goodbyes – A Life Overseas |

Will You Leave, Too?

We had just finished a rowdy dinner together with a lot of belly-laughing and story-swapping from our overlapping eight years in northern Japan. I remember sitting on the floor with our youngest, still a baby, while our older kids played upstairs together, content and full. Then these dear friends looked at each other, subtly nodded, and said something along the lines of, “We don’t know how to tell you this, but we sense that God is telling us that it is time to move back to the US.”

I felt like the top of my head was being squeezed by a too-tight swimming cap, like everything around me was slowly being drained of color and going grayscale. I was caught off guard and felt devastated, lost, deflated. In the following weeks and months, I felt as if someone had died. Perhaps this is dramatic and I shouldn’t have felt this loss so strongly. But this goodbye hurt with an intensity that previous and subsequent ones didn’t.

Perhaps this is because this departure was coming after so many other goodbyes, perhaps because this friendship required work and repair and was therefore all the more precious to me, perhaps because I ached for a family with whom we could live our missionary lives together — knowing one another’s stories, living in close proximity, bearing with one another through good and hard and all the in between. We’d weathered miscarriages, births of our babies, language study, disappointments, transitions, growth, major culture mishaps, and celebrations — together.

Their decision to leave didn’t make sense to me. They had a great relationship with their Japanese partner church, they were doing good ministry in their community, their kids were thriving, and they modeled many things I hoped to be one day: easy to laugh, ready to serve, willing to work hard yet valuing play, strong in their faith. Yet shortly after this conversation sitting together on the floor of our house, they left — and I swirled through the stages of grief poorly for, I am embarrassed to admit, a couple of years.

Writing this now, there is still a part of me whispering quietly, “But why did they leave?”

I could understand other dear friends, teammates, and fellow missionaries’ reasons for leaving: aging parents, adult children needing help launching, younger children with disabilities or mental health needs. I understand those who leave for resources, systems, support, and treatments that are not available where they live. I still grieve these departures, but I understand them.

What are more difficult to process are the departures I don’t understand. Those who excelled in language study — surpassing most people I know in a few years with humility and hard work and humor. Those who served on an easier-to-adjust-to team. (We partner primarily with local churches. I sometimes envy those who work with international churches or on mostly international teams, perceiving them as having fewer barriers to cross and having to do less cultural bending.) Those who basically got to do the ministries they wanted in the location they wanted with the teammates they wanted . . . and now they, too, have left.

I am not an expert in missionary attrition, nor am I involved in member care in a formal capacity. Yet what I have read recently has mostly been from the perspective of those who have left their countries of service to go “home” and how difficult of an adjustment that is for many. I am thankful for people writing and sharing their experiences with reverse culture shock, rebuilding their lives, and coming to a new understanding of their identity and calling.

Yet what about the experiences of those of us who stay, who are left behind? These losses add up and break our hearts, too. I confess that I have not always responded gracefully or as well as I would have liked. When meeting people new to missions, I occasionally find myself suspicious, guarded. “Will she leave, too?” “If I get too close to them and they also decide to leave, can my heart handle being broken yet again?”

Sometimes I want to be someone who can say, somewhat perkily, “Oh, that’s too bad. We will miss you, and God bless you in this next chapter.” And then move on, looking toward the future with my heart and the top of my squeezed head intact.

Yet the truth is that ministry (anywhere!) is hard. Missions is hard. Feeling foolish and making thousands of mistakes — hard. Misunderstanding and being misunderstood — hard. Going to and living in spiritually dark places — in our case, where maybe 0.1% of our city is Christian and 1% seems like a dream — is hard. Partnering alongside and under the vision of national leaders is (often) hard. Dying to my preferences, not being funny or finding local humor funny for a long time, missing people/places/things from my home culture, culture stress that lessens but never goes away completely — all of this is hard. But the goodbyes, for me, are a different level of hard.

Yes, missions involves adventure, new experiences, and countless ways we and our perspectives shift and grow and expand. We get to notice and enjoy the beauty of where God has placed us: the people, places, things, and even pieces of culture that reflect the kingdom of God. It is a privilege and a blessing to be entrusted with this calling, this life, these relationships.

But this life involves so many (may I say too many?) goodbyes: to our extended families and dear friends in our home countries and to fellow missionaries who become like surrogate family in the countries we serve in. How I ache to be able to control outcomes. “This person is well-trained, well-supported, mature, on a good team, and has great member care. They will thrive and stay.” But it doesn’t seem to work like that.

We have known many people who have left. People who have excelled at language learning and those who have struggled. People who were well-trained in missions and those with minimal training. People who partner with national churches and those who work independently. People who are underfunded and those with incredible funding. People with remarkable member care structures around them and those without. People who are single and people who are married. People still in the throes of culture shock and those who have ridden the wave and come out the other side.

Many years ago, a TCK friend who grew up here told me, “My mom eventually stopped making friends. She held people at arms length to protect herself from the inevitable revolving door of missionaries coming and going and the heartbreak of goodbyes.” While I don’t want to follow this woman’s path, I understand it.

Although my heart may look like a patched up, scrappy quilt with a few places in need of mending, I am thankful my life has intersected with these remarkable, hilarious, sensitive, curious, faith-filled, and faithful people. I learned about celebration and finding humor in mistakes from one, that hanging laundry can be a meditation rather than drudgery from another, about gratitude and rhythms of work and rest from another.

My life is richer from moments shared and memories made together, from watching them parent and lead and live beautiful, imperfect lives, from praying for and encouraging one another, and from walking, arms linked, in the same direction together for a season. I wouldn’t trade all of this to protect myself from the pain of goodbyes.

And so I pray:

God, give me courage to love. To welcome new people. To not fear their futures nor my own. God, help me be like my mom, who said to me when I was preparing to go on a short-term trip in my early 20s, “I want you in the center of God’s will for your life, whether He chooses to keep you safe or not.” And may I add, “Whether He chooses to keep you in my life here or not. Whether He chooses the path I want for you or not.”

God, help me to release dearly loved friends, teammates, mentors, and mentees who have, who might, and who will move on. I don’t want to live guarded or hold people at arm’s length, so help me to trust that You will guard and uphold me. Help me to receive from You comfort, Your presence, and the reminder that someday there will be no more goodbyes.

