IT WAS A PLAIN TWO STORY FARM HOUSE I WISH TIME DID NOT GO BY SO FAST, OH, THE MEMORIES OF THOSE YEARS LONG AGO JUST TREASURES OF MY CHILDHOOD LONG PAST.
-Adine Cathey
Every other year, the Brown grandkids come to the farm in New York to spend a week or so at “Cousin Camp.” This year, the Johnson kids were fortunate enough to be a part of this tradition! We were all staying on the Brown farm for my brother-in-law Stevie’s wedding to Kirsten, one of the Browns’ granddaughters.
One of the Cousin Camp activities is decorating t-shirts for the event. The kids loved this, of course! Each shirt was unique and creative, and all of them said “Cousins Camp 2016” on the back to commemorate the occasion.
The Brown side of the family stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Brown’s farmhouse, and the Johnson family got to stay at Jeff and Lindsay’s house down the street. The new house wasn’t quite finished, so we got to help a bit in the process of building the house, which they are building themselves from scratch. I came later than most people, so all I did was sand a couple of window frames, but it was still cool to be a small part of the process! It was so generous of Jeff and Lindsay to let us stay in the house– they had 19 Johnsons staying there for almost an entire week! They had even left us things like shampoo and a coffee maker. What I loved most about the house was the little girl’s room. It looks out into a field with grazing horses. I could imagine her waking up ever day and looking outside on the wildflowers and horses– so wonderful!
I loved the rural neighborhood. It is so quintessentially rural American, with sprawling lawns, bales of hay on the fields, and signs for fresh milk and eggs at the end of long dirt driveways. If I didn’t want to live overseas, this would be my dream. Naturally, I took full advantage of the time in the country, and so did everyone else. It was a great place to run, and it is safe, which is a nice change from home.
The kids, of course, were most thrilled by all the water activities of Cousins Camp. They loved fishing in the pond (as you can see by Zach’s enthusiastic fist-pumping) and splashing each other in the pool.
The farm is a fantastic summer getaway. There is so much to do there, and none of it includes screens or electronics. In fact, I didn’t have internet or much cell service the entire time I was there! And guess what? I hardly missed it. It was refreshing to my soul to have to unplug for a week.
Every day, there was something new to discover. I snapped peas, fed a calf, got a new bread recipe… even hanging laundry on an outdoor line for the first time in a decade was fun and fresh to me.
I guess I’m sort of a city slicker now, but I remember a time from my childhood when we lived in the country and could spend our days gathering wildflowers in the field and chasing cottontail bunnies. Oh, to be little and in the country! It was so nice to be able to relive some of those memories with my nieces and nephews.
One of the most wonderful parts of the whole experience was the sense of belonging that permeated the entire week. The Brown side of the family treated us Johnsons just like their own side of the family. We got the same welcome and the kids got the same treatment. I had to stay a couple of extra days after the rest of the Johnsons left, and the Brown/ Wilson family invited me to stay in their house and made me a part of their family. I’m not even their in-law (does that make me their out-law?), and I still got a family welcome. Even the kids accepted me like family and invited me to do this or that with them.
I got a whole new branch of extended family. It’s a picture of how Jesus has made us all one family, despite our last names or bloodlines.
The whole week was so much fun. You can see by all the smiles that everyone had a great time! What kid (or kid at heart) doesn’t love being barefoot and berry-stained?
If you’re an expat, some things that aren’t too typical start to look normal. Can you relate to any of these?
Duolingo
This screen has become very familiar as you desperately try to re-learn all that Spanish you never actually absorbed in high school. After a while, it turns from a language learning tool to an obsession….
As a bonus, buildings without emergency exits do, in fact, become commonplace. As do the lack of smoke detectors, hot water, and electricity.
2. You drive like a maniac
Right side of the road, wrong side of the road, middle of the road, not even on the road. Everyone else drives like a kangaroo on seven Red Bulls, and so do you, now.
