Eleven Years

As I have every year on July 3rd since 2010, the anniversary of my first full year abroad, I like to take some time to reflect on the year behind and look ahead to the upcoming year.

What a year this has been.  When I last wrote a year ago, we were considering buying a house here in France.  We decided we definitely wanted to shortly after that and I started looking at listings, but we hadn't gotten any further than that.  Then one day as Cristian was walking home from the train station he ran into one of the men who works at the agency we rented through and he asked if we'd be interested in looking at a house.  A couple of weekends later we looked at two houses, and loved the 2nd one.  We were a little worried we were rushing things to jump into buying a house we saw on the first day, but it fit almost perfectly with our wish list, so we put in an offer.  Buying a house is a slow process in France, so it took around 3 months from then until we finally bought the house and we moved in on January 25th. 


Then, somewhere around 6 weeks later, just about when we were feeling settled and ready to host a house warming party, the whole world ground to a halt.  We were on a strict lock down here in France for 2 months.  I left the house once a week (with a signed affidavit saying where I was going) to go grocery shopping and Cristian didn't leave at all.  School was shut down and we had 3 days to figure out how to do distance learning. I'd never imagined trying to teach elementary school online and the first couple of weeks were a challenge, but I soon found some sort of rhythm, spending mornings conducting small group video calls and afternoons making video lessons and recording audio for powerpoints. 

Having a new house with a yard and garden was such a lifesaver for me.  Weathering lockdown is easier when you have a green space.  I started vegetables from seeds I got from the grocery store and despite my less than ideal growing conditions, eventually nurtured them to the point I could move them outside.  I'm still waiting on my tomatoes, but we enjoyed a harvest of sugar snap peas.  There's a mature cherry tree in our backyard and we had an amazing cherry harvest and tried canning for the first time, making jars of jam as well as chutney, barbecue sauce and cherries in syrup.

On May 11, we ended our super strict lockdown and things gradually started opening, including schools.  I was extremely anxious about wearing a mask all day, and nervous about reopening too soon and all of the measures we'd need to follow, but starting back to normal life really helped me mentally and emotionally.  And masks, while certainly not my favorite, turned out to be not as horrible as I'd feared.

School finally ended on June 30, and despite the nearly 3 months that I didn't teach in person during the school year, I'm still so ready for a break.  I have a long to do list to tackle this summer, getting ready for going back to the classroom again next year, perfecting my French, and doing some not-so-fun administrative tasks I've been putting off.

It's funny writing this 1 year update now that I feel so settled.  Presumably I'll be in the same country and same house for years now that we've bought a home.  But I still like the time for reflection- changing countries and jobs aren't the only changes in life! I'm hoping that the next big change I'll get to experience will be becoming a mother.  After all, we have this big house with bedrooms to fill now. 😉

The Proposal

Cristian had just gotten in the night before and after a long, tiring journey, a late night, and jetlag, watching a movie together seemed like the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. So we cuddled up on the couch and he started About Time, a movie he said he thought sounded good and he had on his computer.  Fifteen minutes in or so, he turned to me and said, "Wait, this takes place in England?" Bemused, I asked him if he hadn't noticed their accents. It was a charming, sweet love story with a time travel twist and I was soon caught up in the story.  Boy meets girl, they fall in love, and a song I know started playing. 

Not just any song. I looked up at him, "Hey! It's our song!" I smiled, then kissed him, happy in the moment.  I had a tiny little suspicion that maybe he wasn't as clueless about this movie as his "This takes place in England?" remark made him seem.  "Did you know our song was in this movie?" I asked. "What do you think?" he responded.  The obvious answer was, "Yes"

"Now I have a question for you." he said.  And in the second before he continued, my stomach did a million acrobatic flips and my heart started racing.  "This is it. He's really going to ask me to marry him." I thought. "Will you marry me?" he asked, and out of nowhere, he had the ring box open in his hand. And once again, the obvious answer was "YES!". I clung to him, tears hovering at the edges of my eyes, feeling like my heart would burst with so much love and joy. He slipped the ring on my finger as the movie played on in the background, the two of us completely oblivious to it anymore.  He finally asked if I was going to look at the ring, which I'd really overlooked in the significance of the moment.  It was gorgeous.  I watched it sparkle and tried to wrap my mind around the fact that we were actually getting married. 

Eventually we came down from the clouds, got to call and tell my parents, and even eventually finished the movie.  Turned out he'd actually watched it 7 times, figuring out the timing so he'd know when to slip the ring out, unseen by me and be ready to propose.  And it worked. The tenderness of being proposed to with our song playing in the background, the element of surprise, the privacy to be delighted together afterwards-I couldn't have imagined a more perfect moment. 