One Year In: What Has Helped Our Transition

As we have reflected on our past year of transition back to our passport country, a few particular graces stand out as hugely impactful. I use the word “graces” because often, when transitioning back from an overseas life, certain elements are out of our control. The following list is not comprehensive, and these are not ways in which we planned well or succeeded. These are simply elements that assisted in the smooth transition for our family, by God’s grace.

Some of us may have needed to leave in times of chaos or crisis, when it is exceedingly challenging to have any space or time to think with intentionality. There is so much grace for transitions like these. So take what is helpful here, and leave the rest.

Leaving well. We are grateful for resources written for returning cross-cultural workers. In one such resource, I was given basic principles that helped shape how our family could leave our field in a healthy way.

We prayerfully sought wisdom on how to fairly offer our household furnishings to those in our community. We made a family bucket list of some of the last places we wanted to see, or special places to revisit. We planned many dinners, coffee dates, playdates, and intentional times with friends, church family, and coworkers.

As others have written about before, we prayed through the RAFT concept, considering if there were any relationships to repair. When it came time to leave, though our whole family would have loved more time with many of these dear friends, we were relationally ready, and gratefully did not leave with any looming conflict hanging over our heads.

Having a job lined up. There were a couple of different seasons while we lived and worked overseas when we were tempted to transition back, but in the end, we did not feel God was releasing us. Looking back, we are so grateful we waited for His guidance and particular timing. In our transition, we had time for my husband to candidate for pastoral positions as God was leading and prayerfully walk through this process with others praying for us.

When it came time to physically leave our host country, we knew where we would eventually be moving and what job my husband would next be doing. This shaped so much of our transition and provided essential stability when so much of our lives seemed at sea.

Prioritizing a soft landing for our children. Some friends of ours who transitioned back to their home country a few years before us helped shape this priority for us. My husband, an adult TCK, knew firsthand the many challenges for TCKs transitioning back to passport countries, and had specific hopes for our children. We prayerfully considered what part of the country in which to land, how far from family, what size town, what kind of schooling, etc.

In the middle stage of candidating with churches, we brought our children (ranging from seven years to twelve years) into the conversation and asked them to pray for God’s direction for our family. When it came time to make the final decision, we sought their perspectives and waited until each child was onboard with leaving. God truly orchestrated a soft transition for our children, and we settled into a small church with a great youth pastor and youth group, in an area with abundant opportunities and natural beauty.

Stepping into a supportive church community. We have loved being a part of so many churches through our cross-cultural years of service and have been supported deeply by some of these churches. Stepping into pastoral ministry meant that we were stepping directly into a new church community, and one that has cared for us genuinely.

In the beginning months, they sought to meet many of our practical needs, helping to fix up the home we moved into and providing many basic household items. There have been a core group of people who have understood on some level what it is for our family to transition from a decade of living and working overseas, and have cared well for us through prayer and intentionally checking in. This church has shaped the majority of our new community in this early stage of transitioning, and has been a blessing.

Being willing to wait on God. Even with all of these listed graces, there have still been many moments of angst and wondering. While my husband jumped into a new, defined role at our church, I have struggled with the identity loss of cross-cultural worker and wondered what is next for me personally. We have considered all of the schooling options and struggled to find a community like the one we left. We have prayed constantly for friends for our children.

At one point, about eight months after we left South Africa, I was deeply anxious about some of these issues, and just felt my spirit couldn’t settle. After an interrupted night of sleep, I sat with my cup of coffee, journal and Bible, and cried out, what am I to do, Lord? Almost audibly, He said, “You wait for me. Have I not provided in the past?”

Hot tears ran down my face as I realized all of the many ways He had indeed provided and cared for us in all of the previous years, for the whole of my life. Be patient, and wait. None of these angsty issues needed to be answered right now; I needed to wait on Him, for His leading and provision.

This biblical principle of waiting has since shaped my perspective. When I look back on our time overseas, I am keenly aware of the painstaking years it took for a sense of rootedness in our cross-cultural context. God provided deep friendships and meaningful community, good work and productive ministry, but not all at once, and some of these took years to fall into place.

We know our transition journey is far from over; and yet, we are grateful at this stage, one year in, to be able to see the goodness of God and significant ways in which He aided our repatriation process. It is an incredible grace to think back on all that God has done in these past twelve months, not only for our family, but for those we left and those we’ve come to join.

If you are on the cusp of transition or thinking ahead to what God has next for you, my hope is that you are encouraged. God is with you, He is leading you, and He will provide for you.

Co-Grieving Loss with Your Repatriated TCK

We didn’t have words for TCK loss back then. Not when I left Cameroon at nineteen and stepped onto U.S. soil as a stranger to my own country. But just because there weren’t words doesn’t mean the ache of loss didn’t burrow deep. Nineteen and newly repatriated felt like drowning in a sea of people who looked like me and talked like me but didn’t know the red-earth-Africa that shaped me.

I hardly recognized the girl I became in the wake of losing Cameroon, my best friends, and everything that felt familiar. That season was one of the hardest – and one of the unhealthiest – of my life.

Now, after the years have fast forwarded to an empty nest, I find myself looking back, not just at my own story but at theirs. I think of my children, my third culture kids, who built rich and beautiful lives on South African soil, their home. How will they handle letting go? How will they carry the weight of leaving behind the people and places that shaped them?

When I saw Megan Norton’s invitation to write a letter to my recently repatriated TCKs for her upcoming book, Letters Now Sent, I knew exactly what I wanted to say. I know the grief of leaving a place that tattoos an indelible mark on your soul. As their mother and as a TCK myself, I want to co-grieve their losses of saying goodbye to a life they loved in South Africa. And I know where I want them to root themselves now, as they step into adulthood in the U.S.

This letter is a new beginning with new language for parents of TCKs. It is my way of opening the door to a safe and sacred conversation with my young adult children—one established in love, shared understanding, and the kind of hope that reroots through the cracks of even the hardest losses. While their reactions to my letter are deeply personal and honey to my heart, I can tell you that this budding conversation was met with warm reciprocity and open arms.

A letter to Elaina and Sawyer Danforth, 2025 (republished at A Life Overseas with permission)

My two dearest toasted marshmallows,

You are eighteen and nineteen now. University carries a steep learning curve for everyone, but especially for the ones like you who left home, country, and friends to be grafted back to the place of your heritage.

