Happy One Year Anniversary

One year = 365 days = 8760 hours = 525600 minutes. This represents the time we have spent in our host country, Macchiato. Inspired by blogs of friends who are experiencing the same thing as me (same-same...but different). I have decided to list a few things that I loved about this year.

• I have met some of the most amazing people. They have been friendly, warm, and hospitable, but most of all patient and helpful as we learn to use their language.


• I get to eat amazing watermelon and pineapple all year round, and I like that when we eat local food our whole family can eat for under $10.00 US, sometimes less than that.


• I love the tropics, the palm trees, coconuts, the beach, the bamboo, and the rice fields.


• I love how I can see the strangest things every time I go outside, seriously!


• I love when my kids speak in their new language, or ask for electric translators for their birthday. I really like being able to communicate in a second language, there is something really fun about it.


• I loved our school (the Pelatihs......not so much the work) and the kids school, we have been truly blessed by the people in both places. Our kids have been loved well by the staff.


• I like the Koinonia coffee shop which many times has served as my oasis, a little taste of normal.


• I like when the neighborhood kids stop and call out for my kids to come play.


• I love having a cook and a cleaner. They surely saved my sanity during this time in language school....I will miss them and felt really good when they told us they will miss us and wished we weren't moving so far away so that they could still work for us!


• I love how the CEO has seen us through this past year and made his care for us evident in more ways than I can count.

We have been happy, sad, angry, joyful, homesick, frustrated, excited, stressed, patient and impatient, lovable and unlovable and everything else in between. We have felt certain this is where we should be and then sat down and thought what in the world are we doing here! It's a good thing we don't run our lives by our emotions or somebody would be coming to lock us up and throw away the key! :) Yet we are always provided for, literally every time we need the strength to continue, it comes. Every time we realize we have failed, we are offered forgiveness. Every time we feel we have a right to something we are gently, or not so gently, reminded that we gave up your rights and are filled with peace. I could go on and on but you get the picture. We go by faith not by feelings.

Don't get me wrong, this hasn't been a "kumbaya let's hold hands and skip around the park" adventure, we have experienced many things that have threatened to steal our peace. On the other hand this has been the adventure of a lifetime and I can't imagine not having experienced all that we have as a family, it has been life changing in a very positive way. We have not only survived but in many ways thrived and are coming out of this first year a little wiser, a little more humbled, a little more aware of what we are called to do and a real commitment to do it.

And this is the part where I say thank you, because so much of how well we have done and the peace we experienced came from the part you played by talking to the CEO about us and caring for us by sending emails of encouragement, Facebook messages, Skype calls and sending packages. You truly are a blessing to our family. Well.....Mazel tov....here is to another year which means another move, another island, new work and back to homeschooling!!