One Year In

Tomorrow it will be exactly a year since we moved away from Red Rock Bible Camp, and started our new adventure in Niverville.

People have been asking me how the year has been, which has gotten me thinking and reflecting. Here’s what we’re loving so far:

Friends

We are loving the people we get to live life with here in Niverville. “Community” looks different than it did at camp, but God has been so good, and has blessed us with really amazing friends. We also joined a family discipleship group and meet on a weekly basis, which has been fantastic.

I loved living with the people at camp, and I miss the way we shared life out there, but we’re starting to see how this could all work out here in “the real world”. It’s taken us a little while to get used to how different relationships happen out here, when you’re not sharing three meals a day with all your friends, but we’re happy to find that it’s still possible to become close to the people we love!

Routine

One of the hardest parts of making a major change was not knowing what our “new life” was going to look like – I just couldn’t picture it while we were still living at camp, preparing to move.

But now it feels normal and comfortable, and we still feel like “us”. We didn’t get lost in the shuffle! Which is kind of amazing, because the lifestyle at camp is quite different than anywhere else. I loved our routine out there, and how we did family. I was worried we would lose what was important to us.

But we haven’t, and although some things look a little different, we’ve been able to take what we learned at camp, and bring it with us into this new chapter.

Home

I love, love, love being at home. I love our house. But things were a bit bumpy in the beginning, which I wasn’t expecting. Since we got to choose everything about our house, I thought it would be like a dream come true to move in.

I’m not sure if it was very high, unrealistic expectations, or just the adjustment, but it took a few months for this to really feel like home. It wasn’t perfect. It was still just a house, and it didn’t magically transform my life, just because we moved in. It took some getting used to, and I felt a little lost, for awhile.

I’m done feeling lost. My roots are in. This is home. And that is a lovely feeling.

It has been a great year. I feel we have transitioned much better than I was anticipating, which is a wonderful surprise.

I am ready to dive right in to Year Two!

Navigating Summer

What a beautiful weekend. One of my favorite things about this new life of ours is that time doesn’t seem to rush by so fast. When we were living at camp, we would blink, and it would be August.

Living in Niverville makes summer feel about three times as long, in the most positive way imaginable. I am thoroughly enjoying myself. Unless we visit camp. Then I cry. Obviously, my emotions are at war with themselves, and just need a little time to get things sorted out.

Anyway.

This weekend was filled with wonderful things.

We picked flowers:

We worked on our deck:

And we enjoyed some time with people from camp:

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The more time we spend here, the more I realize how much “normal life” (whatever that actually is), is a balancing act. How much time do you run around socializing, and how much time do you need to stay home and regroup? Or just do some housework for a change?

At camp, the whole summer was busy, but it was all busy in the same direction – you just give’er till the end of August, and then you collapse a little bit.

Now we have choices, and I am starting to understand how tricky it is to be intentional with time.

So good luck to all of you as you navigate through your wonderful summer in the best way for you and your loved ones.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a special little announcement about my next blog series!

Making This “Ours”

Alright, everybody, today it is time to update you all on what we’re doing to make Niverville “ours”.

1) The boxes are being conquered, one by one, and the dishwasher is installed! (Ben has actually done many wonderful things to make our home feel more settled, but this is the only picture I took…)

2) The backyard has been tramped through.

There are killdeer birds everywhere around here, and Anika desperately wants to see one pretending to be injured, to lure us away from it’s nest. So she tried to chase them in our yard, and Kaylia ran around, talking about “killrobins”, and thought the whole thing was great.

Now what other kinds of adventures can we think up??

3) We are socializing! Anytime we see people we know, we practically beg them to please come visit! I’m realizing how much we grew accustomed to people dropping in at any time of the day when we lived at camp.

So if you live in Niverville, and need friends, please let us know! We are so up for friends right now! 🙂 And we are so very thankful for everyone who has taken the time to visit, or have helped us clean and unpack. We love you all!

4) All three play structures have been explored. It has been officially decided that there is no one favorite, but rather, we will be enjoying the variety of all three locations.

5) The sky saves me every day.

I used to look out at the trees each day, but now I look at the sky. I didn’t see it much at camp – the trees blocked the view. But now, it is beautiful and glorious, and I can sit on our couch and watch the sunset.

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And then last night, we went for a walk, and suddenly I felt like we would be okay. Maybe it was the water, or maybe it was stopping to watch the ducks swim by, or maybe it was just enjoying an evening together as a family.

Somehow, it felt like a little, old, familiar piece of what we used to have, tucked away among all that is new.

Whatever it was, it was a good feeling.

We’ll make this “ours”, a little bit at a time!

Paddling Home

Well, we are finally here.

And the question most often asked now is, “How was your move?”

Um…well…it was a move! Some chaos, some sad good-byes, some exciting beginnings, some exhaustion, some new house to clean, some boxes we’ll be unpacking for weeks to come.

The first couple of days, I was really excited to be here. But last night, I sat in our living room filled with boxes, and this thought jumped into my mind: “I want to go home!”