As second-generation TCKs, you belong to a tribe that your father and I know well. Your childhood was formed in the womb of the cradle of humankind, in KwaZulu-Natal, and it ended abruptly on the other side of a plane ride to the United States. But the things that formed you there still sing in every crevice of your mind and shape the way you see the world.

Repatriation is a season when the losses of the familiar sink in hard for TCKs. And these are the years when you become aware of your roots, the ones that have been transplanted to new soils and now feel wildly distinct and out of place. The places of your childhood are the places where your formative and deepest roots grow. And the soil of South Africa no longer surrounds or supports you.

You’ll remember from working on our farm that a transplanted plant often wilts for a while. It is learning to survive in a new and unfamiliar environment. Its roots aren’t sure what to make of its new home. They don’t know whether they can unfurl and take new life or whether the newness will be hostile to growth. Repatriating TCKs are the same.

While my roots in South Africa will never be as deeply formative as yours, I am here to co-grieve your losses with you. I did the same as a nineteen-year-old with my Cameroonian roots. And your father did too, at eighteen with his Congolese and Central African roots.

Some losses are obvious. Our imperfectly perfect little farmhouse and the stability of its cracked walls. The foamy blueness of whales flirting between the horizon and the Indian Ocean. The oneness of our multicultural, multi-lingual farm family. The wind-whipped cheeks from four-wheeling wild past giraffes. The saggy eyes after Minecraft all-nighters with friends. The laughter with your non-blood sisters farmsteading in the mountains. The crispy-edged pancakes hot off the griddle every Saturday morning. The seasonal ebb and flow of subtropical downpours and droughts.

But some losses are hidden. Some, you won’t even know you miss until you come across them years later. And you’ll be caught off guard by a sudden feeling of home. Hidden losses are the sounds, smells, and invisible things that God sprinkled into the backdrop of your childhood. They are the things that you didn’t even know weren’t everywhere on planet earth. Until they weren’t.

Your hidden losses don’t have to make sense to anyone else. They don’t even have to be pleasant. But something about these background sounds and smells had a profound impact on developing the unseen part of who you are today. And we honor those gifts by naming them.

The background sound of your childhood is the cry of hadedas filling pink southern skies and beckoning your sleepy eyes open. You didn’t even know the sound was missing until that first morning in a Midwest dormroom when the synthetic shock of an alarm clock demanded your attention.

It is the faithful singsong Xhosa greeting “Molweni” on your proud farm stoep. It is the mourning doves telling each other off gently and sternly. It is the inexplicable peace of violent rains threatening to crash right through tôle roofs. It is the baying of hounds, whether to threaten skelems or to give chase to dassies, outside your burglar-barred window.

It is the South African flavor in which people have always said your name. It is the twisted, segregated history healing in real time through the harmony of church songs in English, Afrikaans, and Zulu. It is the comfort of our family’s age-old call to meals that reaches back to the recesses of your first independently held spoon, “On va prier.”

The background smell embedded in the roots of your childhood is a eucalyptus flame licking Karoo lamb ribs on the braai. It is soft buttermilk vanilla steam from an Ouma rusk dunked in Five Roses tea. How can something be so moorishly crunchy and goopy at the same time? It is the barely-there salt in the air where the Indian Ocean laps at the sky. And yes, it is even the familiar sewage plant every time we try to hold our breath at that bend in the highway by Uvongo.

Your roots will fumble around in this new place of red, white, and blue for a while, figuring out what is friendly soil and what isn’t. And this is the time. Dit is tyd to close your eyes, take a breath, and rediscover the power of your one unshakable tap root. It is your deepest root. The most formative one. The most familiar one. The most stabilizing one. It is your one root that pushes far past all the others, past every good and rocky soil, reaching like life depends on it, to the source of life. Water. Living Water.

It is in Living Water that you’ve always found life and truth and all that is good. When everything around is unfamiliar, this source is the familiar.

You’ll find community in the taproots of familiar people planted there too. And you’ll come to know new people who are automatically family because their taproot seeks life in the same place where yours does. This is the good stuff, my toasted marshmallows.

While your secondary roots stumble around and try to make sense of star-spangled life, sink all your energy, all your questions, all your everything into your taproot’s source of life. It is the one and only thing that will never change no matter where you go, how far you fall, or how unfamiliar everything else seems.

