a legacy worth passing on

A week ago, my dearly beloved Grandma Grace passed out of Earth's confining grip into Heavenly freedom and glory. I imagine her running toward the Light of Hope, never growing weary, never growing faint.

She lived 90 full years of life, and it was only the last 7 months or so that she had a steep decline in health, preparing the rest of us to let her go. I am happy for the joy and confidence she has as she enters Heaven's gates, because she's been saying she was ready to go live in eternity for at least the last decade of her life.

I am happy for her, at the same time as I grieve for myself and the end of new memories shared with this godly woman. There are plenty of others who can write a better tribute to her life than I can, numerating her many accomplishments and giving her accolades where due. What I write now is not intended as a full tribute to my grandmother's life. Instead, I write out of a desire to honor who she was in MY life. She has left a legacy that impacts me deeply, and convicts me of my responsibility to pass this heritage on.

Photo taken at my uncle's wedding,
around 33 years ago. Pictured is me, age 5.

Grandma Grace was true cheerleader for our family. She wrote frequent encouraging words of exhortation to us, often in the form of cards and emails. Every note held a reminder to pursue faith in Jesus as the only answer to hard questions in life. This reminder came in simple words directed at my babies on their 1st birthdays, and in more complex words directed at me. My husband particularly felt her words ministered to him in times of walking our family through discouraging circumstances. It shows me the power of a regular, encouraging word, especially rare in our hurried culture which can't be bothered with the time to stop and write a thoughtful note.

In the final decade of my grandma's life, she surprised me by becoming the biggest fan of this little blog I have kept. Any woman who learned to write emails in her sixties, and read blogs in her eighties, has great character! She was so proud of the things that I wrote here, and a believer in me as I dabbled in writing, quick to send me an encouragement following a post. In fact, the root of my love for writing may come largely from this grandmother, who wrote so much more than birthday cards in her lifetime. She authored and published three books, and wrote for countless other endeavors including radio programming and various newsletters. While it is tempting to be overcome by the impressive nature of published words, her example shows me that it was actually her numerous, small, unpublished words sent to me privately, that were most meaningful in my life. The world we live in values accomplishment, but the God we serve values our faithfulness to humbly and unselfishly use the gifts we've been given, outside of public recognition.

Perhaps my grandma's greatest legacy to our entire extended family was her belief in regular prayer and petition. A belief proved through action, and practiced joyfully. Prayer for those she loved, and prayer for those who had hurt her. Prayer for those who were lost. Prayer for those she met in the grocery store or doctor's office. Prayer as a constant part of her lifestyle. Prayer that came as a natural close to any conversation, with friends and strangers alike. She regularly asked people how she could pray for them, and there was never doubt that she would follow through.

It seems selfish to put it onto paper, but here I am, missing her, wondering who in my life will ever pray for me as faithfully as this dear grandmother did? Who else will fight my battles on her knees as desperately? And will something be forever lost here on Earth because her prayers have come to an end?

It offers a definitive challenge to pass on this legacy of constant prayer and extravagant use of encouraging words. I want the heritage of my children, and their children, to include these Spiritual riches.

This past July, I took a special trip with my middle child only (Sommer, aged 5 at the time.) We flew to a small town in the heart of Kansas to attend Grandma's 90th birthday party, and great excuse for a family reunion. She lived independently until a few months before her birthday, when she had gone to live with my aunt and family.

Grandma Grace with 8 of 12 grandchildren,
and 6 of 12 great-grandchildren

I'll never forget showing up to my aunt's house on the morning before the birthday party, asking how I could be helpful. Everyone had a job as there was food to make and decor to hang. But I was told I could be most helpful by getting Grandma ready for her party. While everyone else worked to prepare the birthday venue, I spent time with Grandma preparing the woman we celebrated. There isn't a single job I would have rather had.

As we began the process, I felt so unqualified to be the one dressing my 90-year-old grandma for her party. But there I was, asking her questions, taking her preferences into account, applying her make up, and feeling my inadequacies as a beautician bubble to the surface. She deserved an experienced make up artist, and the last thing I wanted was to draw her eyebrows on wrong! I curled her hair into position. I was so unqualified, and yet I had been chosen for this task. The privilege of this great responsibility felt sacred to me. In my heart, I knew these would be my last moments alone with her.

When she was ready, we sat on the couch together with a little extra time. She loved to read her Bible, and as it was getting harder for her to see, I offered to read a passage for her. Asking me to begin where her bookmark left off, I picked up in Matthew chapter 27. It is titled "Judas Hangs Himself".

I hesitated. "Um,... this isn't exactly a positive Scripture that fits a birthday mood. Are you sure this is what you want me to read?" My 5-year-old was also sitting with us and I was pretty sure we'd skipped this story in our Bible lessons.

"Yes," she assured me. "We are so close to the end of the book, why don't you go ahead and finish reading Matthew for me." A 90-year-old gets to hear what she wants on her birthday.

