We can do this." Joshua seconded that with, "If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us . . . the Lord is with us."

I read this story around the time when Ethan seemed to be struggling the most with our future life in America. He's a realist, like me (it sounds so much better than pessimist), and he was seeing the difficulties of transitioning to new friends, new places.

So I shared this story with him, because when I read it, I felt clearly that God was saying, "Who will you be like Gina? Will you look ahead and only see the obstacles, or will you look ahead with faith and hope because you believe that I am leading you to this place?"

It's hard to go into an unknown place after one you've loved so well. But this morning as I sat on the deck, warm sun on my face, I was encouraged by recalling this story. I'm not saying Orlando is the promised land :) but it is the place to which He is leading us, and we will trust in His goodness as we anticipate life there.

Finding Home

Home. Where is it? It’s become a nebulous concept for me after all these years. Why is it that we have such a need to call something a home? I don’t know, but we do, and when we don’t have it there is a lostness, a feeling of not being tethered.

In our last few days in China, Megan cried to me a few times that she wanted to go “home.” She meant our recently vacated house. It is still your home when someone else’s belongings now fill it? As we descended the escalator at the airport that took us out of sight of our friends, she again cried, “I want to go home!” It broke my heart to keep leading her away from it.

Our next home awaits us in Orlando, although right now it is an empty house. How long will we have to be there before it feels like home for us?

Last night I was praying for someone I know who recently moved to Orlando. She posted on her blog about some of their transition stress, and as I was praying for her, I felt led to pray that they would find that sense of home in Orlando.

I prayed it because that is my desire for our family as well. We are in that in between place where our roots have been pulled up and have not yet sunk in elsewhere. It will be awhile before we find home again, but I know we will.

When Does It Feel Real?

I live in America. I live in America. I live in America.

No matter how many times I think it, it doesn't feel true. Granted, I've been on American soil just over 24 hours, but it doesn't feel even remotely true. When will it?

I have moments when I realize that it is true, but mostly I have to remind myself. Like when I feel this need to buy everything we need in a mad rush like we usually do when we're back for a visit. When I sign up for cell phone service, and not just the one month kind. When I see a clip on the Today Show about China and have to tell myself, "You don't live there anymore."

I suppose it will become more real when I pick out paint colors for our house. Certainly it will be more real when we move our furniture in there right? When we change our permanent address, when we buy plants for our yard, when we get a year long membership at the Y, when we hunt for a church, when we get Florida driver's licenses.

Then will it be real? 

That's Our Cue

A friend just told me that in the movies, rain signals change.

This morning as we look out, the rain is pouring down.

I'm disappointed that it thwarts my plans for one last run, one last walk around the neighborhood with my camera to capture the Sunday morning activities. I hope it doesn't keep us from enjoying our last lunch with friends before we go.

Last things. Time to go. The rain is falling so I guess that's our cue. Goodbye Asia!