new year and living local

This has been a rough month for us here in Basel, between the family getting sick a few weeks before Christmas, and the homesickness that inevitably accompanies an overseas Christmas season lacking the usual traditions, and the stress of discovering that we lost our next housing option and need to, once again, rewrite "the plan".

Christian and Annike made a short visit to California to visit his ailing dad. I was left here with two little ones, fighting illness, fighting loneliness, fighting weakness. In all of it, I have been acutely reminded of my humanity. Our own internal strength can only carry us so far.

The year 2016 ended on a low. But, in this season of celebrating the baby birth of God on earth, I saw clearly my desperate need for a Savior who can reach in and heal the illness of body and of spirit. Sometimes He allows us to become broken so that we will allow Him to rebuild us, the way that only the Savior of the world can.

While I love the idea of new beginnings and new years, I find that a clean slate is not nearly as meaningful as the ugly stained mess that will be beautifully incorporated in the new. More than wanting a fresh start, I long for more purpose to come out of the complicated array of experiences we have had this year. The new is more meaningful when it incorporates the old.

This past year has been one of crazy adventures, numerous transitions, rich relationships, first-time experiences, refining fire, purging materialism, cultural diversity, hearing new stories, awakening hearts, laying aside fears, never-ending uncertainty, and the surrender of our plans again and again and again. It was a year of wrestling with loss and celebrating victory at the same time as we flounder for vision in our future. It was a hard year, but a good year. There were many days when pursuing something safe and easy sounded like a better choice than pursuing growth. I will remember this year as a key marker in our family's character timeline. It will, undoubtedly, change the course of who we are.

Despite the adventurous sound of the many places we have visited while we were here, it is actually the amazing people we have met that will leave the biggest impression upon us. We have heard stories from missionaries living in countries all over the world. We have had Muslim men from various parts of Africa sitting across from us at our dining room table. We have been stretched and challenged in our cultural knowledge and our understanding of language barriers. We have sat in the living rooms of strangers and felt like family. And we are absolutely certain that some of these same people will be sitting in our California living room one day as well.

One of our recent highlights took place when the little ones and I were home alone, on the recovery side of our illness, and casting about for something to do indoors. In proper Pioneer Woman tradition, we spent the day baking trays and trays of cinnamon rolls, and decorating New Year cards while we waited for the dough to rise.

Then came the fun part: delivering them. Our delivery list mostly included people who we did not know well. A neighbor. A friend from church. A family of mutual friends. With each delivery, we received so much returned kindness. There was this joy that came overflowing from the surprise at our simple gift. And then the invitations were returned... to stay for dinner, to sit over tea, to join at the zoo, to be a part of life lived, given, and received.

It was a simple act with an extravagant return. Throughout the whole delivery process, which took a few days to complete, I kept thinking: This is what life is meant to be all about. 

Nothing can feel richer to me than giving good gifts to strangers and being invited into relationship because of it. It took a few days of nothing to do, after a month of being isolated, piled onto the end of 6 months as a stranger in a foreign country for us to do it. Yet, at the end of it, I can see clearly that this will be my greatest calling and challenge for this coming year...

To love big in little ways.

To love next door and across the street. Wherever that street happens to be.

To love the unsuspecting, without recognition or fame or reciprocation.

To love local.

And so, my word for this year is "LOCAL"...

Wherever I am, it isn't an accident. All of those gifts and talents and pieces of me that keep me up at night wondering if I am throwing them away, are meant to be used right here where I am. Locally. There are a million small ways to show big love.

2016 was a year of being stripped down to our very basics. 2017 will be a year of being built back up in the simplest and most Biblical ways. How is God challenging you to love better this year?

With the flamingos in a snowstorm.

“Every day God invites us on the same kind of adventure. It's not a trip where He sends us a rigid itinerary, He simply invites us. God asks what it is He's made us to love, what it is that captures our attention, what feeds that deep indescribable need of our souls to experience the richness of the world He made. And then, leaning over us, He whispers, "Let's go do that together.” "

- Bob Goff (author of "Love Does")

raising girls from the inside out

We are rounding the corner on Christmas here, finishing up the school semester, and I just walked out of my oldest child's parent/teacher conference. We have officially been living in Europe long enough to have formed relationships, and to receive a progress report on an academic semester.