So I proceeded to read the final chapters in Matthew, the hanging of Judas the betrayer, Jesus' trial before Pilate, the cruel mocking by soldiers, on through the crucifixion, death, and burial of Jesus Christ. Somewhere in the middle of the passage I began to sob between words so powerful that they came to life on the pages. I had to pause while my voice cracked, and fight back tears. While I read to a woman who was nearing the end of her life, my mind wandered to the many unfair, undeserved circumstances my grandmother had endured. She'd lived through poverty in the Great Depression, and through betrayal, and through interrupted and broken dreams. It can feel tragic and unjust.

Yet, at the end of her life, she sat next to me a woman full of unselfishness and forgiveness. Instead of brokenness, she leaves a powerful legacy of prayer and exhortation behind her. Her story is one of joy instead of mourning, one of praise instead of despair, and an example of how our strength can come out of sheer dependence on Jesus Christ.

Just as the book of Matthew finishes with the freedom from death found in the resurrection of Jesus, I am left with no doubts about my Grandma Grace's resurrection into Glory after her years here on Earth. She is free and joyful forevermore.

I am thankful for every moment I had with this beautiful example. I will miss my Grandma Grace, but her legacy lives on.

90th birthday cake and a few great granddaughters

Christmas of 2015

A hayride around our old farm on my grandma's 86th birthday

 Words of Hope to live by...

"You will keep in perfect peace

those whose minds are steadfast,

because they trust in you.

Trust in the Lord forever,

for the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal."

Isaiah 26:3,4

"But those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

The will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint."

Isaiah 40:31

"The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor

and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for those who grieve in Zion-

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,

the oil of joy instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor."

Isaiah 61:1-3

the cultural stronghold of stuff

For a better reference of understanding, you may want to start reading with the first two posts in this series on cultural strongholds:
1)  Cultural Strongholds
2)  The Cultural Stronghold of Being in Control

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

A theme of our past year has been purging the "stuff" in our lives. Last July, we left on our traveling adventure with 4 suitcases, a stroller, and 3 car seats, which actually isn't that much when you consider that we would be gone for 9 months. One of our main goals was to live simply, in every sense of the concept. We began with our physical needs, buying only what we needed and traveling light. With that in mind, we still managed to collect plenty along the way including every kind of winter clothing, assorted toys, bicycles, a coffee maker (because we kept showing up in new places that didn't have one and caffeine remained at the top of the "need" list), school supplies, stuffed animals, and of course, mementos from every touristy place we visited.

The problem was that we had to keep moving, literally. Each time a new change came along, we had to reconfigure our collection so that it could all fit into our car (what I consider the size of a small SUV.) If you've ever taken a road trip with children, then you understand this was not an easy task. We were already living with only the bare essentials, so anything we allowed ourselves to collect felt either necessary or meaningful.

We discussed other options, like boxing things up to ship to the U.S., or buying a luggage container for the roof of the car, but those options felt like compromises to our original goal to live simply. Anyone can buy more storage space, but it was the discipline of regularly purging a lot of stuff we liked that began to shape our character. With the size of our car as the limiting factor, we repeatedly opened ourselves up to redefining the difference between our needs and our wants.

In the process of packing up monthly, sometimes weekly, I often found there was something I had trouble letting go of. There were all kinds of reasons for wanting to keep things... memories, fear of future need, comfort, not wanting to waste money and buy the same thing again later. It was strange to find that certain items had almost a physical hold on me, and I struggled to justify keeping them.

What surprised me every time was the feeling that overcame me when I finally decided to let an item go, sometimes only after a disagreement with my husband about the importance of said item. I expected sadness, or regret, or loss. Every time, I was overcome instead by the feeling of freedom.

Anything we will ever own is accompanied by a lie we find easy to believe. The lie comes in many variations, but the crux of the lie is to elevate the importance of the object in our lives. It tells us that we need this particular item for happiness or comfort or ease, and letting go of it will harm us in some way. That lie is a well-established stronghold, and we become slaves to it when we can't let things go.

The truth I understand better than ever is that letting go of things brings me freedom, and therefore ownership brings the opposite of freedom. I can see it in the contrast of my two lives, one much simpler than another. Part of the lie I bought is that all of these things purpose to make my life easier in some way, but I will tell you that a bigger house takes longer to clean, and requires purchasing more furniture to fill more rooms, and becomes a time vacuum in the effort to maintain all those things. The more toys my kids own, the more toys get spread around the house throughout the day, and the more time it takes to pick up those toys every evening, assuming they get picked up. Bigger, newer, and more does not equate to better.

All of the stuff just adds to the burden of investing more and more in myself, me, and the things I own. Very few items I own represent time or money invested in issues that impact an eternal level. The minute I take even a small step backwards to look at a bigger picture, the "stuff" in my life doesn't matter. For this reason I find it supremely unfulfilling.

