Tag: expat

You’re Moving Where?  For How Long?

– A Short-term International Move with Two Young Kids    

These were the two questions uttered most often when we shared the news of our short-term move to Australia.  Many laughed and then stopped when they realized we weren’t joking. 

I get it. It does almost seem laughable – it’s a long, long way.  And it’s not exactly an easy move, there are lots of logistics and it’s a ton of work for a relatively short time.  However, as I found, the internet is full of ex-pats who want to help you with your own move.  And it’s not as odd as it sounds…others have done it.  If they did it, you can too!

Here are the top tips we learned in preparing and actually making the leap.  

1 – Decide what you are bringing and what you are leaving

There are a lot of different things to weigh as you decide how much to bring and whether you will ship any of your belongings. This is a great time to experiment with being a minimalist!  You can always pick up whatever you didn’t end up bringing – you just might pay a little more for it. 

Here are some of our thought processes:

  • We were only planning on a 1-2 year stint in Australia.  
  • Due to Covid, it was taking 3-5 months for shipping companies to ship a container on an ocean liner.  And it was excessively expensive to ship via Air Freight.  It would have cost more than our items were worth.  
  • Because this was only a short-term relocation, we didn’t want to move ALL our things (sentimental, winter clothes, kitchen appliances, furniture).  We rented a storage unit in the States (make sure it’s climate controlled) to store items.
  • Bed measurements are slightly different in Australia, so unless you are bringing mattresses, don’t pack your linens.
  • The voltage is different, so unless you are also packing voltage converters, don’t bother bringing your appliances. 

2 – Decide How You Will Pack

  • We opted to pack in suitcases and duffle bags and check our luggage via airplane.  This way, we always had everything we needed and it was ultimately the cheapest way to travel.  
  • Check your airline requirements.  This might be a good thing to do as you compare prices.  I just assumed that international travel meant two FREE checked bags with every ticket.  However, Delta only allowed us one each and the other bags could be checked for a $100 fee.  However, it’s still less expensive than shipping them with a company.
  • You could also look into Send My Bag courier services. We didn’t know where we were going to be assigned to quarantine, so had no address to send luggage ahead.
  • We ended up packing in three large hard-sided suitcases, two carry-on suitcases, and four large duffles.  I asked an ex-pat community on Facebook what type of bags to use for a move via airplane and received amazing input!  We ended up with THESE. Spoiler alert: They survived the trip.

3 – Pack Your Bags

  • The best two things we bought before packing were a bag scale and compression bags for our clothes.
  • In an effort to put a cap on the items we were packing, we divided our bags into different categories.  Once a suitcase (or duffle) reached its weight capacity, we had to stop adding things or begin to trade out items.
  • We had a Kitchen Suitcase, a Homeschool Suitcase, a Kids’ Toy Suitcase, a Tech/Books carry-on, a Day of Traveling Carry On, and duffles of clothes.

Look Inside our Kitchen Bag:

  • Two good knives
  • Plastic cutting boards
  • Measuring cups and spoons 
  • Silpat
  • Rolling pin
  • One plastic plate and bowl for each child and child-size utensils
  • One water bottle for each family member
  • Silicon smoothie straws
  • 1 cookie sheet and 1 muffin tin
  • Aeropress and filters
  • Small travel-size dish soap
  • Laundry detergent for 10 loads of laundry
  • Two yeti mugs 
  • Two kids’ mugs
  • Hot chocolate mix, Starbucks Blonde Roast ground coffee, Mason’s Marks and Spencer’s tea, Kraft macaroni and cheese, and peanut butter
  • Various utensils for cooking: meat thermometer, Wine/Beer opener, can opener, cooking spatula 
  • Bose Speaker

Look Inside our Homeschool Bag:

  • Luke’s 1st-grade Math, Language Arts, and Handwriting curriculum was purchased before leaving the United States. You can order American curriculum from Australia, but be prepared to pay a much larger shipping cost.
  • Chloe’s handwriting book, letter and number flashcards
  • Science Curriculum
  • Select educational books that no one could say goodbye to for the year
  • The New City Catechism for Kids
  • Jesus Storybook Bible
  • 2 small dry-erase boards
  • dry erase markers
  • sticky notes and pens
  • Watercolor paper and watercolors
  • Coloring supplies
  • Nature Journals and colored pencils

Look Inside our Kid’s Toy Bag:

  • Scooter for each child (Pro Tip: You can take them apart to fit in a suitcase for travel!)
  • Magnatiles
  • Legos
  • Books
  • Lovies and 2 stuffed animals per child
  • Sarah’s Silk and clamps for fort building
  • Art supplies for crafts (glue, googly eyes, yarn, etc).
  • Odds and ends that couldn’t be left behind and that fit among the scooters

Overall, we were happy with the decisions we made in packing. I almost felt like we took too many clothes, but it’s so hard to know exactly what a climate is like until you actually get there. And we had the added twist of a Covid lockdown, which means we left the house far less than we might have under other circumstances. The only thing we really regretted not having (and we couldn’t easily find in Sydney) was our cheese slicer. Which, isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things!

All things being equal, I would likely pack in the same way if we were to do another international move – unless the company wanted to pay for our move.

What would you pack in your bags for an international move?

The Rush is Inside of Me.

There’s a saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.” 

It means that you can’t outrun yourself or your problems or the places where you find yourself struggling.  You can change your location, your environment, your job, or the people you surround yourself with, but the common denominator between all those things, you, will still be there. 

Wherever you go, there you are. 

It’s both a beautiful and a terrifying idea.

I felt a lot of pressure to do everything well in my pre-Sydney life.  I served as a part-time pastor, a full-time mom to two kids, and a first-time homeschooler.  Sometimes I felt so rushed, as though there wasn’t enough time for everything to get done.  And the reason I felt like that was often that it was true.  There literally weren’t enough hours to do all the things I wanted to do well.  

I must not be the only one who experiences this, because there is an actual name for it:  Hurry Sickness. (Thanks to John Mark Comer for highlighting this in, The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.)

Psychologists define hurry sickness as a behavioral pattern characterized by continual rushing and anxiousness, or an uncomfortable feeling in which someone feels chronically short of time, and so tends to perform every task faster and to get flustered when encountering any kind of delay. 

I’ve experienced this for most of my life, I just didn’t know it had a name.  I find myself believing that everyone else has much more time and that I am the only one who feels so stretched. 

In high school, I wondered what it might be like to be some of my friends with more margin in their lives, jealous of what I perceived to be their lack of time anxiety.  I imagined them watching Dawson’s Creek, painting their nails, and relaxing.  Who knows why they were painting their nails in this scenario?!  That must have been the ultimate dream for me. 

Even today, when I see someone out for a midday walk or run without children, I think, “Must be nice to have that kind of time!”  That knee-jerk thought reveals a deep longing inside of me.       

Hurry Sickness is such a part of me that I believed that quitting my job and moving to another part of the world might be the cure to end all cures.  And it was kind of.  I no longer move from Zoom meeting to Zoom meeting, from congregant coffee to staff member coffee.  I no longer spend hours wrestling with a sermon before coming home to prepare dinner, do bedtime, throw in laundry, and plan our lessons for the next day.

However, I’ve only been in Sydney for four months, all of them under strict lockdown restrictions, and I can feel it creeping in again.  

Wherever you go, there you are.  

The rush is inside me.  The anxiety doesn’t come from the outside pressure or the environment I’m in.  The anxiety and pressure and hurry must come from within.  

As we walk to our weekly play date with the one friend we have in Australia, I worry we will be late.  As we came home from the playdate, I’m afraid we will miss the window for naptime.  During naptime, I rush to the grocery store, anxious that I’ll take longer than the kids will rest.  Then, while they were less than enthused to play by themselves, I made homemade dough for our pizza night, with a gnawing sense in the pit of my stomach that I wouldn’t finish everything that needed to be done before our Sabbath evening started.  As I was kneading dough, between helping the kids with their shower and vacuuming the living room, a single thought hit me.