While speaking with the teachers, I realized I was nervous about how my daughter was adapting. Unconsciously, I am burdening a large part of the responsibility for how my children adjust during the numerous transitions they were given no voice to avoid. We do that as parents, trying to carry our children's burdens for them. Because we love them so greatly that we don't want our children to suffer for our choices.

It is always tempting to give our children the gift of perfections, especially our daughters. Whether that means perfectly orchestrated Christmas traditions, or beautifully wrapped presents, or an orderly life that never includes mishaps about where we might be living next year.

But who ever said that giving them our own perfections was a GIFT?  Maybe it isn't a gift for them to grow up in all of those displays of Pinterest perfection. Maybe our imperfections are more of a gift because they help shape our daughters into women of character, help them learn to adapt, help them be less judgmental of others, and help them, one day, to expect less perfection out of themselves.

At the parent/teacher conference I was given a report about my daughter's strengths, and some decided weaknesses. We can't all be good at everything. A lesson I am still learning for myself. Her teachers were gentle and warm, and a special gift in this season. So, where was all of my nervous energy coming from?

Perhaps because, more than anything else in this season of unknowns, I want for my daughter to be known. I want her to be understood and valued for who she is separate from what she produces. When she isn't performing up to some elusive standard, I fear she won't be recognized or celebrated for the unique individual God created her to be in a way that breaches accomplishment.

That becomes more important with each growing year, doesn't it? In our world, to excel is to be valued. Achievement is awarded. Performance is celebrated, whether in sports or in dance or in academics or in simple behavior patterns. I don't actually disagree with this, and I am not proposing that we stop celebrating excellence. I just see how it can eat away at all of the ones who fall below the line. Little ones and big ones alike. Even at 8-years-old, it's hard not to be the best at anything.

In a world that values achievement, it is a struggle to parent in a way that speaks intrinsic value into the lives of little girls. Intrinsic because it is unearned and incapable of being lost.

Speaking that kind of value into the worth of a little girl happens only in the active state. It takes effort and forethought to be intentional, and it takes a million repetitions. The passive state is the far easier one, letting the environment do its work while the messages of negative self-talk and ambient criticism take root.

This is a world not always very kind to girls, but we must actively say, "Go, and be the kindest girl in school!"

This is a world that celebrates a fleeting kind of beauty, but we must say, "Your beauty comes from who you are and Who you love."

In a world that loves to tear down, we need to intentionally build girls up, and teach them to build up each other.

The older my girls grow, the more I realize that these are values that cannot be coming from me alone. It takes a village.

It takes a village of people in every little girl's life to overcome all the messages that contradict. It takes teachers, and surrogate mother-friends, and pastors, and youth group leaders, and Sunday school volunteers, and playground supervisors, and grandparents, and coaches, and people in our lives who take the time to get to know our children inside and outside of school. Intentionally. Actively. Championing from the inside out.

It is a challenge to go, and be the village that raises up the next generation of little girls.

Little girls, go and be kind, and beautiful from the inside out, and may you learn well the art of building each other up.

The blessing of a sister is the blessing of getting to practice this first at home. As we say often, friends will come and go, but sisters are forever.

These photos were taken to a recent weekend trip to the Bregenzerwald in Austria where Sommer enjoyed all of the positive attention she received while hiking around the Alps in a borrowed poofy princess dress.

The below photo was taken in the exact same spot as a favorite photo from our visit to Austria 3.5 years ago. Time is passing us up...

NOVEMBER 2016, girls ages 8 & 5

MAY 2013, girls ages 4.5 & 1.5

my cup overflows

I didn't quite know what our Thanksgiving would look like this year in a foreign country, where turkey is not an easily available item for purchase. And family is not anywhere near by. And friends only go back a few months.

As I reflect on this Thanksgiving abroad, celebrated with new friends who feel they could be old friends, my heart is full. There are times when God's love for us feels so personal. He knows our hopes and longings and tender places and disappointments so intimately. Sometimes it seems He reaches into our lives and fulfills a heart's desire simply because He wants to give a good gift. It brings God pleasure to see us thrive.

Besides a beautiful Thanksgiving meal with most of the essential side dishes, we had a few moments of well-behaved children, allowing us to relax and enjoy some edifying adult conversation. Proof that God is caring for us tenderly, compassionately, and personally in a season that has been deeply stretching.