Home(less)

It's been an interesting 48 hours.  After 3 weeks of traveling in Europe with a friend I hadn't seen in 5 years (more posts to come about our travels, hopefully!), I finally returned home to Regensburg.  And it felt like coming home- pulling back into my familiar train station, taking the bus I always take, running into friends before I even walked in my door.

But I was going "home" to Regensburg for the last time.  In a 20 hour whirlwind, I packed, cleaned, washed and ironed the sheets I'd borrowed from student housing (they're the ones with a penchant for ironed sheets, not me) and got ready to leave again.  Moving internationally should become some sort of competitive sporting event.  I think I'd be pretty good at it.  I somehow manage to compress an entire room into a suitcase, a hiking backpack, and a regular backpack, which is talent enough, but my real skill shows through when I then manage to transport that.  After a trial run, I realized that if I place my suitcase against a column, then hoist my large backpack onto that, I can get my backpack on without falling over.  Then, smaller backpack stuck on front of me, all that's left is to drag my suitcase behind me, transporting roughly my weight in luggage.  And then, since this is an extreme sporting event, that means you have to use at least 4 unique forms of transportation. The first leg of my journey was easy for me- a friend offered to go with me to the train station, so I didn't have to walk the 10 minutes to the bus stop looking like a human turtle or load my luggage onto the train by myself.

The Human Turtle with her weight in luggage

But then, I was on my own.  All was going smoothly until I tried to get off of the train.  One of the straps on my backpack got caught on something going through the door.  I tried to turn and look behind me, but I couldn't turn far enough to see whatever was keeping me from moving.  I turned futilely back and forth a few times, flailing around a bit (possibly looking a bit like a turtle that's landed on its back) til someone behind me took pity on me and unhooked me and handed down my suitcase.  I then trundled it all off to the next bus that took me right to the airport.  I breathed a sigh of relief as my backpack and suitcase were whisked away and I was assured that they would go through to my final destination.  But of course, there's no such thing as final in a trip like this.  Final just meant last flight.  I flew into Helsinki, which is still 2 and a half hours outside of Turku.  So, once again, all my luggage loaded onto me, I looked around for the right bus, where at least the driver did me the favor of sticking it into the luggage compartment for me.  And then, finally, finally back in Turku, it was too late to take a local bus back, so I had to catch a taxi, because even I won't walk 3 kilometers with my weight in luggage at 1:30 am.


And then, there I was, "home" again in Turku.  Except, even though many of my friends, most of my earthly possessions, and my studies are all here, I don't actually have a house.  My lease doesn't start until September.  So here I am, at "home", but homeless.  It's an interesting feeling, really.  I've spent quite a bit of time the past few years pondering what home means, and well, being here reminds me that home, for the moment, is here.  Home is where the heart is, they say.  And that's part of it, but I've left bits and pieces of my heart all over, so then home could equally be the US, or Colombia, or Germany.  And in a way, going to any of those places right now would feel like going "home", but not quite the same as coming home here does.  I'd say home is where your stuff is, but that sounds way too materialistic, and besides, then my home would be Paulina's storage locker, and that certainly doesn't seem right.  But home is where you come back to after traveling, where you pick up the pieces of your life where you left off, slip back into the same routines, are comforted by the familiar.  And that's why, for me right now, Turku, Finland is home.  In Colombia, and the US, and Germany there's no picking up where I left off right now- no job waiting for me, groups of friends have changed in my absence, there are no routines looking to be slipped into, just routines looking to be remade.  So it's good to be back, and after a wonderful semester abroad, feel that I am indeed, home.

At least, for the moment.  But then, on to my next adventures!  I'm homeless by choice so I can travel and visit friends all around Europe until I have an apartment at home in Finland next month.

Full disclosure

I have the tendency to look at other people's facebook and blog lives, and admire, and sometimes long for, what I see.  My Mom reminds me that we only see one side of the story online and not to get jealous of perfect lives that aren't any more perfect than mine anyway.  My mom is a wise woman.

She also mentions how people are following my adventures and think my life is so perfect.  So, in the interest of full disclosure, if you're living through me vicariously, home in the US and thinking my life is exotic, or somewhere else abroad but still admiring my freedom, or safety, or picturesque surroundings, or whatever; it's not all perfect here either.  (I still think the good outweighs the bad most of the time, in this life I've chosen, so this isn't a "feel bad for me" post, just a post to share the honest-to-goodness hard parts about the way I live so people won't feel too envious ;) and also, if you're the praying kind, if you could pray that God would give me discernment as I'm choosing what to do after grad school so that the 2nd and 3rd things on my list aren't such challenges, I would really appreciate that.)

Here are the things I see in friends' lives that I long for.

