Here we go! I have done a lot of packing in my life. Before College? Not so much. I lived in the same house for 18 years. We went on an occasional trip, but nothing fancy. Usually it involved State Fairs or visiting other farmers or relatives. Since High School, however, packing and moving has been a way of life. I packed up and moved to college, then back home to work for the summers, then back to college. One year I even moved in between semesters to a different apartment. Before graduation, I traveled with a music group where we stayed with different hosts in a different house about every other night. We drove from town to town and basically lived out of a van. After college, I liked that lifestyle so much, I spent another year and a half with the traveling music group. I learned pretty quickly that a suitcase and a guitar case were all I really needed with me. Between college and getting married, I moved 9 more times (including helping my parents move from my childhood home to a new one.) There is a big difference between packing up 9 months of life and 25 years! After getting married, I settled down a bit. I’ve only moved 5 times in the last 8 years. (If you don’t count the several-month long visits where we stayed with our families in their homes.)
So, as I said, Here we go! We are moving to the mountains for Chris’ work and so we’re in the final stages of packing up everything we own, selling what we can, giving away what we can’t sell, and saying goodbye to our favorite people and places. There are moments I feel like I’m in my element. I can fit more stuff in a box than anyone I know. I can purge like you wouldn’t believe. Sadly, I’ve even gotten pretty used to saying goodbye to people who are dear to me. That’s good, because it used to be a torrential downpour anytime I said goodbye. Gosh, my 8th grade graduation, you would have thought I was moving to the moon instead of down the street a few blocks -- with all of my graduating class, I might add!
About the time I started feeling a bit more in my element in our city, we are heading to a new one. One of the most stressful aspects of this move has been our stuff. There aren’t very many reliable moving companies here and the ones that are get pretty pricy when you talk about getting your stuff through borders between states and mountain passes. So, we’ve decided to sell all our big items and give away many small ones. We are taking just under 1000 lbs of things with us. Goodbye sofa set that I waited two months for, sitting on mats on the floor as my belly got bigger with Lucy. Goodbye comfy mattress that we acquired by God’s grace -- I’ve never found a better one here. Goodbye curtains that taunted me every time I looked at them, “We’re pretty, but you got ripped off!” (We paid about 3 times what they were worth without knowing it.)
As news got around that we were moving, people started getting more interested in us. People in our building who never paid us much attention started coming over to chat. After the niceties, it usually came around to what were we doing with all our stuff. I tried to not let it offend me. I mean, sure, who doesn’t want a great deal from people who are in a time crunch. But, the fact that many of the people in our neighborhood never looked at us twice until they wanted our things began to grate on me. I was starting to wonder how many ludicrous offers we would have to listen to before we could sell our things. Everyone has their angle. Even me. Don’t I use people, too? Even if my ways are more subtle?
By a gracious act of God, our landlord decided he wanted to rent the flat out as a furnished flat. He gave us a fair price on a bundle deal. It would have taken us weeks and countless cups of chai before reaching the same price without him. Thank you, Landlord! Thank you, God! Now came the really hard part.
We ended up being able to move well before we anticipated because of this. We had given ourselves about 4 weeks more than we needed. This was good, because our business in the mountains could use us as soon as possible. So, now we had to say our goodbyes to those in or community who we had grown to love. Yuck!!! I know that some people would like to just shy away from goodbyes. It’s understandable. I really wanted to honor our friends, though, and not push them away quickly. The last 4 days of our time in our old home was spent visiting friends.
The best friend that I made was my language helper. She knocked on my door the first day we arrived in our city and we became fast friends. God knew I needed someone early on that I could share my heart with. She spoke great English and we proceeded to have lengthy discussions together about everything. What value is a person who will listen to your heart and share theirs? For me, it was the difference between despair and sanity these first difficult years. Thank you, Dear!
The hardest goodbye, though, was to our house helper, “Hannah”. With my language helper, I knew that she would be okay without me. She is a strong young woman, courageous, and well-educated. She has a bright future. For Hannah, she is young. She lives in a shack with her extended family. In fact, we were connected with her family members in other ways as well. Hannah spent 1-2 hours in our home every day (even though her work could have been completed easily in 30 minutes). We ate lunch together and drank chai. I learned to speak with her and as my language grew, so did my love for this young girl, so full of life. Her smiles and joking were infectious. She loved on my children. She asked to do more work than I required, just to bless us. People in our community would look down on her and the family and region she came from. “They are dirty, lazy. They are uneducated. You can’t trust them. They lie and steal.” In all our time with her, she was dedicated to come to work every day. She told us the truth, even when others in the community wouldn’t. She protected and cared for our things -- always asking before she threw away anything she found on the floor. Even if she found a plastic bottle or broken toy in the trash, she’d ask me before she took it from the house. Her family was honorable and wouldn’t ask us for money -- even when people who had no connection with us would. How do I leave this girl who became a little sister to us? How do I leave her to another home where she may be mistreated or mistrusted? How do I leave her to an early marriage and an impossible dowry and a culture that puts her last? God, protect and defend Hannah.
We had 4 dinners in 4 different households. One was my language helper’s. How sweet to spend time with her family. The other 3 were in Hannah and her family’s homes. These people might eat meat once a month, and yet, they put on feasts that took well over a week’s wages, just for us. They sat us in their houses, spread a table cloth at our feet, and proceeded to serve course after course to us. We ate for those days until we felt we would burst. I wanted to eat sparingly and beg them to eat with us. I wanted to make sure their families wouldn’t go hungry this month after we left. But I ate. And ate again. And thanked them. And thanked them again. This was how I could honor them and their friendship. I’m glad our last days were with them. I’m glad they weren’t with the stuffy neighbors who came around for our things. After our furniture sold, we didn’t even get so much as a goodbye from anyone in the building we lived in -- except for my language helper and one other sweet neighbor who I was just getting to know. Did that hurt? A little. Still, as we got into the car to drive away, the hugs I got were genuine. The tears we shed were sweet. I knew that the ones who shared that goodbye truly cared and loved me and I truly care for and love them. I’m looking forward to the day when we can return. I’m praying for them until then.