I share this in my effort to reconcile the difference between two extreme worlds. While the reality of our lives as travelers could be pared down to a few suitcases, the realities of our lives back at home inevitably include a lot more ownership. Yes, it can be viewed as good stewardship, and part of being a responsible adult, and despite the picture I just painted, I don't actually believe it is wrong to own things... I just wonder how we can practice ownership in a way that is honors an eternal perspective?

One conviction we want to live by is that whatever we own we should be sharing. Own a car? Go out of your way to pick people up in it. Own a house? Invite people to it. Own a set of china dishes? Eat on them with good friends, and maybe even small children. Maybe. Own a lot of good books? Loan them out and don't worry about whether you get them back. We can remain in a healthy status with our things as long as they don't begin to be the owners of us. Sometimes we don't realize we have bought the lie until we have trouble sharing or letting go.

Our normal California lives will never have to fit into one of our vehicles, but that season practicing simplicity in the discipline of purging will not go wasted. I feel especially glad for the victories I've seen in the lives of my children, as one child in particular comes from the variety that cannot throw away her straw from a restaurant but instead wants to keep it in a special box in her room, filled with other such junk. Eek! At the end of our trip, watching her freely choose toys to give away was part of an ending I never expected.

Behind the letting go is freedom from the stronghold of material things and the false sense of security they provide. In letting go of things we can hold, we invite the same freedom to filter into other parts of our life. Living simply is a philosophy for more than the stuff we collect, but also for our emotional hang ups, our circumstances, our relationships, our whole lives. This is the miracle of breaking a stronghold.

the cultural stronghold of being in control

Last week I talked about the idea of cultural strongholds that we are often blind to living in the U.S.A. You can read a more detailed explanation about them here. Accepted parts of our culture can
become strongholds in a believer's life that are hard to identify. That's one of the deceptive powers of a stronghold.

My family and I may have moved to Switzerland for part of last year, but our bigger journey was the one of surrender that started well before we left the U.S. It began in the quiet places of our heart with a simple willingness to be pushed a little bit outside of what felt comfortable. With each baby step, there was a letting go process that required surrendering many previously unidentified fears and expectations. Over the course of the year, we were gradually stripped of so many things that we considered safety zones. 

Through the stripping process, piece by piece, layer by layer, we began to see the value of living a little less in control of our lives. It was a little more surrendered to a God who knew just how to move the pieces around. It required a lot of trust in Him because the pieces were always landing in a way that didn't necessarily make sense, but the end was also far better than we might have imagined.

Coming back home after this unique year, I am surprised to hear so much limitation in the voices of friends talking about basic decisions that are made. There is an amount of measured control, and I hear the sounds of holding back out of fear or anxiety. Over and over I hear the wonderful, well-meaning people around me limiting themselves to all of the things that make them comfortable, or that give them a sense of routine, or that offer security in some form. Whatever seems safe is viewed as a decision made in "wisdom"... but it isn't wisdom unless God is intricately involved in the process. And it can't be confirmed as the best decision if it is actually made out of fear.

The school example comes to mind, because how many of us have felt paralyzed when deciding where to enroll our first child into kindergarten? There are so many options, and all of them seem to involve putting our babies into school with ravenous wolves. There is stigma against public school, and snobbery among private schoolers, and defensive tendencies among home school families, because after all, everyone who isn't homeschooling has a conflicting opinion. I had a friend recently tell me all about the plan she had for her child's future through school, beginning with kindergarten on up through college. There is nothing that can make me feel more inadequate than a conversation with a woman who has a plan that reaches farther into the future than my plan does.

The thing is that there isn't just one way. It does matter where and how our children are schooled, and there isn't a one size answer that fits all. Whether it is schooling, or which side of town to live on, or which job to take, many of life's biggest decisions inherently have no moral right or wrong, and yet the choices matter immensely.

It isn't the choices, or circumstances, or upcoming changes that my dearest friends are experiencing that troubles me, it is the habitual inflexibility I hear while confronting some of life's big decisions. I hear this constantly limiting language used, and I readily admit to having said most of myself at one time. I hear it in the "I could never"s...
"I could never move to that side of town"...
"I could never leave this house that we have lived in for so long"...
"I could never learn to do that at this point in my life"...
"I could never uproot my children"...

We control our lives by limiting them. 

Every time we limit ourselves, we actually limit God. We cripple His ability to lead us somewhere. Maybe He wants to whisper softly that our child could be a light in the local public school. Or maybe He wants to challenge us to be become people who stretch beyond our natural personality and gift set... just so He can step in and provide the strength and abilities we need to do what He's asked. Maybe He wants to take us down a path that involves some hard work, or discomfort, or insecurity. Maybe He will lead us in a direction that will increase our dependence on Him rather than decrease it. Maybe.

Many of us who follow Jesus desire to live a life of big faith. We admire faith stories, and want to see God move mountains because we believed He could. But our lives in America have grown so comfortable, and predictable, so full of tangible security, that we have little left that we need to trust God for. After all, if I have already decided where the safest place to send my child to school is, then why do I need to exercise big faith?