Home
I'm living in student housing right now.  My kitchen (which I share with a flatmate and probably has less floorspace than my parents' walk-in closet) has a two burner stove and a mini fridge.  No oven.  My home decorating consists of a 20 euro area rug from Ikea and 2 potted plants.  Somedays, I think how nice it would be to have a living room.  To go furniture shopping.  To buy things to decorate my house, not expecting to leave the country in 6 months or a year.  I remind myself that this is only a season, but I'm glad that (hopefully) this season of country hopping and student housing won't last too much longer.

Family
My family lives on another continent.  I see them at Christmas.  That's hard.  I don't think it ever stops being hard.  The majority of my college friends are married now, settled down with a kid, or 2, or 3.  All I wanted growing up was to have a family.  This whole career thing only happened because waiting around for Prince Charming to show up would have been boring.  But I still long for marriage and children, and somehow flitting from country to country makes that desire seem even farther away.

Lasting Community
I have friends here, and in Finland, and in Colombia, and for that I am thankful.  I couldn't be so far from everything I know without friends to keep me sane.  But YWAM and international students are transient groups.  We come, we stay for awhile, we move on.  It's really hard to say good bye to people you love over and over and over again, and then invest in new relationships, knowing that they're doomed to be short-term at least as face to face friendships too.

Financial Security
God's provision, parents who let me stay at home while I was in the States, and some good financial decisions when I had a paying job mean I've never had to worry about where my next meal was coming from.  But still, I wouldn't mind having a pay check again.  I wanted a DSLR camera for years, and finally bought myself one this year at Christmas, using baby sitting money I earned in Finland.  I am super thankful I had that job and was able to save up for my camera, but there's something about saving baby-sitting money that makes me feel like I'm 12 years old.  :)

Longing for a better country. . .

I've been thinking about heaven lately. 

My grandparents are headed there before me.  It might be months from now or only weeks from now, but they've reached that point where mortality can't be argued anymore.

Mostly, I want to stop the clock and hold on to them forever.  But inside me, there's a building "longing for a better country" that trusts that I'll see them again on the other side of death, and it will be better.

"If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.” Hebrews 11:15-16

Somewhere along the way nowhere begins to feel exactly like home. 

To be with loved ones here means leaving loved ones there.    There's always part of me that's missing.  

At my church in Colombia, I close my eyes and sing all the songs, I don't need to look at the words.  But then, the pastor starts to preach and I miss the focused sermon of pastors back "home".  "Home" again, I find that all the songs the church sings seem to have changed in the past 3 years.  I stare at the overhead, missing the familiar words of the songs back "home" in Colombia.  It's a scene that's mirrored in a thousand little ways, the way my two homes intersect, each with their mutually exclusive joys and challenges.  

And I find myself at moments, longing for heaven.  Everyone I love, everything that matters, all in one place.  No more confusion.  No more striving.  No more difficult, painful, unanswered questions.  No more goodbyes.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4 

highlights from my first day back

*playing with my little siblings * talking to my mom * pepperoni * a hot shower with decent water pressure * Hershey's kisses * pepper jack cheese * no traffic * indoor heating * orange juice * hot water in the kitchen sink * milk that doesn't come in a bag * a QUIET bedroom *

Settling in to the neighborhood

The view from my bedroom window

Today, the man who sells almojabanas a few doors down from my house passed me over by the cemetery. "Hola vecina!" (hello neighbor), he called out.

I walked into the internet cafe across the street the other day because I needed to buy more minutes for my pay-as-you-go cell phone. "You need to recharge your phone?" the lady asked before I said anything. "Your provider is Comcel, right?"

I like feeling like I'm part of the neighborhood, I know them and they know me.

Moving take 2

Remember this post? The one where I was so excited to be moving and finally having a place of my own?

Well, it turned out a few days or weeks later that it didn't work out. And I spent the rest of the year living with a Dutch family, who are moving to Peru later this month. And when I went home for Christmas, I had no idea where I would be living long term when I got back.

I do now. And my heart is singing again. Because I'm moving into Torre Fuerte, the same place I was going to be living before. And this time, there's a couple committed to living there, which takes care of the problem I had before of no longer having house-mates.

Better yet, they have the same dream as me. They want to make the house into a home, a place of beauty, a place of refuge. They don't want to just live in the same house together, they want to pursue community, praying together, sharing meals together. They want to get know our neighbors, reach out into the community, little by little see how God can use us to be salt and light where we are.

I'm very excited.

Stay tuned for some before and after photos as we clean and paint and decorate in the next few weeks.

