My Unexpected Journey

Watched The Hobbit last night for my birthday. I love JRR Tolkien. As I watched last night, I realized I am the hobbit. When Eric proposed this foreign service life I adamantly said no, no, no. I even agree with "how can I leave my books, my garden, my chair? I am comfortable here." I did not want this life, I thought. We had our dream home in Southern California. We had spent two years remodeling our 2400 square foot, 3 car garage home that opened up onto an half acre garden with a pool and a stream running through the back. I get choked up writing this, really.

I made the mistake of praying about it. I asked The Lord what he wanted me to do. I was reading the Old Testament at the time.  The words in Genesis 12:1-2 jumped out at me. "Get thee out of thy country, thou shalt be a blessing." I am not comparing myself to Abram, I am just saying The Lord used the words to speak to my heart. I got a strong feeling in my heart and an impression came to my mind that this is what we were supposed to do. I cried and argued and tried to ignore it. But every scripture I read seemed to jump out and condemn me for not being willing to go. In the end I too ran out the door on this adventure.

Though I still miss home sometimes, more so lately since both of the kids have grown and moved out, I love the adventure and myself and my family have been blessed in so many ways because of the foreign service life we have lived. Just as in the Hobbit, adventure doesn't mean easy or glamorous. It is difficult and scary and I still get homesick, but even today, I would run out the door to greet it. 

Baghdad Birthday Surprise

I just had a wonderful surprise. I love working with USAID. It is not surprising that an organization who's entire job is to care about others would be full of caring people, but it still brings daily delight when their caring is expressed. Today that caring was directed toward me. It is my birthday. All my family and friends were wondering what kind of birthday I would have in lock down on an embassy compound. So far it has been lovely. My kids called this morning to wish me a happy one. My husband gave me a beautiful Boluva watch before he left for work. I was called to a planning meeting and when I arrived there was a gorgeous chocolate cake with my name written in Arabic and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to me including the director. I almost cried. My dear Iraqi coworker brought the cake in with her to work this morning. Coming to work entails dropping off her child before 6:00 am and driving through check points to arrive at the Embassy at 8:00 am. The check points are a few 100 meters apart. At each check point she has to stop her car, roll down the windows, open the trunk and hood, get out and step away from the car. During the election season it was taking them sometimes 7 hours and they wouldn't make it in to work before the end of the day.

My name is the squiggles you can see at the front of the cake. It reads from right to left.

Reset Button

So I started this blog when our family moved to Kigali Rwanda in 2007. I thought it would be a great way to keep our family updated with our doings in Rwanda. I posted twice...

It is now 2013. Our family lived in Rwanda for 3 years, 2007-2010 and had many amazing experiences from seeing the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints establish a branch, have an apostle visit, missionaries arriving to helping establish the International School of Kigali with some other parents who wanted to see a true international school in Kigali. Our daughter was the first graduate of the school and received a full scholarship to University of Utah. I didn't blog it.

We moved to Belgrade Serbia, 2010-2012 with our family lessened by one. Our son got involved with choir, theater, and soccer. He graduated from the International School of Belgrade. We were a part of a small branch of the LDS church and were able to get to know many great Serbians. I didn't blog it.

Well now we are empty nesters. Seth is in Utah preparing for an LDS mission. He received his call to the California San Fernando mission. Katie got married in December to a great guy and my husband and I are alone in Baghdad Iraq. I think it is time to start blogging about it.