Ironically, it feels harder to live surrendered in a setting that provides a lot of security. We are wired as human beings to seek out safety, and once we find it, to cling tightly to it. Comfortable things are just plain difficult to let go of. On the contrary, the more uncertainty or insecurity we are experiencing, the more likely we are to trust God with it. Hard things are easier to surrender to a God who loves us, because we just plain don't have any other choice.

Our lives are pretty easy here in 21st century America. But we still live with a lot of limitations, like parameters around with what we are willing to trust Jesus. It is a deception to believe that being in control is all about making decisions out of wisdom. It may instead be making decisions out of fear. That, my friend, is a stronghold.

* * * * * * * * *
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom."

Psalm 111:10
* * * * * * * * *

My challenge is to ask God today, with lots of prayer and an open mind, to reveal an area where fear, rather than wisdom, is dictating your decisions. A challenge to identify and begin to crumble a stronghold.

cultural strongholds

It has taken the whole of last month to settle back into our California home, with all of the unpacking and reconnecting and catching up on the duties of property ownership. Now school, and temporary work, and the sketching of plans that come next but still remain too uncertain to sit comfortably in them.

There was certainly some culture shock upon reentry to our old lifestyle, and I am finding that as the stereotypes suggest, everything is indeed bigger in America. We can't find enough laundry for a full load in these luxurious washing machines. Many trips to Costco have not filled up my giant refrigerator. And my daily errands feel a lot farther away than they used to... can I possibly be remembering wrong? We miss walking to the grocery store every other day, but we are also happy to be sleeping in our own beds after eating a delicious plate of Mexican food.

While the "shock" portion of reentering American culture is already fading, I am fighting desperately to hang onto all of the cultural revelations. We had a rare opportunity to have our eyes opened to the way things have always been done. I don't want to forget what I see now that I have never seen before.

Often as a discipline of embracing new or renewed truth in my own life, I write about it. Processing all that I have learned about myself as a follower of Jesus over the course of this past year has taken longer than I expected, but finally, I am reaching some articulate thoughts. Over the next month or so I am challenging myself to write a little bit more, sharing here a series of cultural strongholds that my eyes have been newly opened to. These are a few aspects of our culture that now stand out in sharp contrast to the way that we were living overseas, and I can see how they are crippling to our culture.

Ancient strongholds were fortresses set up against the attack of enemy armies. I picture some of the crumbling castles that we visited in the medieval towns of Europe, often on the crest of a hilltop, surrounded by a fortified wall. It was a good defense and took a lot to tear those walls down. When the whole land surrendered to invaders, these strongholds firmly resisted.

When God invades our life we can surrender it to Him willingly and still withhold areas for ourselves, like strongholds. Within that surrendered life, we manage to maintain a lot of fortified walls... some out of self-protection, some out of fear of the unknown, or some walls that we simply refuse to see because they blend in so smoothly with our surroundings. It has never been His way to take our lives by force.

Cultural strongholds are unsurrendered areas that appear repeatedly among person after person in a particular culture. They stem from aspects so accepted in our culture that when a person turns her life over to Jesus, the cultural stronghold remains unnoticed, just like that well-disguised fortified wall. And yet, living a surrendered life means that every piece of it should get turned over when God invades.

The saying goes that "ignorance is bliss", but I wouldn't feel convicted about sharing all of this if I believed we were better off not knowing. Withholding some areas from heavenly influence might sound tempting, more comfortable, easier, but it doesn't make our lives better.

We have a lot of growing problems in the U.S. like anxiety, and addictions, and the break down of the family unit, and teen suicide. Big and broken things that often affect Believers as statistically often as non-Believers. I can't help wondering if we could change that by revealing and surrendering some of our strongholds.

Our life overseas living in foreign countries was very simple, full of humbling and hard experiences, and challenging on every level. It included many adventures but lacked any frills. The part I miss the most is our utter dependence on God for each decision that we made.

There are four specific areas of my own life where strongholds were revealed and broken, and I am fighting to keep them from succumbing to cultural norms now that we are once again living in a setting where they are completely acceptable. Join me (in what I hope is a weekly post) over the next month to read a little more about these areas as I see them. And pray for me as I put them into words as I will pray for those who read this.

Next time: The cultural stronghold of being in control

5 reasons to travel with young children

It is debatable on many accounts whether it is worthwhile to travel with children who are under the age of, well, under the age of being able to carry their own luggage. In fact, two of our three children are in the stage where they often still become the luggage.

One of the biggest reasons NOT to travel with young children has to be the sheer number of germs they pick up and ruthlessly spread throughout the family. In our first week as nomads after leaving Basel, we all ended up with a respiratory cold, a case of conjunctivitis that spread its goopy mess with slow proficiency from eye to eye, a stomach virus, and our family's very first case of lice. Which subsequently turned into our second, third, and fourth case of lice. We seemed to be breeding a variety of insecticide-resistant bugs and I was clearly a novice at getting rid of it. I’ll be happy if I never see another louse in my lifetime.