Taprooted to the Source with you,

Mom (Anna Danforth)

~~~~~~~

Inspired by Ruth Van Reken‘s book Letters Never Sent, Letters Now Sent will be a collection of letters from TCKs, parents of TCKs, and system leaders to share personal stories about their experiences with TCKs, being a TCK themself, and/or raising TCKs. This book is a fusion of both memoir and anthology written in a specific “Dear [name]” format.

Here is the Google Form link to submit a letter with additional details about length and content prompts: https://forms.gle/jQyzq3TtFqfyznvCA. The deadline to submit a letter is March 31, 2025, and the book will be launched in July 2025 at Ruth’s 80th birthday celebration. Families in Global Transition is hosting the 80th Birthday party in Chicago on July 26, 2027, and registration will be live on their website soon. You do not have to be a member of FIGT to register for this event.

When Saying Goodbye Again is Too Much

“I have to tell you something, but you can’t tell anyone, because I am not supposed to know this yet.”

I receive this text from my teammate and good friend.

“Oookaaay…. What’s going on?”

“The Smiths* are leaving.”

I immediately shoot back a bunch of crying emojis.

The Smiths have a daughter who is best friends with both my daughter and my teammate’s daughter. Their trio is about to be broken.

Our mama hearts hurt for our daughters.

Goodbyes have been a painful thing for us in our life overseas. My daughter wrote a poem a while back about all the friends she has had to say goodbye to. She had prayed often (and so had I) for a really safe friend here. So when I find out that this dear, much longed for friend in this country is leaving, the tears flow freely. Not again, Lord.

For a few moments that night, I feel ready to quit this life altogether. Why choose a life where there is this kind of grief, that is both frequent and also unexpected? Unlike diplomats or the military, who know the length of their terms, we are never sure when we will have to say goodbye to those we love or when it will be our turn to be the ones who leave.

A few weeks later, I host a goodbye party for this sweet friend with all the girls in her class. I tell them we’ll start with a more serious activity and then move to more fun.

I create space for them to feel whatever they are feeling about saying goodbye. These precious expat girls know the pain of constant goodbyes. I ask them to breathe in deeply and to think about what is on their hearts. I give them a few minutes to get in touch with where they are.

Then I read Psalm 84 to them, a psalm about pilgrims longing for the presence of God as they travel. My voice breaks as I read, “No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.” No good thing. He is our sun and shield. A day with him as our best friend is better than a thousand with our dearest friends. Oh Father, this is so beautifully true. Thank you.

After this, we listen together to Christy Nockels’s song Home. They all have blank paper and markers, and I ask them to draw, doodle, write, whatever they want as they listen to what God has for them. We go through the whole song. They ask to listen a second time, as they creatively process with the Lord. So we do.

It feels like a sacred space, as I see them sprawled all over the basement, under stairs, behind couches, in corners, listening to the Lord. I pray the Spirit will come and meet them in ways he only can.

He meets me too. Isn’t that so like him? I am captivated by the phrase Nockels repeats over and over: “Further up and farther in.”

That is when it hits me. That even though our paths are going in separate ways, the invitation is the same for all of us: to go further up and farther into the love of our Father in Christ. We are all still traveling home, just on different paths. It fills me with so much hope for my daughter and her friends. Jesus will from his own fullness give them “what he takes away.” It gives me a sense of purpose in this nomadic life and its goodbyes. Each one is producing an eternal weight of glory — in both us as parents and in our kids.

Later, we laugh and play with water balloons and dunk cake and marshmallows in fudge and munch on lemon bars . . . because Christ is in all of it. In both lament and feast.

Friend, if you too are going through heart-wrenching goodbyes, may you accept the invitation from our Father to keep journeying further up and farther into the fullness of the Son. Christ is the God who journeys with us in the mountains and valleys. When he brings us through the valley of tears, we experience more of his heart, more of his presence, more of his goodness. May the very presence of Christ buoy your soul in all the farewells that this life calls us to. And may He transform the valley into a place where we taste more deeply the love that never lets us go.

*name changed to protect identity

A Different Kind of Goodbye

by J. Daniel Sims

photo credit: Brant Copen

We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.
(C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed)

It is a rare peaceful, sunny afternoon on a usually rainy, usually war-torn hilltop in Northern Myanmar when I break down for the first time on my new life path.

These last six months brought me closer to the dead and dying and at a greater frequency than many Americans will ever experience. This exposure shook something loose in me, ultimately transforming the way I view and approach life. But this death, across 10,000 miles of ocean, was different, closer somehow.

My family is all together now, minus two key people. One of them is me.

I was the first grandson and for 20 months thrived as the sole treasure of the family. Then Andrew was born. Even before my sister, Andrew was my first playmate. He was a meaningful part of every memory with Mom’s side of the family tree.

Most of our interactions took place at the “farm,” my grandfather’s yawning plot of west Texas clay. My visits to the farm were often separated by large periods of time, gaps which grew in length as the years wore on. Proximity ultimately stifled the full development of our friendship, but I always considered Andrew the closest thing I had to a brother.

Andrew lived near the farm, and every month my family would come to visit. We would always pick up right where we left off: exploring the fields, playing hide n’ go seek in the farmhouse, trying for hours just to get a single ball through the towering, rusty, old basketball net.

As time passed, the monthly trips turned into every few months, but the fun only increased as my sister and his brother joined the ranks: camping in the fields, building a fortress in the barn, throwing apples at the cows, two-on-two at the rusty, old basketball net.

Then we moved north and only made it out to the farm a couple of times a year. But whenever we did, everything was beautifully unchanged. Our club of cousins really was family: 4-wheeling around the fields, fishing by the tank, climbing races to the top of the rusty, old basketball net.

But twice a year turned to once, and once to “when we can,” and the assembly of our childhood army lost its regularity. Nearly two years had passed when I headed back to the farm for Pappaw’s funeral. A fifth cousin, Andrew’s youngest brother, had long been added to the ranks and was now six years old. Somewhere along the way, we had all grown up, Andrew perhaps the most visibly.

During Pappaw’s final days, Andrew had grown into a leader at the farm and in life. He was excelling at university and prepping for law school (a veritable family tradition). At home, he was looking after his brothers and spending a lot of time with a special girl named Ashley.

That summer he had stopped by the old house every day to check in on Mammaw and Pappaw. Whether to bring them the mail, or deliver some groceries, or just to say hi, he was there. The farm became just another place where he could make a difference: plowing the fields, taking care of the cows, thoughtfully repainting the rusty old basketball net.

I was thoroughly impressed by the changes in Andrew’s life, changes I was actively seeking in my own. Though time certainly forced its way between us, the friendship was just as we remembered.