Welcome to your second home

As I left home at 2:30 in the morning yesterday, I felt sad. Saying good bye yet again was hard. But, by the time I was on my flight to Bogotá, I had a sense of anticipation. I was going home. Our plane landed and I looked out at the Andes mountains, marveling at their beauty. A month away had made me forget just how breathtaking they are, or perhaps just taken away their familiarity. The sky was blue, the sun shining. As I struggled to wheel my 2 giant suitcases through customs, I squinted through the glass to the waiting area, trying to spot my friends. My face broke into a smile as I saw Bibiana and Doris waiting for me. Bibiana gave me a hug and handed me the flowers she had for me. "Bienvenida a tu segundo hogar", welcome to your second home, she said. And it was so true. I had left home. But I had come home. Not really to my house (I hope to be out of where I'm living in February, it's just a temporary solution) But, as my aunt reminded me last time I was musing about the meaning of home, "home is where the heart is." And, my heart is here, with my students, with my friends and coworkers, with the unexpected adventure that life can be here. My heart is also in the States, with my parents, my siblings, my grandparents, and all the other family members and friends who make me miss "home".

I woke this morning with a sense of peace. All my big questions for this year still remained unanswered- where I'll live, what I'll be teaching, who my co-workers will be, if and when my friends are leaving. . . But I wasn't stressed, at least not then. I was content. Content to be where I believe God wants me for the moment. Content knowing that soon I'll know the answers to my questions, and living them out over the course of the year will be exciting. Content to be back, in the land of limes and traffic jams, arepas and vallenato, laughter and waiting. Content to be in my second home.

I'm home!

It's been awhile since I posted. Hopefully while I'm home I'll take some time to post about my brothers visit to Colombia and the last few weeks of the school year at Luz y Vida.

For now, I'm happy to be with my family again, marveling at "normal" things like apple juice and pepper jack cheese in the fridge, and trying to remember not to speak to anyone in Spanish.

I'll be around until January 11, and then I head back to Colombia.

A picnic on the floor

We sit on grocery bags on the floor that's coated in dust. Doris comments that we're eating a very American lunch, and other than the quatro, a grapefuit flavored soda, she's right- tuna fish sandwiches with tomato and cheese, carrot sticks and potato chips.

My heart is singing, and soon I'm singing out loud as I finish lunch, and move to scrubbing every inch of what will be my room with floral scented disinfectant. Two and a half hours later, the baseboard and walls have been wiped clean, the floor has been swept and mopped, and every bar on the windows has been dusted. I still need to wax the floor, wipe down the closet, and wash the windows. But that can wait for another day, because the sun's going down.

I'm moving! And I'm so excited about it. I don't have a move-in date yet. The electricity still hasn't been turned back on. We have no furniture in the house except for one bed, one table, and one dresser (though I think there's another bed, 4 chairs, and 2 comfy chairs waiting to be brought over). We have nothing for the kitchen. But, I have a set of house keys. :)

For the first time, I'll be living somewhere that's "mine". Well, not really mine, it's the ministry's, but I get to take a house and turn it into a home. I'm looking forward to furniture shopping (Jordi knows a great place to buy cheap 2nd hand furniture). I'm looking forward to arranging and decorating. I'm looking forward to inviting people over for dinner and game nights and Chinese New Year parties.

I can't wait. After-school plans for this week? Cleaning 2 more bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, the kitchen, dining room, living room and all-purpose room.

(And, this week Jessica gets back. Which is exciting in of itself. But, she's also bringing the camera I ordered online with her, so I should have photos to share soon!)

home. . .

I've been thinking lately about going home. Home being where my parents live, where I grew up, where I'm going to spend Christmas.

But, I wonder about the whole concept of home and what that means now. Because, of course, part of going back to where you grew up is going "home". But, I live here now. Maybe not permanently, but I have bought shoe polish and floor wax and a triple pack of toothpaste here, not really things you buy if you're somewhere short-term. I have a cell phone with a local number, I have Colombian insurance, when strangers on the street ask me for directions, I can at least point them in the right direction. I teach at a school here.

I say I'm going "home" when I'm out, and then I mean where I live now, but somehow, despite the fact that I live here, it doesn't really feel like home. Maybe due to how impermanent I know it is- it's pretty likely that within the next month I'll be moving again. Maybe due to the fact that home largely has to do with who lives there, and much as I appreciate the people I live with and work with, they still aren't family.

I wonder if Colombia will ever feel like home.

I'm home

I got in last night around 7. It's still hard to believe that the people I spent the last 5 months with are no longer around. I miss them. I also miss Spanish. Every once in awhile I say things in Spanish without thinking about it. I've almost thrown my toilet paper in the trash instead of flushing it several times already. I was seriously grateful for my hot shower with good water pressure this morning. I can't believe the options there are in our refrigerator. I loved being cozy in bed under a mountain of blankets against the cold, instead of waking up to the cool morning air.

Having my brothers and sister around makes it less lonely and difficult than it would be without them. They keep me smiling and laughing with their jokes and compliments. It's so good to see how much they too have changed and grown while I've been gone. I'm so excited that I get to spend more time with them over the next month and a half.