The moment of true test came while stuck in traffic on our way to the airport. We thought the little guy had recovered from his stomach virus, but I had to make a mad dive into the back seat to catch his projectile vomit in a handy plastic bag. It was a moment that does not need to be described in detail. When he was once again settled, and wiped down with someone's discarded sweater, I sat back anxiously wondering if we were actually going to catch our airplane on time as our car crawled forward in morning city traffic. It takes an awful lot of courage to face some of our travel days.

Traveling with little children (ages 3, 5, and 8 to be exact) is hard on so many levels, even without all of the contagious bugs. Should we have waited until our children were old enough to, say, catch their own vomit in a bag?

Despite some logistical headaches, this adventure has been TOTALLY WORTH TAKING with young children. Outside of the germs, here are 5 reasons why we have loved our travel time with little kids and I highly recommend that you seize your own opportunity rather than waiting until they are older.

1. Seeing Less, Experiencing More
“Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don’t pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”

– from "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg.

Experiencing a new culture is largely about the art of being present in the moment, something young children are already better at than adults. Kids take it all in, more naturally letting the moment permeate who they are.

Admittedly, having young children does not work with every travel style. Children don’t allow the hike-20-miles-around-town-seeing-sights kind of trip. Or the sit-quietly-in-a-restaurant-enjoying-fine-cuisine kind of trip. Or the stay-out-late-enjoying-night-life-then-sleep-in-the-next-morning kind of trip. Or even the see-a-new-city-every-day kind of trip.

We adapt. Days with lots of walking have to be sandwiched between days of playing at the park. The difference is that the park might be at the foot of the Swiss Alps or on the coast of the Mediterranean. And the park is an amazing place to simply be present while munching on a local specialty pastry, to practice our developing language skills, and to collect stories from locals about the best places to experience authentic culture.

Wallis Valley, Switzerland

A travel style that values culture over famous monuments can be done well with small children. It will come home with us on the inside, rather than through touristy trinkets or photos.

Carnival Parade, Sion, Switzerland

2. Meeting People
I mean, would you be able to ignore this face?

Everywhere we go, we meet people because we have children. We don't blend in. We attract strangers who are social, or lonely, or talkative, or friendly, or simply curious. Also, we look like we need a lot of help.

Having children somehow breaks the ice, and relationship begins. We have collected email addresses and hotel cards and phone numbers and mailing address and websites from sincere and welcoming people located all over the globe. The interactions we have with strangers are completely different now than they were before we had children...
different, deeper, better, making our experience richer overall.


3. Family Bonding
Our kids are each other's best friends. They argue like crazy, they giggle without stopping, they hurt each other's feelings, and they always go back for more. The private jokes they share are absolutely ridiculous, but they are proof of the deep friendships forming between them.

Cuevas de Arta', Mallorca, Spain

As adults, too, we are forced to more fully engage in each new experience together, creating the deep kind of bonding I have always longed for in my family. For a reason I may not understand, when we are at home in our more routined daily life it is easier to go our separate ways without making the quality or quantity time bonding takes.

We also joke that this trip has been like “parenting boot camp” for us because we are confronted with our children’s needs and less-than-desirable responses at all times with no break. Did I mention that it is exhausting? The upside is that the kids are getting all of this positive attention coupled with consistent discipline, and the miraculous effect is beginning to bring out the best in them.

Fussen, Bavaria, Germany

Friends will come and go, but family is forever. Adventuring together cements the friendship bonds we can carry with us for the rest of our lives.


4. World Schooling
With our oldest in 3rd grade, we are on the cusp of all the pressures that come with education... standardized testing and common core and grade point averages. Before we know it there will be all the pre-requisites for university applications to keep in mind... aaahh!

This is a sweet, and short, season when learning can be less structured. If it turns out that my children are behind in math when we return, there should still be time for them to catch up! (I hope.) It is increasingly evident that this kind of learning flexibility only gets harder the older they get.

Whether our kids return at grade level or not, the things they have learned this year cannot be measured on a standardized test. We will never be able to quantify what this experience taught our children or ourselves, but they are lessons that cannot be duplicated in a classroom.

Eiffel Tower, Paris, France

5. Making Global Citizens
I feel hesitant to make an example out of our most recent Unites States election, but it was an unforgettable experience to be overseas throughout the months of the political campaigns and election. Sadly, the overwhelming impression left upon the outside world is that Americans know very little and care very little about the rest of the globe. We value reality television, preserving our personal wealth, and jumping on any fear train the media presents. We don’t value integrity or fighting poverty or using our status as a global superpower to make the world a better place through peaceful methods.

There is a tendency to believe that our political messes are a sort of private household secret that only Americans are privy to. It might surprise the average person in the U.S. to know exactly how much the average person around the globe is watching... not just our movies and television programs, but our news, our political debates, our policies, and our election. Have you ever followed the election of another country’s leader, feeling your own nail-biting suspense at how the outcome might affect you? With great power comes great responsibility.