And I meant camp.

I know this will all take some time. It’s still good to be here, but everything feels kind of weird.

It’s funny how much we define ourselves by what we do and where we live. I don’t think about it that much, but now with everything changing in our lives, it kind of feels like I don’t know exactly who I am.

I sit in our new house and think, “This is not me.”

Ben got a new work vehicle, and I see him drive up, and I think, “That is not ours.”

I look out the window, and think, “This is not where we really live.”

We’re the same, but everything is not the same.

I think I was expecting to feel a lot more settled as soon as we were actually in our new house. But now I’m realizing that the adventure is just beginning. I have no idea how long it will take for our family to feel like all this new life is “us”, but I’m guessing these things just take awhile.

In the uncomfortable moments, I start to wonder, “Was this actually a good decision? Did we make the right choice?” Even though I know it is, and we did.

I’m realizing what the problem is: I see the destination, the end result, as my goal. I want a conclusion, I want to bask in the good feelings of being done, of having already made the transition or completing a goal.

I don’t take enough joy in the process, in the journey.

It’s like this when you live a story: The first part happens fast. You throw yourself into the narrative, and you’re finally out in the water; the shore is pushing off behind you and the trees are getting smaller. The distant shore doesn’t seem so far, and you can feel the resolution coming, the feeling of getting out of your boat and walking the distant beach. You think the thing is going to happen fast, that you’ll paddle for a bit and arrive on the other side by lunch. But the truth is, it isn’t going to be over soon.

The reward you get from a story is always less than you thought it would be, and the work is harder than you imagined. The point of a story is never about the ending, remember. It’s about your character getting molded in the hard work of the middle. (p.177, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years)

We wanted a good story for our family, and we felt it was important to make this change.

So here we go! The good part is in the middle, even though that’s also the uncomfortable part. We’ll wander through weird feelings of displacement, and we’ll keep trying to make this home, until one day really soon (that doesn’t feel soon enough at the moment, but will come at just the right time), we’ll wake up and not even notice that we are already at home.

It will have become the new normal.

And all the middle stuff will have made us a little bit stronger and a little bit braver, and maybe a little bit better at figuring out how to face change.

It’s like this with every crossing, and with nearly every story too. You paddle until you no longer believe you can go farther. And then suddenly, well after you thought it would happen, the other shore starts to grow, and it grows fast. The trees get taller and you can make out the crags in the cliffs, and then the shore reaches out to you, to welcome you home, almost pulling your boat onto the sand. (p. 182, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years)

It’s just a little move. It’s not to another country, and it’s not a daring adventure, but…in some ways, it is. Isn’t it always a bit daring to change who you are, even if it’s by changing what you do, or where you live?

If you’re out there paddling your boat in the middle, just like us, I wish you all the best as you wait for the shore to reach out and welcome you home!

How We’re Dealing With Transition (Since Everyone Is Asking)

It is 24 days until our new adventure begins.

I feel at peace about everything.

Funny, because generally I have not faced change with peace. I always feel excited about change, but every other time, I’ve also been filled to the brim with stress.

While I was packing today, I came across a little notebook I used five years ago when we were preparing to move to camp. In it, I recorded everything that stressed me out each day, so that I could pray over everything and try to surrender it to God.

My word, am I ever thankful it’s not five years ago.

(I actually laughed at some of the things I had written down.)

One issue I was apparently stressed about at the time was the amount of stuff we had, and what in the world we were going to do with it all.

Today, I sat there reading this, surrounded by mounds of stuff to pack….and it didn’t bother me in the least.

See, change is possible. God can still do miracles today!!

I was in a very different place in my life five years ago. I had recently had a miscarriage, I was dealing with the very worst of my health issues, and emotionally unstable might be the best words to describe that time of my life.

Oh, God is so good. These last five years have been years of gaining back health, being blessed with that long-desired baby, and learning a ton about myself and how I deal with emotions and stress.

It’s not like everything is perfect at our house these days. Moving is still a big transition. Anika has a lot of nightmares as she tries to find her own way through this all, and as far as Kaylia is concerned, I’ve decided there will be a much better time and place for potty training her.

Like when she’s seven.

And I’ve decided not to worry about it. (See? Look at how good I’m getting at not worrying about stuff.)

Instead, I try to keep up with the day-to-day stuff, and I pack a little, and we play and read books a little.

I do yoga daily, and try to eat the best I can. (I will not eat chips. I WILL NOT EAT CHIPS! Things go much better with my body when I do not eat chips, but…all I want are chips!)

So whether my attempts at handling things well are working, or there are tons of people praying for the sanity of our family, or God has just chosen to be extra gracious to us, we are doing fairly well with this whole transition thing. (Now that I said that, just watch me completely crash tomorrow…)

I feel like there are many thoughts and memories and goals for the future swirling around that somehow need to be expressed, and yet that takes time. And some of it is still marinating in my mind. We’ll see when it’s ready to come out.

But for now, the sun is shining, the pile of boxes packed is slowly growing, and life must still go on and be enjoyed, even if we’re moving…