Before we moved overseas I tried to find women who had lived overseas with their families, to meet with them and pick their brain for wisdom in hopes of having accurate expectations for when we moved overseas. One lady I met with was an overseas missionary for a number of years with her family. As we sat down at my kitchen table for coffee I remember asking her, "how long was it before your new country felt like home?" Her quick and sure response startled me, "Three years. It took three years before my new country felt like home." Three years? I doubted her and secretly tossed aside her answer, telling myself "oh it will be different for me." But May 1, 2017 will mark our family's three year anniversary, and you know what? It is just now starting to feel like home, truly really.
But before you start to feel sorry for me, let me say that doesn't mean that for the past three years life has been miserable. No, not at all. It just means I didn't have the settled comfortable feeling of home and so many things were all still new and different. But I don't think it was just one thing that changed that all of a sudden made my new country feel like home. It was a mixture of things with the key ingredient being time itself. But here is a list of some of the other elements that has made me feel at home and no longer on a perpetual vacation or camping trip.
1. Hanging up framed pictures of my sons on the wall. Ha ha... this obviously shouldn't take three years to do, but everyone has the one final box that never gets unpacked and for me it was my box of framed photos for the wall. My excuse though is that my walls are made of concrete and you need an electric drill to hang them properly and we are not exactly a DIY handy kind of family. ;) But another missionary friend gave me this advice that she herself received from yet another missionary. Which was when moving overseas bring some of your household items that visual remind you that this is your home. It was preciously that advice that made me pack up those big heavy framed photos. Ha ha... it just took three years to hang. There is something about family photos hung on the wall of the staircase that makes a house feel more homey.
2. Realizing it is okay to be American. Funny though, because this was exactly the advice that another missionary told me before we moved. She told me to remember it is okay to be American. So even though I knew that in my head, I still had to experience it myself. When you move to another culture there is a desire to learn a new way to do things, to learn how they think, to learn in order to fit into the culture and not be an outsider. But at what point can you say, "Okay thank you, I will take this part of my new culture as a way to thinking, but I will retain these aspects of my home culture." I think this just takes time to sort that all through. Realizing it was okay to be American has really freed me up and taken off a lot of pressure. I am an American and there is comfort in knowing who I am. Drive across town to eat at the Subway restaurant? Yes please! I have so many high school and college memories from Subway that it is the biggest comfort food I have here and I am no longer ashamed admit my comfort in it.
3. Learning to thrive and not just survive, which ironically is a tagline on another missionary blog I like to read. I didn't realize it, but I had just been surviving these past three years - like on a perpetual vacation. Things would break in the house, only to break again a couple months later. So I chalked it up to, "Oh well, I am a missionary now, I guess this will be my sacrifice... a broken leaking toilet. Those mud hut living Africa missionaries have such big sacrifices, surely I can endure a broken toilet." That would become my chant when broken and poorly designed household items would bother me. Like I was singing to myself with my thumbs in my ear, "La la la! I can't hear you!" But a wonderful Filipina noticed all of these inconveniences in my house and questioned why I didn't just change it to make it more convenient. Specifically because she was a local who made that comment, I felt like I received a free pass to make things more convenient and comfortable in my home. She then gave me the name and number of a skilled and trustworthy handyman who came over and fixed all of those items (a 19 item list I made for him!)
4. Menu planning and supermarket knowledge. When you are at home and need to go grocery shopping, a certain portion of the activity is involuntary and one can almost go through a good portion of it without every having to engage in active thinking. But when you are not sure what items are found at what store, or even sold in the entire country, it takes time. It takes time planning your menu, because what dishes can you make with the kitchen utensils you have stocked in your own kitchen? Also, how big is your non-American sized refrigerator and cupboard space? No more super-sized Costco runs means adjusting a once a week grocery run into two or more grocery runs. When you are able to go grocery shopping and get stopped with your cart when the entire supermarket full of employees break out into song, a jingle written to the beat of "we will we will rock you", a jingle that gets stretched to its limit as it goes on for a full stanza. You secretly are a bit embarrassed for the 10 plus employees encircled around your cart (after all you are still American and your instincts tell you this isn't quite normal), but you smile because it makes shopping fun and you are home.
5. Making friends you turn to first instead of doing timezone math to figure out how to talk to your friend in time of need. "Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other is gold," the jingle all good girl scouts learn, right? Another missionary told me to expect it to be one full year before I made new friends, as she had moved a lot in her life and that is the time frame she noticed it took before she started making new friends after a big move. So as I approach the 3 year mark I am so excited for friendships God has blessed me with and are starting to get more and more precious. Having friends you can make girl plans with just because really brings the comfort of home. Having friends you can contact at a moments notice to let them know you are struggling and they run over with a chocolate cake to just sit and chat... that is home. Another missionary advice from a wife to her husband, "I can live anywhere in the world if I have at least one friend."
6. Learning the seasons and rhythms of the year. Knowing when to expect the season will change, when the rainy season will arrive, when the mosquito activity will increase, when the malls will decorate for Christmas and play Christmas music, when the relief of heat will come. Learning the rhythms of the year helps it feel more like home because you can look forward with expectation and longing to the parts of the year that are soon becoming your favorites. For me, my favorite season is rainy season, I love the immense power and quantity of the rain.
7. Family routine and being able to anticipate your husband's schedule and responsibilities, rather than living reactively. Again this doesn't seem like a point that should have taken three years. But I think our adjustment period was lengthened because of the nature of my husband's work, full time ministry calls for flexibility and defies structure. So learning how I could still have a routine for the household chores and kids schooling, and at the same time remain flexible for my husband's always unpredictable schedule just takes time. But routine always makes one feel more at home.
8. Having a church body that becomes family. I love the church and God's design for it. Even back home (I have two homes now), church life and involvement in the body was a big part of my life. So I knew that when we moved here I wanted to be involved in the body too. Not just the missionary that travels around and stands in front but doesn't know the people. I wanted to know the people and be among them. It dawned on me and my husband the other week when we were attending our first wedding of a couple from our church, that this local church body has become our home.
Well, this post surely got longer than I anticipated so I will wind it up now. And as yet another missionary has commented, "I have two homes now." And I can fully agree. Home sweet home.
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