Identifying as a global citizen is about valuing our role on the globe rather than only the micro-community we were born into. A global community includes people who are innately different in colors and customs, in likes and languages, in traditions and tastes, in foods and festivals, in religion and relational styles.

This year of living and traveling abroad has introduced my children to the realities of being the one who is "different". And then the concept of befriending others despite differences. It it the beginning of their global citizenship.

None of us can choose which country we are born in, but all of us can choose what we do with that privilege. We are just a few human beings sharing one globe with a whole bunch of other different human beings.

Travel has to be one of the greatest classrooms for character growth. This year has transformed us as much as it has our children. Despite our own experiences, the learning ground isn't limited to a lengthy trip in a foreign country. Ultimately, the things we learn come from allowing adventures into our lives that breach our comfort zone and allowing them to penetrate into the deep place that changes us.

Sion, Switzerland

Voralberg, Austria

Schwimmbad antics

Feeding the pigeons, Notre Dame, Paris, France

Brussels, Belgium

in memoriam: einar vestbakken negaard

Today would have been the 94th birthday of my father-in-law, who passed away just under 6 weeks ago. We would like to honor and remember through this guest post written by my husband, Christian, about his father.

In Memoriam:  Einar Vestbakken Negaard

March 7^th, 1923 in Finnskogen, Hedmark, Norway - January 27^th, 2017 Santa Barbara, California, USA

On a snowy morning, high on an alp in Canton Wallis, Switzerland, I contemplate the life and soul of my father, and the lingering influences of him upon me and I dwell deeply upon the legacy one life leaves upon another.  I feel compunction to honor his memory and share this amazing life story of 93 years, full of paradox, contradiction and sometimes extremes.  Men like him just aren’t made anymore, and perhaps that’s just as it should be?  Einar is an old Norse name for warrior, and I think my dad could not live this down, his name defined him in many ways.  He was “old world” and Viking to the very core.

But I wonder why despite his vigor and energy he was always “old and traditional” in his views.  He loved music and dancing but never thought much about Elvis or the Beetles. His taste was Lawrence Welk and the polka.  Most all the anecdotes throughout his life dwelt upon his Norwegianess and the first 25 years of his life.  He was stuck in retrospection, he was a sentimentalist and not a dreamer.  He saw Norway as utopia, yet he was much too outspoken, critical and unfiltered to make a successful Norwegian, he could never really go back.  His early life was a show of sparks, his Viking character was subjected to forge and hammer.  

His humanity spanned from super human to super flawed, hence I’m finding that summarizing such a life is a difficult assignment to do justice to.  Therefore, I will consider 3 defining paradoxes of my father with some illustrations.  These 3 paradoxes are vulnerability and tenacity, frugality and generosity, and pessimism and idealism.

Vulnerability:  Born into family Vestbakken in a place and time when surnames described your origins, he faced poverty and hardship his entire youth.  He was conceived out of wedlock, and had to bear the duty of the first-born son. This was the heavy burden upon his young life adding to his complicated relationship with his own father.  He could never fully reconcile and escape the pull of these immutable attributes.  He conquered the external and environmental adversity (just move to California) but always wrestled with the internal foes set into motion at a young age.  In fact, he took so much compassion upon himself that he could not recount these details without sobbing.  He never fully escaped the psychological bondage this had upon him.  Yet, at the same time I have never known someone who so readily broke into silly childhood songs.  These were always just under the surface, and when gazing upon my children something happy was illuminated within him, and therapeutically he sang to them in Norwegian, something ridiculous and light.

Tenacity:  My Farfar (father’s father) Petter was a woodcutter, which was a hard way to put food on the table. Families needed cash, crops and livestock for bartering.  This was infinitely difficult post World War I in a global depression, and food was therefore always scarce.  To grow up as the oldest of 9 children with food shortage has a profound influence upon one’s psyche.  Factor in the absence of the “basics” of electricity, refrigeration, flushing toilets etc. and you realize a child’s destiny is to start work young, and few finish school.  In fact, my dad’s formal education stopped at 8^th grade, which is almost incomprehensible?  But when you are sleeping 4 children to a bed you leave home early to support your family. 

Dear reader can you grasp the different world that this was?  Toughness is fist-fighting for shear recreation and competitive skiing and running.  Dad could climb stairs walking on his hands (all true).  He could carry a 300 lb bathtub up to the second floor by himself.  I think it is fair to say he had an ability to tap into a crazy amount of determination.  He could have lived happily one thousand years ago as a Viking.  I can picture him sitting in an open boat in the rain for days, eating half spoiled fish for three meals, and laughing about it.  I don’t recall him EVER being sick from work, none of us do?  Somehow he never really felt physical pain the way the rest of us do, no headaches, backaches and so forth.  He was so stoic he could go to the dentist and have his teeth drilled without anesthetic. It took tenacity taking a boat to America in 1950, with a small suitcase and almost no money in your pocket, working on your aunt’s house in Minnesota to cover room and board.