As this new friend reminds me, we are known by a God who sees us. In this case, He has preempted one of our most intimate needs for community by providing friendship and fellowship in a place that could have been colored by deep loneliness. For this, we must pause to be grateful.

Throughout the month of November, our family practiced the discipline of gratitude by adding to a "thankful tree" made of construction paper hanging on the window. This act of daily inscribing leaves with the numerous reasons we have be thankful is sure to become a new family tradition.

It makes my heart feel especially full to see some of the things my children have put on their leaves...

* "God loves me so so so much" -- Karsten 

* "God is so creative" -- Sommer 

* "answered prayers, like getting to see a hedgehog" -- Annike 

* "the olden days"  (stemming from all the history we are seeing here in Europe) 

* "a ride on a fairy boat"  (meaning: "ferry boat") 

* "milck"  (spelled with a mixture of German and English spelling) 

* "new friends" 

* "old friends"

Our traditionally American Thanksgiving dinner was observed over the weekend because it turns out that there are no breaks from school over here honoring American-only holidays. To make our acutal Turkey Day special, we pulled off our first pot of traditional Swiss Fondue. It is a fun meal to share on a special occasion because it invites the family into community. Everyone gathers in close around the pot, giggling while the bread is dipped, and sometimes lost, and the kids feel especially tickled to be eating with a long sharp stick.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"You anoint my head with oil; 

my cup overflows. 

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me 

all the days of my life."  

Psalm 23:5,6

plant your garden

One of the hardest things about this season abroad for us has been all of the transitions we have faced. We have had housing changes, and friend changes, and school changes, and neighbor changes, and routine changes, and even a change in the country we live in, resulting in a significantly different culture and community change mid-way through our time here. Flexibility has become our motto, but some of the transitions grow tiring over time.

Around a month ago we made the move to our new residence in Switzerland, which has turned out to be a lovely place and even comes with household pets that the kids adore. There is a long and involved story that I won't tell here, but this house is only ours for 3 months, at which point we need to find another place to live. Another transition. Another unknown. Another distraction from the things I expected to be focused on.

Meanwhile, in this season of changing fall colors and tentative plans, I have been thinking about our garden from our California home. It takes some degree of permanence to want to plant a garden. This year, we opted not to plant our vegetables because we knew we wouldn't be home to harvest them. What is the point of planting a garden if you can't enjoy the fruit?

As we were getting ready to leave back in June, however, we discovered a large vine of volunteer pumpkins sprouting on the hillside beside the driveway. It started itself from last year's gourds that we aimlessly tossed into a composting hole, and looked like it might produce 20-30 large pumpkins. I have to laugh because I always dream of having an entire porch full of pumpkins that I didn't have to pay $15 each for, and this would have been the year. Never would I have planted those pumpkins knowing I wouldn't be around to harvest the fruit.

Living under temporary circumstances can send us into a form of self-preservation fearing the commitment or energy it takes to invest in something that might not end up being permanent. Whether it is pumpkins or relationships, I find that the changes, the uncertainties, and the knowledge of upcoming transitions, makes me hold back.

In a season full of temporaries, I struggle with not wanting to invest in whatever today holds because tomorrow I might discover it was all for nought.

No one knew this better than the exiles of Israel, who were carried from Jerusalem into a foreign land against their will, with no return plan in sight. Please don't mistakenly assume that is how I would describe myself right now, it is just to say that the exiles knew better than anyone what it meant to be strangers in a land leading a life full of transitions.

Jeremiah 29 is a beautiful chapter in the Old Testament written as an exhortation for them to get up and live their lives no matter what they thought might come in their future. This is a passage quite well known for a few verses that promise God's prospering plans, hope, and future. While it is wonderful to receive an encouraging promise for the unknowns in life, sometimes we want more. Sometimes we also want instructions about what to do next:

"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper... 

"...For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call to me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.""  

Jeremiah 29:4-7, 11-13

More than just a promise, these are instructions on how to live while we wait.

"Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat..." Those things don't happen overnight. They take time, and materials, and energy, and the hope of getting to enjoy the house built out of much labor, or the fruit produced by that garden.

The truth is that no one can ever know what is in store for the future. Some of us are living in a season we believe will be the same for the next 20 years - but that can only be an illusion. We can't know what will happen tomorrow, no matter how secure today seems. I might be feeling a bit unstable as I see the reality of transitions approaching, but they are coming whether I see them or not.

