home.

This is quite disconnected.

I would love for this blog to be, well, everything. I would love to be able to keep people up to date, but I want them to see be able to see what we are doing. I want this to create a picture of life for us here–with actual photos at times, stories of hope. I want people to laugh.  I also want it to cause readers to think introspectively: about how they live, what they value, what they love. But then I want it to be honest, and I don’t think inspiration is my strong point.  And if we’re going for honesty, then there have to be days of frustration or pain.  And then I think of how open some people are on their blogs, and I don’t want to be that open. Or what about those who share every detail of their lives while everyone’s thinking that’s really too much information?

Thus, it will ebb and flow, I think.  Right before we left for Thailand, it was quite a depressing blog. There were so many goodbyes, so many fears, so many unknowns. And then now we’ve gone through a few weeks of pure joy and excitement, celebrating relationships, enjoying a new place, and discovering.

And, poor transition: new topic.

I was talking with my friend, Mallory, the other day and she said a few wise words that have stuck with me: “Home is an illusion we all chase.” I’ve been thinking through how true this is.  We are constantly using the phrase “feels like home”, saying we have adjusted to a new place and it “feels like home” or we’ll visit for the holidays and say it just didn’t “feel like home”.  What does that even mean?

I’ve been thinking through the idea of “home” and how much it has changed over the years. It was a much more concrete concept when all of my sisters were at home.  But once the first one went to college, got married, and this continued for all of them, it began to change quickly. Each visit became a new definition of home. And as I began to move from my parent’s house to a college apartment to Thailand to Tennessee and Oklahoma, my heart was left in each place and with that a little piece of this “home” concept.  It’s odd how a particular house can hold the title of home, as well as a whole city, and eventually even specific people. And now that we’re in Thailand, a whole country claims the name “home” and we’re trying to add this current one!

I think my sister Jennifer has this beautiful ability to celebrate the moment she is in.  Perhaps it’s due to her living overseas for a few years and making “home” elsewhere, but whatever has created this, it’s admirable. She is wonderful at celebrating each moment she has with a person, in a place, or with a situation. She simply enjoys it and lets it go freely, maybe in some ways honoring the piece of “home” that it is.

This is what I would like our lives in Thailand to look like, however long that may be. I’d love to somehow learn how to celebrate Thailand and the home we make here, while honoring it just as the time that it is and never belittling the home we’ve left behind. I want to somehow love all that we’ve come to know as home already–in Little Rock, Sherwood, Oklahoma City, Smyrna, and Roanoke. I want to celebrate each visitor we are privileged to welcome to Thailand, and love every moment we get in America.

Just thoughts. (That was poor transition two.)

We’re leave in about an hour for Mae Sot! We’d love your prayers, for our bus ride, meeting staff we’ll be working with day in & day out, finding a place to live, purchasing a motorbike, purchasing whatever else we need for a house, learning more about our job, starting language learning…the list goes on. Please pray for most everything!

And as a praise, we did get Stephen’s work permit today!  We should be re-applying for a different visa next week and then we’ll be officially here for a year.  We also had a wonderful welcoming party thrown for us & another new staff couple last night by the Chiang Mai team! It was fun and we got plenty of time to laugh and talk with everyone.

[And I never know how to end these.]