Frugality:  Besides farming and fishing, his early life entailed fixing what was broken.  They cobbled things together during and after the war.  This was his first job in Oslo as a young man.  Handyman was the means he supported three younger siblings and gave them the chance to develop their talents and pursue educations.  They even shared clothes and shoes.  Wasting was viewed as a mortal character flaw, and for the remainder of his life could not throw food away.  Fortunately, God gave him the best cast-iron stomach on the market.  He honestly could eat vast quantities of half spoiled food, and you would sit and marvel.  Only once this failed him at 85 as he proved he could not actually eat like a wolf. He ended up with a self-induced case of pancreatitis after consuming all the fat trimmings from a beef roast.

Generosity:  He was the neighbor who did your plumbing urgently on a Sunday and wouldn’t consider charging you.  I became the son who would clean out the gutters for a little old lady, and dad would make me take the 5 dollars back.  Neighbors don’t charge for neighborliness.  In medical school we were a house of six white collar kids and one blue.  Yet, I was the only kid that had my medical school paid in full by good ole’ dad.  I still marvel at this and don’t for a second take it for granted.  Thank you, Dad (and Mom!).

Pessimism:  In many ways he always struggled with a sense of inferiority.  And he recognized the rank that a college education gave a person.  He saw himself as an underdog, and I believe could not grasp the concept of his own manifest destiny.  This was in spite of a tremendous amount of financial comfort in the end.  But since he struggled until about 50, and worked until 70 he never felt successful in the worldly sense. His self-perception for himself and often others was pessimistic.  I think this stemmed from his own internal discontent?  In his heart he always championed the underdog, even politically, and had distaste for the elite. Yet he knew his life was not in vain, and he was truly a self-made man.

Idealism:  He basically idolized his very godly mother, who was a charismatic among Lutherans, and her unconditional love for him was a sustaining force even after her passing.  Again he couldn’t talk about her without sobbing.  In my boyhood I adjusted to this, but as a man I realized there was unnatural pain in his soul.  At age 14 he left home to begin supporting his family.  He worked at a Christian retreat center, and had a powerful conversion experience.  He had a life-long love and respect for God, but tragically could never grasp God’s grace for himself.  This was a great internal battle for him, feeling unacceptable in God’s eyes. 

In the Bible it says…” from whom much is given, much is expected “(Luke 12:36).  But what do we expect from those who have been given so little?  Are not our successes really contextual to the elements we have to succeed?   Work ethic, capital, ability to save, intuition and luck, interpersonal skills, and our personality all determine our ability to achieve.  I would say my dad reached the finish line with an extraordinary amount of success.  Considering the headwinds of his nature and nurture, his internal milieu was so complex to overcome.  Nonetheless we as his family never ran out of forgiveness.  His marriage survived where nearly all would have failed. 

In his final years, he had the added luck of not just the external comforts, but the gift of sound mind and body to live independently at home (with my mom’s help) until he was nearly 94.  In his last 3 months he had “soul satisfaction” and said many times, “I have received more than I ever deserved”. This man who was so critical TO the end, was not able to see the liabilities IN the end?  He adored and loved my mom those final months, and said so.  Honestly, it was a miracle that we all covet.  The miracle of a peaceful, pain-free and satisfied finish.  Other than his failing vision he complained of just cold feet and not much appetite. 

This old Viking could finally rest in his last days.  His undaunting spirit of industry put to rest.  His incessant struggle for having everything set to his particular bias vanished.  To finally give up control, be present, rest in the moment, and express love was a gift to us.  He knew he would die soon, was waiting for it, and in his readiness fell asleep to never wake again. We are grateful for the blessing of his unique and extraordinarily complex life, for the investments he made in us, and the miraculous final moments.  In watching someone die, and let go, and transition to the next existence we are thankful for the spirituality it stirs within us.  What are the purposes to our own existence, and how does this frame our duties?   How do we answer the questions to our own inadequacies, and walk in compassion towards ourselves and others?  By observing death we are confronted by our thoughts of God and the meaning of holiness in the universe and our own brief moment of significance.  Is not a heart that bears witness to dying enriched to live better?  

Dear Dad, you always found a way to give out of poverty.  Even in your final weeks, you gave gratitude and peace, and wanted nothing.  This is a noble life.

Trivia:

1. He had an incredible memory for people, relatives, stories and song lyrics.  He could tell the same story 100 times.

2. At age 10 he broke his femur ski jumping and was in traction for 3 months.  It was an era of no antibiotics and he could have been an amputee.  His leg never fully healed right, yet he went on to be competitive in running and skiing events.  At 87 this same infection began to spontaneously drain the staph aureus in the bone had been there decades long.

3. As kids, he and another brother once saved a third from falling into a frozen lake.

4.  He bought his dad his first horse, then car.  He bought and then delivered the family’s first bicycle (after riding it 100 miles). And bought his mom her first washing machine, at about 50 (this made sense once the electricity came!)