Goodbye, plains! Hello, mountains!
Visiting Hannah and her family when my Mom was here.
So, as I said, Here we go! We are moving to the mountains for Chris’ work and so we’re in the final stages of packing up everything we own, selling what we can, giving away what we can’t sell, and saying goodbye to our favorite people and places. There are moments I feel like I’m in my element. I can fit more stuff in a box than anyone I know. I can purge like you wouldn’t believe. Sadly, I’ve even gotten pretty used to saying goodbye to people who are dear to me. That’s good, because it used to be a torrential downpour anytime I said goodbye. Gosh, my 8th grade graduation, you would have thought I was moving to the moon instead of down the street a few blocks -- with all of my graduating class, I might add!
About the time I started feeling a bit more in my element in our city, we are heading to a new one. One of the most stressful aspects of this move has been our stuff. There aren’t very many reliable moving companies here and the ones that are get pretty pricy when you talk about getting your stuff through borders between states and mountain passes. So, we’ve decided to sell all our big items and give away many small ones. We are taking just under 1000 lbs of things with us. Goodbye sofa set that I waited two months for, sitting on mats on the floor as my belly got bigger with Lucy. Goodbye comfy mattress that we acquired by God’s grace -- I’ve never found a better one here. Goodbye curtains that taunted me every time I looked at them, “We’re pretty, but you got ripped off!” (We paid about 3 times what they were worth without knowing it.)
As news got around that we were moving, people started getting more interested in us. People in our building who never paid us much attention started coming over to chat. After the niceties, it usually came around to what were we doing with all our stuff. I tried to not let it offend me. I mean, sure, who doesn’t want a great deal from people who are in a time crunch. But, the fact that many of the people in our neighborhood never looked at us twice until they wanted our things began to grate on me. I was starting to wonder how many ludicrous offers we would have to listen to before we could sell our things. Everyone has their angle. Even me. Don’t I use people, too? Even if my ways are more subtle?
By a gracious act of God, our landlord decided he wanted to rent the flat out as a furnished flat. He gave us a fair price on a bundle deal. It would have taken us weeks and countless cups of chai before reaching the same price without him. Thank you, Landlord! Thank you, God! Now came the really hard part.
We ended up being able to move well before we anticipated because of this. We had given ourselves about 4 weeks more than we needed. This was good, because our business in the mountains could use us as soon as possible. So, now we had to say our goodbyes to those in or community who we had grown to love. Yuck!!! I know that some people would like to just shy away from goodbyes. It’s understandable. I really wanted to honor our friends, though, and not push them away quickly. The last 4 days of our time in our old home was spent visiting friends.
The best friend that I made was my language helper. She knocked on my door the first day we arrived in our city and we became fast friends. God knew I needed someone early on that I could share my heart with. She spoke great English and we proceeded to have lengthy discussions together about everything. What value is a person who will listen to your heart and share theirs? For me, it was the difference between despair and sanity these first difficult years. Thank you, Dear!
The hardest goodbye, though, was to our house helper, “Hannah”. With my language helper, I knew that she would be okay without me. She is a strong young woman, courageous, and well-educated. She has a bright future. For Hannah, she is young. She lives in a shack with her extended family. In fact, we were connected with her family members in other ways as well. Hannah spent 1-2 hours in our home every day (even though her work could have been completed easily in 30 minutes). We ate lunch together and drank chai. I learned to speak with her and as my language grew, so did my love for this young girl, so full of life. Her smiles and joking were infectious. She loved on my children. She asked to do more work than I required, just to bless us. People in our community would look down on her and the family and region she came from. “They are dirty, lazy. They are uneducated. You can’t trust them. They lie and steal.” In all our time with her, she was dedicated to come to work every day. She told us the truth, even when others in the community wouldn’t. She protected and cared for our things -- always asking before she threw away anything she found on the floor. Even if she found a plastic bottle or broken toy in the trash, she’d ask me before she took it from the house. Her family was honorable and wouldn’t ask us for money -- even when people who had no connection with us would. How do I leave this girl who became a little sister to us? How do I leave her to another home where she may be mistreated or mistrusted? How do I leave her to an early marriage and an impossible dowry and a culture that puts her last? God, protect and defend Hannah.
We had 4 dinners in 4 different households. One was my language helper’s. How sweet to spend time with her family. The other 3 were in Hannah and her family’s homes. These people might eat meat once a month, and yet, they put on feasts that took well over a week’s wages, just for us. They sat us in their houses, spread a table cloth at our feet, and proceeded to serve course after course to us. We ate for those days until we felt we would burst. I wanted to eat sparingly and beg them to eat with us. I wanted to make sure their families wouldn’t go hungry this month after we left. But I ate. And ate again. And thanked them. And thanked them again. This was how I could honor them and their friendship. I’m glad our last days were with them. I’m glad they weren’t with the stuffy neighbors who came around for our things. After our furniture sold, we didn’t even get so much as a goodbye from anyone in the building we lived in -- except for my language helper and one other sweet neighbor who I was just getting to know. Did that hurt? A little. Still, as we got into the car to drive away, the hugs I got were genuine. The tears we shed were sweet. I knew that the ones who shared that goodbye truly cared and loved me and I truly care for and love them. I’m looking forward to the day when we can return. I’m praying for them until then.
Goodbye, plains! Hello, mountains!
Visiting Hannah and her family when my Mom was here.
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