In this season of temporaries, I recognize God's desire for me to plant gardens even if I am not the one who gets to harvest the fruit, or eat it. His instructions are to invest no matter what I see in the future. And to trust His prospering plan.

Might you, also, be living in a place that you didn't intend?  Plant your garden.

Feeling left behind by others who are pursuing their dreams while you wonder if you will ever get to pursue yours?  Plant your garden. 

At home with small children who deter all goals and sense of productivity?  Plant your garden.

Stuck in a job that you don't want forever?  Plant your garden.

Dreaming of a future that is more comfortable, or more exciting, or less hard work? Plant your garden.

In "exile" somewhere, not knowing how to proceed?  Plant your garden.

Stop wasting time waiting around for a different season in life, or wishing things were different. Plant your garden.

 

strangers and halloween

One of the things we are learning in our time overseas is what it feels like to be a stranger.

Stranger-hood comes in all forms, like not knowing how to buy the right ingredients at the grocery store because of the language barrier, or being singled out every time we cross a border because our license plate is unfamiliar, or not having anyone to write down on the emergency contact card at school, or not knowing the answers to simple questions like "how exactly does trash collection work around here?" (and then finding that the answer is more complicated than you ever imagined), or not knowing how to celebrate basic holidays.

That's why I told my children that we weren't going to celebrate Halloween this year. We don't have costumes and we don't know what people do.

Then a family from school invited my children over to pick out some costumes from their dress up box. We also got word of a small Trunk or Treat at the local international school. Suddenly, we had something to wear and a place to go. My kids were thrilled!

On the drive to the Trunk or Treat event we were having the usual conversation in the car about expectations and how everyone should behave at the event. These conversations are especially important prefacing the arrival to any place where one Momma will be watching threes kiddos in a crowd.

Besides pleases and thank yous, the girls began discussing what would happen if one of them got more candy than the other in their baskets. The 8-year-old said:
"If I have a lot of candy and I give one piece to you, it would be nice of me. But if I only have one piece of candy and I give it to you, that is the nicest thing of all. Just like the Bible story."

Yes, like the Bible story where a widow puts only a few cents into the offering plate, and it means everything because it is all she has. Generosity is a measure of our heart, not our bank account. The Bible story told with the kid-friendly currency of candy.

In being strangers in a new place, we are learning about the deeper kinds of beauty found in generosity. Not just generosity that we read about, or think about, but the kind that we get to experience for ourselves. Even the children pick up on what it feels like to be invited in, to be welcomed, to be shared with.

We are all recipients of the sincerest kind of generosity. In turn, it is an exhortation to tangibly love the "strangers" we encounter in our own lives. Every celebration, even Halloween, is another excuse to tangibly love a stranger. What kind of stranger will you love today?

We charged the night with a cat, a princess, and a milk-drinking "fire engine man" (as he called himself). He was the most mesmerized by the evening of costumes and games, and a reminder of the magic of being 3 years old.

You can't tell how much our princess loved her costume because she was stricken by a fit-inducing "bump in her sock" at the moment of family photos. Perhaps it was a pea? 

  

The Widow's Offering

"Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on" 

Mark 12:41-44 

unexpected gifts

I'd like you to meet our neighbors: Mrs. Dagmar and Mr. Hans-Peter, (or "Mr. Hans-Paper" as Karsten calls him).

They show up at the back fence every few days with some new treasures to entertain our kids... a box of matchbox cars for Karsten, some souvenir necklaces for Sommer, a collection of tiny porcelain animals from travels to Thailand for Annike. During a hot week at the end of the summer he pulled this tent out of the attic and spent an hour setting it up in the yard, along with inflatable mattresses and a camping table for the inside. You can imagine how thrilling that was for small kids.

We are collecting a string of similar stories after being here for over a month. I don't know if it says more about the generosity of German culture, or the heart of beauty still found in humanity. We are meeting people here everywhere we go who find joy in recognizing our needs, and then responding to them.  

A local mother at Annike's school dropped by one day with a pair of bicycles her son had outgrown, wondering if we would like to borrow them. She had no idea that every day Karsten had been asking me if he could have his own bicycle. Our teenage babysitters and family brought us boxes of Duplo Legos and Schleich horses - pretty much the two kinds of toys my kids love playing with the most. Don't have an old blanket to picnic with? Here's one. Need bedding for your relatives? Here's some. New to the area and need tips on the best places to visit? Come over and we will share all we know. I hardly have time to identify our own needs before somebody steps in to fill them.