I’ll never forget my last trip to the farm. Andrew and I were worn out from spending an hour or so trying to dunk on a refinished – yet unmistakably old – basketball net. (I never quite got it, but I think he did.)

We headed around the house and met the other three cousins. The five of us just sat there under the flag, tossing a football, and enjoying each other’s company for the rest of the afternoon. I couldn’t stop thinking to myself how lucky I was to have such a family, so separated by time and distance, but still – in many ways – so beautifully close.

As the sun set, we hugged our goodbyes and headed back to school and life on opposite sides of the world. That was the last time I heard from Andrew.

There I sat, alone and confused on this hillside in Northern Myanmar, seeking in this strange land the sort of personal transformation which became real for Andrew in his own home town.

My family was all together, minus two key people. One of them was me.

Editor’s Note: This essay was excerpted from Sims’s new book WanderLOST: stories from the winding road to significance, which was released on April 1st. I had the privilege of reading an early copy of the manuscript and gave this endorsement:

“In Wanderlost, Jacob tells a story that is so particular it becomes universal, especially for the traveler or the globally minded Christ-follower. But anyone who has searched for meaning, identity, or community will find in him a fellow seeker. At times hilarious and at times painful, Wanderlost is at all times compelling.” –Elizabeth Trotter

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J. Daniel Sims currently serves as Country Director of International Justice Mission (IJM) Cambodia, where he leads a team of investigators, lawyers, social workers, and programmatic and operational staff in the fight against violent labor exploitation. Concurrently with his role at IJM, he serves as a Non-Resident Fellow at Duke University’s Center for Reconciliation, a leading institute bridging the worlds of research and practice in the global peace-building and justice space. Sims is frequently drawn upon for expert commentary on various human rights and global development challenges. His analysis has featured in The Economist, The Guardian, Forbes, LA Times, Al Jazeera, VICE World News, Sydney Morning Herald, ProPublica, The American Interest, Plough, The Hill, and World News Group.

Are Transient Friendships Worth My Time?

Are Transient Friendships Worth My Time?

In my 15 years on the field, the number of dear friends I have made and then said goodbye to is beyond my ability to recount. Some were genuine heart-level relationships, the kind where I could bare the depths of my soul and still feel entirely loved and unjudged. Others were such a barrel of fun that the laughs started rolling the minute we began chatting, and some friends had such depth of love for Christ that it felt highly contagious in the best way.

But the one thing all of these friends had in common is that they left. Whether they moved to another field or returned to their home countries, my friendships with them are no longer the same because of the geographical distance between us.

Of course, I also have left. I left my home country and the friendships I had there so I could move to Afghanistan. I transitioned to a different field in 2014, and with that transition came many goodbyes. It does not feel so drastic when I am the one leaving because there is so much newness and excitement to look forward to on the other side. But when I was the one left behind, the void felt as though I could trace its crater with my fingers. “It’s fine,” I would tell myself. “That is where God wants her, and I love that for her!”

After saying so many goodbyes, it felt safer to hang back and observe. I would watch carefully and check in with different expat ladies in the community to see how they were doing, only to calculate whether or not they would “make it.” While they were sharing their triumphs and struggles, I was cautiously measuring them up to see if they were worth my time and energy. It’s a sad and ugly confession, but it’s true. (It’s also worth noting that my predictions have rarely been accurate.)

My watch-and-wait strategy backfired, and I simply wound up not having close friends outside of my husband and a teammate. This lasted a couple of years because I was pretty slow to figure out that my plan had failed. In my attempt to shield myself from the pain of more goodbyes, I had effectively cut myself off from friendships. It was a lonely time. The fear of pending heartache was gnawing at the present reality of loneliness, but I felt too stuck to know which was the better existence.

When I was finally able to articulate my dilemma, it became clear that God had made me, and indeed all of us, to live in relationship with one another while knowing that loss is inevitable. Our souls yearn for infinite comfort and familiarity, and Jesus is the only one who can meet this longing with his constant presence and unchanging nature. This change in perspective brought me into a new depth of communion with Christ, and his unchangingness became a new point of meditation and gratitude in my prayer life.

I have since made several meaningful friendships. And, of course, some of them have moved on to other places or back to their passport countries. However, I am grateful for each one because we needed each other in those specific seasons of life. We sharpened each other, we cried together, we shared laughter and joy, sorrow and pain. My life and relationship with Jesus is far deeper and more vibrant as a result of relationship with these friends, even if we were together for only a season.

God made us relational creatures with an intense need for human connection. In our communion with one another, we commune with Christ as well. Knowing and being known by others allows us glimpses of the Maker who put others together just as he did you and me. This is the kind of goodness that you go out of your way to behold, the sort that makes you stand in awe and gratitude.

Making friends in adulthood is not easy, and the transience of life overseas tends to add another layer of complexity to the mix. Overseas life can bring burdens too heavy to shoulder alone, and God has given us the gift of each other for the journey. The short-lived nature of our togetherness can be a reminder that God’s provision may look different from season to season. But the beauty of the vast family of God is that we are tied together by a love so powerful that it transcends time and distance.

When Will This Grief End?

Long-term grief is real. It is eight years ago this month since we had to leave our overseas home. For so long the grief has been painful, like a part of my heart was ripped out. We departed abruptly, adding to the sharp nature of our grief.

But whatever the circumstances of your grief, know that God sees you.

We all face endings and must stretch forth into beginnings. Our lives overseas are often hard-earned and yet are fragile, dependent on factors outside of our control. Grief comes in many ways, whether in the leaving or in the staying as others depart or in a million other things which meet us at every bend in the road.

So how do we ever find healing amid the grief of this journey?

Here are five truths about grief that I’ve gleaned from my ongoing season of grief over leaving an overseas home I loved. They can also be found in Chapter 3 of my book, A Million Skies.

Grief is a unique journey to the person: No one’s grief is the same. Even if you are also grieving a ‘goodbye’ to your overseas home, your journey may be extraordinarily different from mine. We each have varied kinds of closure. We may have remained when others left. The pain we face, which is created by the sense of a shifting home, reminds us that anchors of community, culture, language, and even faith are no longer present. Fight the lie that you must grieve as others do. You have all the grace in the world to walk your own unique journey–to feel what you feel and know what you know.
Grief is messy: This is one of the most succinct truisms I have ever heard and known related to grief. One day we can think of what we miss with soul-deep anguish at the separation. The next day may have us laughing at a funny memory. No matter who we are, the ups and downs and trying to make sense of our grief is so very messy.
