Molly's Thoughts...
Kids' having fun with their Beds ---- Our living room (Indoor trike riding = big hit...not pictured - Bean-bags)
It’s amazing the freedom that comes with living more simply…as we roll into week number three with our household in a 20’ box sailing across the Atlantic we continue to enjoy the joy of our home truly being just our little family and not all our stuff!
As Jeff began to get us settled into our life in Lusaka last month, I sorted and purged and packed our belongings up for the trip that will take 8-12 weeks. We anticipated this transition to an empty house being a hard one for the kids (and us), but it has been unexpectedly good. The kids and their friends from the neighborhood and school think we have a frat house—it’s like a dance studio/gym/skate park. They think it’s a blast! Jeff and I have felt the goodness of our transition being gradual. It’s not just life as we know it and then flying to Africa for two years the next. The house being disassembeled has enabled it to become more real that we are really going. It’s good to have that dawning over a series of weeks.
We were also talking about it the other day saying how wonderful it will be to be in the newness of our life in Zambia unpacking our boxes of what is so familiar. That will be a great comfort.
I do have to say that as the truck that held our sea container drove away three weeks ago I felt total release. I thought, if that container slips off the ship and sinks to the bottom of the Atlantic our life will go on.
That is the lesson of this window. Relationships are all that matter. Who we are is not our home. It is so easy as a wife and mom to forget that, to think that the home I create for my family (and everyone else, for that matter) is somehow who I am. I feel like I have had more good time with people without any of my stuff than I had in the three months previous!
The goodbyes have started. Stood in our driveway with a couple of neighbor friends yesterday, Liz and I all teared up talking about how sad it was to see our playground equipment drive down the street to another friend’s house. Bennett has his last day of preschool today at the place that has nurtured all three of our kids’ early years. That amazing place of nurture that their grandmother has given to hundreds, thousands of kids in this community, that our kids have benefited from more than any.
So…here we go. We have begun releasing. God is meeting us here and filling us with what matters…thanks for being in it with us.
It’s amazing the freedom that comes with living more simply…as we roll into week number three with our household in a 20’ box sailing across the Atlantic we continue to enjoy the joy of our home truly being just our little family and not all our stuff!
As Jeff began to get us settled into our life in Lusaka last month, I sorted and purged and packed our belongings up for the trip that will take 8-12 weeks. We anticipated this transition to an empty house being a hard one for the kids (and us), but it has been unexpectedly good. The kids and their friends from the neighborhood and school think we have a frat house—it’s like a dance studio/gym/skate park. They think it’s a blast! Jeff and I have felt the goodness of our transition being gradual. It’s not just life as we know it and then flying to Africa for two years the next. The house being disassembeled has enabled it to become more real that we are really going. It’s good to have that dawning over a series of weeks.
We were also talking about it the other day saying how wonderful it will be to be in the newness of our life in Zambia unpacking our boxes of what is so familiar. That will be a great comfort.
I do have to say that as the truck that held our sea container drove away three weeks ago I felt total release. I thought, if that container slips off the ship and sinks to the bottom of the Atlantic our life will go on.
That is the lesson of this window. Relationships are all that matter. Who we are is not our home. It is so easy as a wife and mom to forget that, to think that the home I create for my family (and everyone else, for that matter) is somehow who I am. I feel like I have had more good time with people without any of my stuff than I had in the three months previous!
The goodbyes have started. Stood in our driveway with a couple of neighbor friends yesterday, Liz and I all teared up talking about how sad it was to see our playground equipment drive down the street to another friend’s house. Bennett has his last day of preschool today at the place that has nurtured all three of our kids’ early years. That amazing place of nurture that their grandmother has given to hundreds, thousands of kids in this community, that our kids have benefited from more than any.
So…here we go. We have begun releasing. God is meeting us here and filling us with what matters…thanks for being in it with us.
posted by The Dykstra Family at 5:07 PM
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