5.  To be Vestbakken meant stingy.  He felt his grandpa was miserly, and though not uncommon then, they changed their surnames to the name of the farm (Negaard).  Family trees are complicated in Scandinavia.

6.  He was a bachelor a long time before he met my mother on vacation in Germany.  Married at 41, he secretly always wanted to be younger, and lied about his age by 3 years.  Medicare still thinks he is 91?

7.  He almost died at 80, like the stoic idiot he was he sat through the night with chest pain, waiting for the doctor’s office to open. Emergency stenting saved his life.  Despite the massive heart attack, he never had long term congestive heart failure.

8.  He was a news junky and loved McNeil Lehrer Report, he also loved watching Dancing with the Stars.

9.  He spoke “5 languages”, though this make me laugh a little because, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are awfully close.  Nonetheless it is clear he had a knack for learning language.

10.  Hugging was always a show of strength, he would squeeze you till it hurt, and you thought a rib might break.

11.  Chopping wood and building fires was his number one therapeutic activity.

12.  He loved to grow and nurture fruit trees.  My brother and I keep this legacy alive.

13.  He loved pickled herring, and rutabagas and other Norse “ethnic” food.

14.  and many other quirks….

an update

I haven't been very good about keeping our plans posted. Only because they keep changing, and even we are have trouble keeping up!

December found us in a deep deep low, mostly caused by the worst case of influenza our family has ever seen. Also caused by the end of a semester of really hard work. And so much transition eating away at our routine. Then there was the weight of the news that Christian's dad was ill. A few days before Christmas we found out that the rental company had forgotten to let us know that the house we were moving to in January was no longer available. It all left for us only hard decisions to make about what was next, where to live, and how to navigate our remaining time overseas.

Coming out of that dark month, I could begin to see how God was using all of these lows to help us rewrite our plan. When our circumstances offer us security, we can begin to unknowingly put our faith in them. This has been the biggest lesson of the year: letting go of everything, even loyalty to any preconceived ideas about what we thought we would be doing next.

Here we have now arrived into the final months of our time in Europe. We expected to be living near Basel for our entire period abroad. However, with the change of circumstances (namely, losing our living place, and the fact that Christian's Master's project was one he could complete remotely) came the opportunity for our family to be a little less stationary. In the end, we made the tough call to pull Annike and Sommer out of their local schools and officially enroll them in what I am calling "World School", since we don't actually have a home from which to school.

We have now just begun the first of 8 weeks of traveling, beginning in Austria. A country that might look a little like heaven does one day. Spain, France, and more of Switzerland are also on the list. Our travel goals are not ambitious, staying in each place for 1-2 weeks at a time, having conversations with locals, making time for days at home with the kids, conserving our energy for this extended period of living out of suitcases. We will gradually be making our way north to attend a family reunion with the German relatives at the end of March. Almost all of Christian's cousins, aunts, and uncles on this side will be there. It will feel symbolic to begin and end our trip on the island of Sylt. Then home by the first of April.

Some of our first days in Austria

Upon arrival to this corner of Europe last summer, the area between Basel and the Black Forest region of Germany, we never imagined it would be this hard to say goodbye one day. I realize that traveling around Europe is a dream, but there is also the reality that a family with small kids only has so much capacity for visiting new museums and public places. Traveling is all about sight-seeing, and sensory overload, and satisfying self-driven curiosity.

In contrast, living rooted in one place is all about relationship. Friendships dig in deep when the bond of Jesus is shared, and the understanding of what it is like to live in a foreign land.

I still can't believe how God filled up our experience here with both community and depth in such a short amount of time. Our part was to bring vulnerable and honest hearts to the table, and to say yes to crazy opportunities outside of our comfort zone. God's part was to put diverse people with inspiring stories in our path. It is without a doubt the relationships formed here that have been the richest part of our experience.

This particular group of women was brought into my life as a simple gesture of kindness from a loving God who sees me and knows me. They invited me to coffee, spoke truth and encouragement into my constantly shifting circumstances, prayed with me, and even held a special lunch just to say goodbye to me. How unexpected and surprising, and needed, it was to find fellowship like this all the way across the ocean.

On Annike's last day at her bilingual German-English school, her 3rd grade class surrounded her with love and celebration. Despite some hard days along the way, her experience was a good one. It was full of growth, lessons in building character, and memories that will last forever. That example pretty much sums it up for all of us.

A 3rd grade group hug.

The final day of the final week, as Christian was finishing his final hard-earned class of the semester, we got word that his father had passed away. He went peacefully in his sleep.

It takes months, or years maybe, to fully process the death of a parent, and I am not prepared to share any of that yet. I want to say simply that the timing of our decision to move on from this season in the Basel neighborhood lined up with Christian's father's passing in a divinely inspired way. The end of a season, and the end of an era. Two closures in parallel, both altering life as we have always known it. In our human limitations for planning ahead, God oversaw it all.

We move on, ever changed each step of the way. Only by God's grace can we continue being, what we hope is, ever changed for the better.

More friends and fun that my memories want to hold onto.