Grief is nuanced: Often when we think of those memories of things we loved most in our overseas home, the joy is mixed with such sorrow. We may never be present again with what we have so dearly loved. An English Camp where I worked with my missionary community for six summers had been my ‘happy place’ for nearly ten years. Then, suddenly what had been so joy-filled became, to the same degree, a thing of sorrow. And I know you have your own story, too.
Grieving well means we must remain in its process: As I returned to the States, I was so overwhelmed with grief, I just wanted to binge Netflix and avoid dealing with such sadness. However, I learned that the rock-hard ball of tears wedged deep within me would not go away, and worse, might harden me if I didn’t face my grief. As we navigate the pain, we need to learn to trust God, ourselves, and others again. At the same time, we remain in hard places and what sometimes seems never-ending sorrow.
Grief is never the end of the story: While grief is part and parcel of this life, it does not have final say. God invites us to co-author with him a life that can find true hope in a newness which is overwhelmingly good. If I reflect over these past eight years, I find so many precious relationships I never would have had if I hadn’t had to return to the States. I also have had countless opportunities to serve God as I have found the strength to open up my wounds, wounds intimately related to the life that was lost, and share those wounds with the world. In similar and different ways, you can find hope in the knowledge that your story is not even remotely over.

In the end what I have realized is that, though it was cut short of my hopes and expectations, every moment of my overseas life was gift. Every opportunity to love on students, to meet shop owners, to bond cross-culturally with our church or with the kids’ school communities, was an incredible privilege that few experience. Moreover, not a single moment was wasted. Just as it all was a gift from God, I can lay it at God’s feet as my gift unto his glory.

The trading of sorrow for joy happens little by little as we heal. If joy remains small in the remembering, take heart. You are not alone on the journey. Our Immanuel, God with us, lived a life of grief, of the loss of home. He bore our griefs and sorrows and offers hope as we grasp his healing hand to touch our pain. Ultimately, he promises to bring us home forever.

I leave you with grace. Yes, joy for sorrow. Healing for pain. And most of all, grace to be in the journey as you grieve monumental losses most cannot understand. You are dearly loved by God and given all you need to be right where you are.

Your friend in the journey,

Abigail

photo credit

Tending to the Garden of Expat Emotions

by Lauren Swenson

It was so strange to me, the day when someone asked our names at church as if we were total strangers. We’d played volleyball several times together, had a host of mutual friends, and attended the same service regularly. I asked him, “Do you seriously not remember meeting us before?” His response was, “Oh I’ve lived here long enough that I’ve decided not to make any friends until I know they’ll be staying in Nairobi for a while. How long have you been here?” (Two years, and we met you within the first month or two.) “What do you do?” (We’re building a CrossFit gym.) “Oh, so you own a business! Yes, maybe you’ll be here a while.” He then proceeded to give us his name – again – and he told us he’d try to remember our names this time.

Surprisingly, although this weirdly frank conversation is not the norm, there have been quite a number of people we’ve met who ask prequalifying questions like “How long have you been here?” or “How long do you intend to stay?” or “What organization are you with?” to try to gauge if there’s a possibility of a longer-term relationship or if it’s going to be a short-lived acquaintance.

And I can say truthfully now, I get it. I get why people try to hedge their expectations. It hurts. I find myself grieving over the loss of friendships regularly here. I find myself saddened by the reality that we live in a place where people very regularly move on.

Strictly from a professional standpoint, we have trained with, invested in, and brought on fourteen people who joined us and then left, and we have two more highly integrated individuals who are moving on in the immediate future. The majority of these people are driven by worthy aspirations and have made meaningful life-moves for themselves, so of course I celebrate those realized hopes with them.

But ouch.

It’s not easy being left behind, rebuilding and finding new people to fill spaces that belonged to someone else who uniquely fulfilled their role with us, with our story and aspirations and structure.

I find myself grieving, because I give, invest, pour into people, and then the gaps appear, and the process has to start all over again. It’s disappointing when I have to slow my own progress to go back and train a new teammate.

I grieve because saying goodbye so often makes me feel isolated and alone, and like my story matters little compared to others’ stories.

Maybe someone more mature than me could take the losses in stride. What I do know is that I don’t want to grow heart-calluses that keep people at arms’ length, so I choose to dive in to understand, invest, know, and trust. But is there a way to do this without it hurting?

And in a context where life is not easy and opportunities are sought after like the rare treasures they are, I hurt at the heartbreak and hardships so many face. The never-ending toil of trying to find enough work to put food on the table at the end of each day. The lack of quality public education that puts tremendous burden on families to put children through school. No money for rent, people dodging landlords praying their home won’t be padlocked, possessions seized and tossed into the street. I am not here to work with the poor and disenfranchised, but in the course of my regular life – friends, neighbors, consultants – the realities are humbling, desperate, and overwhelming.

What do I do when this unsettling grief seems to circle around me? It’s not a distant discomfort; it is very present and tangible.

In some ways, it’s a good thing to grieve like this; it is evidence that I am present and alive – feeling, empathizing, caring – in my relationships. As a matter of principle, I want to be all of those things with people, and I believe I am choosing the right priorities.

What troubles me is how I feel when I give myself to training, believing, raising up, trusting, and investing my time, ideas and often finances, and I don’t feel it reciprocated with the loyalty of longevity. Somehow I feel betrayed, like I’ve been used (or am being used) as a steppingstone.

Yet those words war against another reality: I can literally say that one of the joys of my life is being a conduit of grace and hope and being an equipper, someone who can be relied upon and who helps others see a way forward. I desire to be living part of others’ pathway to seeing God’s providence and purpose in their lives, and I feel like I’m operating in my giftings when I do so. I feel my own purpose in being a steppingstone.

It feels like more than a matter of semantics, this steppingstone question. The tension in equipping others and releasing them. The pain of relationship and community. There isn’t a lighthearted quip or pearl of wisdom to nicely qualify and take care of the discomfort that seems like a constant ache in me. I am convinced I can’t make a mental decision, alter a belief, or take a vow that will make the grief disappear.

Instead, I find myself imagining a garden: soil and flowers and crawling things with a stone pathway meandering through it. The hedges don’t guard on the inside of the garden; rather, they keep what isn’t necessary from disturbing the space within. Inside the garden there are park benches awaiting conversations, a table awaiting the opportunity of a shared meal, the bird bath welcoming song, the green grass hoping for small feet to run and tumble through it.