The rush is inside me.  

I am the keeper and the carrier of this pressure I feel.  I am the author and the instigator of this anxiety.  In lockdown, on the other side of the world, with no one to answer to other than myself and my family, with no deadlines other than those that are self-imposed, the hurry starts with me.

I think about the words of Jesus, “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”  

And I want that life.  I want to recover my life.  I want to discover real, restorative rest for my soul.  I want to stay close enough to Jesus that I can say that I am walking and working with him.  I want to learn the unforced rhythms of grace and learn to live freely and lightly.  I want to pass this way of life on to my children.  

And so, I sit in silence with Jesus today and say, slowly, with no rush, “Lord, teach me what I need to know.  Teach me those things that have felt elusive in the past.  Do for me what I cannot do for myself.  Holy Spirit, heal the parts of me that I can’t heal on my own.  I am ready for a heavenly exchange. I will offer you my anxiety, my self-imposed standards and ideals, my worry, and my hurry in exchange for your unforced rhythms of rest and your freedom.”  

Do you long for that too? 

Do you want to trade your hurry and your rush and your anxiety for the unforced rhythms of grace?  Tell Jesus today.  Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and ask Him to show you the way, His way, that leads to life.

It’s only a year.

“It’s only a year!  We can do anything for a year!”

Three months into our year in Sydney, these words reverberate in my mind.  In hindsight, a year sounded so short.  In the grand scheme of our lives, it is nothing, just a blip on the radar.  And yet, when the sun rises and sets daily and you wake up 365 times in order to see said year through to completion, I have discovered it doesn’t feel like “nothing”.  It still very much feels like we are living.  It feels like these days are real and that these memories will be real.  And the hard still feels hard and if I am being honest, sometimes a bit unending.

365 days mean a lot of coffee being brewed at home, it means an entire grade for my oldest to learn at home.  It means my husband will spend his days acclimating to a new job with a new work environment and culture – from home.  It means we will visit our beloved playground hundreds of times – sometimes twice a day.  It means at least 1000 meals and snacks and drinks will be prepped and handed out and mostly enjoyed around our table.  

What I didn’t realize and couldn’t have known was how easy it would be to feel unsettled and transient.  I didn’t know what it would actually feel like to desire to put down roots and yet feel the need to hold back.  To feel both at home and homesick.  Home in that this is where we are living – this is where our little family calls “home” each day.  This apartment with two bedrooms and two bathrooms (which is glorious and by the way might ruin me for the future!) is where the legos and strollers and our clothes are right now.  And yet, not home, because it’s not quite ours.  

We didn’t pick out the furniture, have a combination washer and dryer (hello, most inefficient appliance ever!), and are using the almost too well-loved frying pans that were here upon arrival.  And because we are here for only a year, I have resisted hanging anything on the walls.

When I think of making our home homier, my mind immediately wonders how we will get rid of that particular item at the end of the year – will I sell it on Facebook marketplace, just throw it away (which sounds so wasteful!), pawn it off to a friend we haven’t yet met, or hope that a charity shop will come to take it away?  

I’m sure so many people have done this before and I am just a click away from blog after blog after blog of advice.  But, not one of those writers could have told me how I would actually feel in the midst of a year that seemed as though it might fly by, and yet now feels as though each day is taking all the time in the world.  No other person or writer could have prepared me for what it feels like to have left home and created another home for a short season during a global pandemic with the city locked down.    

And yet, a year is 365 days more than nothing.  It’s still a real season of our life and memories my kids will have and that we will have for the rest of our lives.  And I wonder if it’s actually worth putting something on the walls…because, yes, it’s only a year.  And yes, we can make do with anything for a year.  But, now that we are here, do we really want to?