Hey girl,
I know you’re busy. You live in a bustling international city, your kids go to school 25 minutes away, they're both involved in activities, and you're teaching a class on Sunday mornings. You also lead the Bible club lesson on Friday, and you've got local friends you want to see and grow with after the family-centered Christmas holidays and travel.
You still need to take the driving test and the language exam and let's not even get into the things you just want to do: an online theology course, a schedule for being creative, a workout program, a little supplemental nature study or reading lessons with the kids, a day trip for a host country history lesson.
Take a deep breath and enjoy it all because, in two months, you'll be moving into "unprecedented times."
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I’ve been wearing my glasses these days. For those of you who wear glasses too, you know that when paired with a mask, the combination is not ideal. Usually, I wear contacts 97% of the time, so it may seem counterintuitive that now would be the time I make the switch. But at its root, the reason I’m wearing glasses more often than usual comes down to the same reason I’m wearing the mask: COVID. More specifically, I’m on my last bottle of contact solution brought from the States. Since our country’s borders are closed, I’m not heading back to get more solution (or anything else on the “America List” I keep in my notes app) anytime soon.
Read MoreOne of the hardest parts about expat life is being so far away when tragedy strikes your home country. You want to hug your loved ones, process things out loud with your closest friends, and be near the ones you hold closest to your heart. In today’s episode, we talk with Tamika about what it’s been like to be a Black American woman, married to an Austrian, and living far away from the States as racial tension builds during a global pandemic.
Tamika shares what it’s been like to emotionally process events from afar, and how she and her children have become the go-to American source for their local friends and peers to ask questions about the current events in the U.S. We also discuss the delicate balance of talking with our TCKs about the hard things so they won’t be naive to what is happening in the world — and most importantly, in their own home country.
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Is anyone else feeling overwhelmed by statistics, headlines, and confirmed case counts? It didn’t take me long to get there. I can only handle so much bad news before I start feeling numb. I don’t have the mental or emotional capacity to process every single update. I haven’t been in my host country long enough to know the reliable news sources and I can’t sift through the word-of-mouth news to determine what’s just a rumor (or translate it, for that matter).
This is a serious situation. Everyone is concerned about their loved ones. We have all been affected by this virus in some way. When my company informed us of a potential country-wide lockdown, we stocked up on food and diapers. We have the resources to be able to do that without a second thought. My family has a reliable income, but even if that goes away, we have savings. We will be okay. Then I started thinking about my neighbors. They don’t have the resources to save. They go to work, get paid, and eat. Rinse and repeat. I just stocked my cabinets full of food, and my neighbors might not eat tomorrow.
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