Welcome to the September 25th edition of Faith & Life Lessons.
You will see this email full of tidbits from my week. My goal is simple. I hope that from how I live my life, you can find a thing or two that helps you as you try to live a life that matters. I am always trying to do one thing - make Christ-focused decisions in love, work, and life. And this was my week.
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The Story of My Week
On Saturday, we were with friends who had their rest-of-the-year plans turned upside down.
It was more like the next phase of their lives.
The husband works with an international agency and on late notice, he was informed that he was been transferred.
It's one thing to be expecting it, it's another to be hit from the left side.
The left side meant they were uprooting their lives to another continent.
And they had to do it in two months or less.
Sell off their property, plan for a new location, and close out on a life they have had over the last 5 years in less than two months.
Being with them reminds me of how life will keep throwing us curveballs.
We have to be ready for transitions
And no matter how prepared we are, we are never fully ready for them.
When you have a family, it hits differently.
Everyone adjusts differently
And we must take that into account.
Nothing gets everyone ready.
We just take it, one day at a time.
And try to make it better.
Things I Learnt
1-Tomorrow’s Problems Tomorrow: During a conversation in the week, the other person spoke about all the issues she was facing on a particular matter.
The only problem with it is that the issues were the wrong ones.
There were today's issues and tomorrow's issues.
Instead of facing only today's issues, tomorrow's issues were also in the mix.
I have been there too.
More times than I can remember. Maybe that's why I have learnt to ask myself "what are today's problems that I need to be dealing with?"
And I usually find a way to sort them out.
Why?
Because God gives wisdom and strength to solve today's problems.
Tomorrow's problems? God will supply what I need to handle them.
Tomorrow.
So, I keep them till tomorrow
My simple rule of life.
And for winning.
2-You Thrive Better With Community: One of the neighbours from our old apartment reached out to us.
Her work needed her to travel and she wanted to know if her kids could join us to & from school for the week.
No problem.
We shared the same apartment building for two months but my wife and I were deliberate in cultivating the relationship.
Her kids are older but since they attended the same school as our kids and we were both native English-speaking foreigners, we used those to create common ground for a relationship.
Moving into a new country requires intentional actions to create a new supportive community around the family.
It requires taking risks.
For example, there are folks that I asked if we could come and visit them.
Coming into their space or bringing them into our space bridges the gap.
The neighbour I referred to earlier, after we ran into each other on the way to taking our kids to school, I showed up at her apartment to introduce our family to her.
Later on, we dropped a portion of a birthday cake from us with them.
Eventually, my wife and her built conversations enough to start exchanging phone numbers.
The rest is current events.
It’s one of the things I tell people planning to move countries to think through.
For most people, communities have been organically formed - friends from school, church or work and so on become the people their families roll with.
It’s a bit more complicated getting into a new country or culture.
No previous base to build on means starting from ground zero.
And this is where some people freeze.
It’s not as hard as imagined.
And yes, sometimes, it can be uncomfortable.
You don't always get a positive response.
But if you commit to it because of something bigger, you will keep at it.
I have always been committed to having a multi-culture community around my family since we started our transitions.
And that’s why we tend to hang out with people from different countries including our home country.
That’s the supportive community that I believe will help our family thrive better.
Their experiences give us new perspectives to build on.
I love hearing their stories. They make for a richer worldview.
Postscript
May you live your life enriched by the new relationships that God brings your way. And may fear not hold you back from creating new connections. Amen
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Tola - The Everyday Disciple
I help Christians like you who want to live intentional lives incorporate their faith into everyday life so they can make Christ focused decisions in all areas of life and truly live to make an impact and make God happy.
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