I don’t want to hedge against good grief. I want to be a place where the sadness I feel is because my life is that garden, and my heart has been the steppingstone that welcomed guests in and has seen them leave, better than when they arrived.

Help me, Jesus, to know how to do this well, because sometimes it hurts more than I want it to.

Originally published here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Feeling compelled to influence a part of the world just beginning to embrace fitness as a lifestyle, Lauren and Bryant Swenson and their three teenagers relocated to Nairobi, Kenya in 2016 to open a CrossFit gym. To keep family and friends connected with their journey overseas, Lauren started a blog, which has become her own soul-nurturing chronicle even as life abroad stretches her faith and understanding. Through her writing, Lauren desires to be an authentic and faithful voice, and to foster the togetherness, teachability, tenacity, and transformation that define their purpose in Africa.

Broken Blenders

by Katherine

See the blade twist to a stop
See the smoke rise after the pop
And I’ve broken another blender

Blenders keep breaking; I can’t bear to get another one. Is it that I keep buying low-quality blenders? Or is it the power surges and dusty, tropical environment? I can’t remember how many blenders I’ve been through in my years living in SE Asia. I don’t have one at the moment; I can’t bring myself to buy another one. I know it’s going to break.

Friends keep leaving; I can’t bear to get to know new people. Every new friend is an embryo of a goodbye. The expat community has such a high turnover. As an Australian living in Asia, I’m in a community with people from many countries. We all live here together as foreigners. Some stay for a few months, some for a few years, and some for a few decades. At any given time, I know of someone who is gearing up to move back to their passport country.

I was finally getting to know them
Maybe enough to be a regular confidant
Then they announce they are leaving
And they give their stuff away

I was finally getting to know them
Maybe enough to tell them where we keep the passports
Then they announce they are leaving
And they give their stuff away

I was finally getting to know them
Maybe our children will grow up together
Then they announce they are leaving
And they give their stuff away

We are a mosaic of everyone we’ve ever met, so they say. A mosaic is composed of pieces of different colours and shapes arranged together to form beauty. Well, I say the content of our house is a hodgepodge of many of the people we have farewelled. Our things are a jumbled, messy mixture of exited expats’ former items.

When an expat leaves, they need to get, say, 6 years of belongings down to a 20-kg bag. They sell, they gift, and they throw away.

I have a shelf from a friend who left 15 years ago,
a saucepan from a friend who left 8 years ago,
toys from friends who left 5 years ago,
many books from a friend who left 3 years ago,
a bed from a friend who left 2 years ago,
and a jar of sprinkles from a friend who left a year ago,
just to name a few.

Each piece of the mosaic is part time machine and part airplane. The jar of sprinkles connects us to those years we spent with the former owner. Memories of decorating Christmas cookies at her place pop up when I see the tall glass jar full of coloured balls.

It also connects us to that same friend in the present day. A reminder she is not here, but on the other side of the world. Her children probably don’t remember the sugary mess we made at their place. And they won’t be hosting cookie decorating here again.

I need to grow the mosaic. Although I can’t bear the thought of getting to know more people, I also cannot live without expat friends. I have local friends and friends in my passport country, but there are some things only fellow expats will get.

Locals know nothing other than crazy traffic, so they don’t see it as crazy. Passport country friends don’t know what it is like to fear every trip around town in your first year of a new country — but then to also fear the traffic in your passport country every visit.

So I will continue to welcome new friends. It’s better to have friends and say goodbye than to never have friends. And next time I am saying goodbye, maybe I will take the plunge and ask if my departing friends are looking to re-home their blender.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Katherine’s childhood church in Australia launched her on a trajectory to Asia. After a decade of preparation she landed in Cambodia and married a local Bible teacher.

The Day We Didn’t Go Home

We were supposed to go home on August 6^th. We had tickets and plans, we had dreams and ideas. But when we left Cambodia back in March, we did not have an awareness of how COVID-19 would turn the world upside down.

So we’re not flying home on August 6^th. As a result of passport issues, visa issues, entry requirements, finances, and a whole host of reasons (everyone has them), we’re staying.

For our family, August 6^th is now Stay Day.

Does your story include a Stay Day? Perhaps for you it wasn’t a Stay Day as much as a Leave Day. Do you have a day that marks when life quaked and plans tumbled? Do you memorialize a Stay Day or a Leave Day? Should you?

We hope to remember our eight years in Cambodia on this August 6^th, and every August 6^th afterwards. It will be a sort of anniversary; a blend of stories and laughter and tears.

Like so many memorials, it will be a funky mix of mirth and merry.

On Stay Day, we’ll remember the day we didn’t go home.

Sure, America is home too. Or at least it was. And it will be again. I’m speaking for myself here, of course, because my children will have their own stories, and they’ll need to tell them. Their relationship with America (and Cambodia) always was and always will be unique. Different than mine.

But some things we shared.

Like the eight years around a thick, Khmer-style round table. Well, more like seven. The first year we had a cheaper wooden rectangular table that got eaten up by termites so big you could hear them feasting: lightning-bug-size table chompers.

We’re shipping the Khmer-style table to America, so every Stay Day we’ll gather around it and remember.

We’ll remember the scent of frangipanis, and we’ll probably try to buy some. We’ll feel the feel of traditional kramas, the checkered scarves Cambodians (and my daughters) use for everything.

We’ll probably order Indian food and remember Mount Everest, the local restaurant in Phnom Penh that taught us to absolutely adore Nepalese and Indian food.

We’ll look at old photos of a younger family riding tuk tuks, playing on the street, trying to figure out cross-cultural living.

We might search YouTube for Khmer dance music, and we will probably laugh about the incessant, LOUD, and DRUNK karaoke that permeated our house during wedding season.

We’ll watch old videos of moto rides through our neighborhood, and we’ll remember the kind old man who laughed at the four white foreigners driving a moto through flooded streets and belly laughing. I wonder if he knew how much it reminded me of riding a jet ski.

Maybe we’ll check Google street view and meander past friends’ houses.

On Stay Day, we will remember. And we will pray.

We’ll pray for Cambodia, for our friends there, and for the Church that’s blossoming into its identity.

And Lord willing, we’ll do this every August 6^th: the day we didn’t pack up, weigh all suitcases to 49.9 pounds, quadruple check passports, and jet across the Pacific.

August 7th won’t find us staggering out into the scents and smells of Phnom Penh. We won’t un-mothball our house and turn it back into a home. We won’t schedule reunions with local friends. We won’t visit favorite haunts and coffee shops.

Instead, we’ll mourn what was, and we’ll be grateful for it too.

Mourning is a wetter way of expressing gratitude, after all.

And we’ll move on, whatever that means.

God remains the God of the past. He will always be the God of the past, and he will always care enough to ask the same question he asked Hagar, “Where have you come from?”

He is the God of Stay Day, August 6^th, but he is also the God of August 7^th and 8^th. And if he’s true, if he’s real, he’s got us, and he holds us in his strong right hand.

And he will hold us on every Stay Day, and every day after that too.