At the beginning of this week a group of local ladies took me to a cafe for my birthday. Some of them had only met me briefly before, and none of them had known me longer than 8 weeks, but they showed up just to make someone new feel special. This was a birthday year I had quite low expectations for, as a new person in a foreign country with parents that left recently and a husband who is busy. It was a time of tremendous blessing and fellowship for me. 

I have been a believer in Jesus Christ for most of my life, but I can hardly understand what it feels like to receive gifts of this kind of unnecessary generosity from strangers. There is something about living in a constant state of need that invites others in.

Part of practicing the discipline of living simply this year means that we don't have everything we want all the time, and that is okay. When I use the word "need", I want to be clear that we always have enough clothes to wear and enough food to eat. Yet, we are living a life here that is not overflowing with the excessive abundance we have access to at home.

It means that the littler kind of needs arise and we get to wallow in them for a while before they are filled.

It means that we lack more, both physically and relationally. But it also means we are being drawn in by others who are gifted in beautifully different and individual ways. They have gifts to use, and they are getting to use them

It means that we are getting a reverse perspective on life, being on the receiving end rather than the giving end.

And it means that we are even more immensely grateful for those small sacrifices and gifts of unmeasurable value made on our behalf.

To make it work we have to be utterly dependent on God for everything. And I keep thinking, why would I have to practice dependence on God if I could depend on my lifestyle to provide for me? ... and... How would I understand the importance of giving gifts to strangers if I have never needed to receive them myself?

Living in a state of neediness comes with a fair amount of uncertainty. It isn't comfortable. It doesn't always produce the best emotions or feelings of stability. In it, however, we are finding so many unexpected gifts.

dear jesus, please let me see a hedgehog

Dear Jesus,
Please let me see a hedgehog.

This is the prayer I have heard from my girls every single night as they have fallen asleep for the past 2 months. They have studied hedgehogs on the Internet, watched nature shows about them, and interviewed every person they've met on this journey about their own experiences with these prickly adorable creatures. With the help of a friend, they even built a "hedgehog nest" in our backyard, faithfully placing in it apple cores and worms whenever available.

And they have prayed. So earnest was this nightly prayer said by these two little animal lovers, that I too began to pray that they would, indeed, get the opportunity to see a hedgehog. As the summer went on and on, with no hedgehog appearances, the prayers grew more insistent.

On a warm Wednesday night just before their birthdays, around 1am, my husband heard the awkward rustling and lumbering of a hedgehog in the garden. As a pure act of love for his children, he got out of his cozy bed, armed with a flashlight and a towel, to see if he could catch this particularly large individual. It was discovered hiding in the nest the girls had prepared.

There are very few elective reasons for awakening sleeping children on a school night, but this was one of them. Hopefully you can appreciate the glee of the moment despite the fact that my photography skills are sup-par at 1am! I was so happy for my girls to finally see their favorite animal that I didn't even mind the dozens of fleas launching themselves into the bathtub. In case you are concerned, we only held him for a few minutes before releasing him into the back yard again. We are into animal rights as much as you might be.

Two months of praying seems like a long time to little girls. As their mother, I can see now that it was in the waiting that the prayers grew more persistent. I can see that just as their father got up in the middle of the night to catch this hedgehog, that perhaps their Heavenly Father went out of His way to granting this privilege. A simple act of love for little girls who love creatures He has made.

Now the bedtime prayer has turned to praise: Dear Jesus, thank you that we got to see a hedgehog.

Travelling with animal-loving children is an invitation to stop and admire some of the intricate detail and care taken with even the least of creation... like snails after a rainstorm...

... and jellyfish washed up in the north sea...

... and the sheer intelligence of the largest praying mantis we have ever encountered...

  
In addition to the creatures of the wild we aim to appreciate, we have started a collection of zoo visits. This trip to Europe has included the Stuttgart Zoo and beautiful botanical gardens, Odensee Zoo of Denmark, Frieberg Wild Animal Park, and of course, the Basel Zoo. All of this proves that it doesn't take living on a rural farm to enjoy nature, it take being interested in finding it wherever you are.

Animals inspire creativity, stretch the imagination, and excite new motivation for learning. And we sure are glad we got to see a hedgehog.