~~~~~~~~~~

Do you have a day like this? A Stay Day, or something like it?

Do you need one?

Here are some more thoughts about creating shared meaning and the importance of family rituals. As folks who regularly celebrate “shared meaning” through Sacraments, I hope these ideas will resonate and inspire.

May our families be places where we remember our stories, together.

A lament for the griefs we don’t have time to grieve

by EC Nance

April and May are usually a grieving season for mission communities. This year it has been particularly rough. Schools closed without warning. People evacuated with a day’s notice. Graduation ceremonies moved online. Children face the prospect of never seeing friends again, without having done the leave-taking. I wrote the following poem as a reflection on this crazy season.

I live in a community that lives
in a semi-permanent state of grief
always separate
always strange
always leaving
always being left

but this season
the rhythms of grief
have been interrupted
so the fruit is left on the tree
to swell
sagging with tears

the separations
too rough
the strangeness
too jarring
the leaving
too fast
the being left
—well, what is left
but a splitting
where there should have been
a harvest feast.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EC Nance lives with her family in SE Asia where her husband works at an MK school.

The Pink Bike

by Rebecca Hopkins

In April of last year, I moved away from Indonesia—my home of 14 years—and sold almost everything. And so, in June, someone gave me a pink bike.

I’m not exactly sure who. My aunt and uncle did the very loving thing of collecting used and new items from their friends to restock a home we didn’t yet have for a life of whose shape we weren’t sure.

I’m pretty sure they mentioned the giver’s name. But the problem was, there were so many names and gifts, and I was disoriented from all the changes that the gifts were still hard to take in. I’d traded one set of overwhelm for another.

On the first truly warm week of summer in Colorado Springs, I pulled the pink bike out of the garage of my parents’ house where we were staying. It took some adjusting to get the seat the right height and to figure out the gears. I had to remind myself that traffic flows on the right side of the road in America. But soon enough, I was moving and the wind was flipping my pony tail and my legs pushed strong.

And then, as I rounded the corner, I realized I hadn’t ridden a bike in 10 years.

The last time I’d ridden was when I was pregnant with my first child, living on a tiny island in Indonesia where my husband worked as a humanitarian pilot for a nonprofit organization. I remember trying to convince myself that the tropical heat, terrible bouts of morning sickness, rough roads, crazy motorbike traffic and neighborhood harasser weren’t adequate reasons to stop riding for a time. But my new motherly instinct won out over my normal risk-taking personality.

I didn’t give up jogging or writing or teaching English to neighborhood kids. But for reasons I can’t remember, I didn’t really ride much once I gave birth. And one day—three kids into motherhood—someone stopped by my house and asked if he could buy my now rusty bike. Without thinking much of it, I said yes.

Life filled with kids and culture and small airplanes and jungle adventures and serving and I didn’t really miss the bike. The next time I touched one, I was holding the back of my son’s bike, holding it steady, urging him to pedal, telling him to be brave.

It broke all our hearts to sell my kids’ childhood bikes that last week in Indonesia. The two small crates we were allotted filled up fast. We had a million choices to make, and the bikes just didn’t make the cut.

They’re just bikes, I told myself, while holding my son, watching someone leave our yard with his bike. It’s just a dollhouse. It’s just their baby clothes. It’s just their school table. It’s just a cat.

It’s just a house we’ve loved and a life we’ve built and friends we adore and the only country my kids have called home.

When I learned my uncle had found bikes for my kids, that knowledge kept me going through all the decisions we had to make. I guarded the news from my kids like a state secret so that we could all watch their excited faces at the unveiling once we got to the States. I hadn’t known, though, about the bikes he’d found for my husband and me. But when I saw all five of them lined up, I could see, for the first time, the building blocks of a new adventure.

Getting back on a bike several weeks after our arrival in Colorado was… like riding a bike…except…when it was harder than that. The angles on the roads felt too sharp, my agility less than I remembered it, the air too dry and thin. And when I needed to stop, I couldn’t seem to both jump off the seat and keep my feet from becoming entangled on various bike parts. I dumped it a couple of times, both times while others were watching. I brushed the dirt off my hands, put on a smile and waved. “I’m OK. Just fine.”

“You always have a lot of energy to move forward,” my sister recently told me. “You’re good at it.”

She has a way of mirroring back who I am in a kind, affirming way.

I feel like I’ve spent my whole nomadic life honing what is probably also a natural part of my personality. I can keep my eyes on my next step, look for the good in people and places, find ways to connect and put energy into building…building relationships, building a home, building a life. I’ve developed what may seem like a conflicted relationship with putting down roots and uprooting. I’m a wanderer and nomad at heart who intentionally grows roots wherever I land.

I’ve read much about “third culture kids,” this category of highly mobile people who’ve moved in and out of countries and cultures in their childhood. As an Army kid, I was one. Now I raise them. These past few years, I’ve been listening to what others are teaching about them, what I’ve experienced and what my kids are saying.

For all the beauty that a third culture kid lifestyle brings (understanding of and appreciation of a broader world, ability to adapt, a near-absence of prejudices, foreign language aptitude), these kids (and later, adults) know so well the world of loss. Sometimes the losses feel real and present, like loss of bikes and houses and friends and pets. Sometimes the losses are hidden and ambiguous loss, the unseen, hard-to-put-into-words losses such as dreams, confidence, identity and belonging.

For me, it’s actually easier to keep moving, keep building, keep Pollyanna-ing my way through hard things than to stop and grieve. Both taking the necessary time to mourn and also putting energy into moving forward can feel like a balancing act.

In late summer, I joined my dad on a bike ride on Cottonwood Trail at sunrise. He’s so much better at biking in mile-high altitude than I am. I followed behind his smooth, quick pedaling with my own pumping heart loud in my ears. Soon, I had to shed my sweatshirt, and I stuck it in my backpack with my water and phone. I was still carrying so much else, too. All that was now missing from my life felt heavy. In so many ways, it felt hard to breathe.

“Watch the corners,” Dad coached. “Sometimes there are pedestrians out here, too. Also, be careful of sand.”

The ride was hard and tiring, but also freeing and empowering. And I soon found my own rhythm between pushing myself and pacing myself.

I found a way, too, to both keep my eyes mostly on the trail and also notice the beauty around me. Everything was pink—sky, mountains, rocks, my cheeks. And my bike.

Maybe I was starting to fit here. Maybe, too, I was finding my way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rebecca Hopkins wants to help people feel heard, seen and welcome. She spent the first half of her life moving around as an Army kid and the past 14 years trying to grow roots on three different Indonesian islands while her husband took to the skies as a pilot. She now works in Colorado for Paraclete Mission Group and writes about issues related to non-profit and cross-cultural work. Trained a journalist and shaped by the rich diversity of Indonesia, she loves dialogue, understanding, and truths that last longer than her latest address. You can find her online at www.rebeccahopkins.org.