3. Your change purse looks like this.
Seriously, if I take that Kenyan shilling from Ben’s high school laundry money stash to the laundry room one more time, I am going to fling the entire washing machine out the window.
4. Knock-offs
You can’t tell me this isn’t J.C. Penny in disguise.
5. Your passport is like our third arm
Your passport is literally worth more than your entire net worth combined. You would rather fall off a cliff into a moat full of hungry sharks while wearing a flaming straight jacket than loose that thing.
What are some other signs that you might be an expat? Tell me in the comments!
Before I left the United States, there were a lot of things I took for granted. I guess everyone thinks their own life is pretty typical until they get a taste of something else.
1. Traffic lights. We have a single traffic light in the entire country of Sint Maarten. It spends half its life blinking yellow. Here, we have few intersections and a lot of round-a-bouts. It’s actually a much better system, and a lot fewer accidents occur because of it.
2. Refrigerated milk. You can get refrigerated milk here, but not every grocery store carries it. I always buy ultra heat-treated (UHT) milk. It’s cheaper, safer, and easier, especially since we get so many power outages. Also, I can stick several cases on the fridge and use them as I need them.
3. Electricity. Speaking of power outages, we get them a lot. Our single power plant can only handle so much at once. So we go without water and/or power on a regular basis.
4. Air conditioning. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona where air conditioning is literally vital for life. Here, we like to use it now and then but we could certainly live without it. Our apartment complex took almost two months to fix our unit last summer when it died. We were OK; we have a nice trade winds breeze that we welcomed through open doors and windows.
5. Multiple traffic lanes. Unlike Phoenix’s six-lane highways, Sint Maarten has a basic two-lane road going all the way around the island. Passing anyone is an adventure.
6. Self-defense weapons. I used to carry mace everywhere I went. That’s just what you do in Phoenix if you’re walking around alone. I can’t carry anything here– not mace, not a pocket knife, not even a chair. Well, realistically I can carry a chair, but not legally. If you could whack someone in the head with it, you can’t legally carry it down the street. People will make weapons with anything, though– the supermarket next door once got held up by a guy with a stick.
7. Private beaches. There are no private beaches here! Every strip of sand on this island is public property. I took my dog to one of the less beautiful beaches this afternoon. There were a dozen locals there and me. And it’s a Saturday. If that beach was in the States, it would have been PACKED because so many good beaches are privately owned and the rest are perpetually filled. Here, you can enjoy the most incredible strips of paradise no matter your paycheck. I love that about Sint Maarten.
8. Sales tax. Yes, there is no sales tax here! Hooray for no math! Oh, and for not paying extra for stuff.
No matter where you go, there will always be something better and worse about it than the last place you lived. I guess the moral to the story is that wherever you are, enjoy the good things about that place instead of focusing on the bad things. There’s so much to appreciate in life!
Cross-cultural transition can teach the expat many lessons. Last post, we heard from Emily Montgomery about what she has learned from the process. Today, Emily offers five more words of wisdom.
5. Get in your zone.
I define a comfort zone as a situation where I know what is expected and I am capable of succeeding. In my own culture, I subconsciously orchestrated my interactions so I spent most of my time in my comfort zone.
That handy little ability is not possible when you enter an unknown cultural context.
Right after I moved, I had an identity crisis that lasted several months. Because I was not operating from within my comfort zone, I wasn’t acting like myself.
I was often surprised by my responses. Experiences that used to excite me no longer did. The limits of what I could handle in certain situations were different than they had been in my own culture. It was so disorienting.
And then I started to develop a comfort zone in my new context.
As things became more familiar and I learned the cultural norms around me, some of my old traits began to reemerge. My confidence started to reappear slowly.
There will always be some parts of your comfort zone that cannot translate to the new culture. So, parts of your personality will only come out when you visit home. But, there are also new layers to yourself that you never saw before, that only exist in the new context.
Be brave and engage the new culture. It will be uncomfortable at first, but remember that you are expanding the zone where you can truly be yourself. It’s worth it!
6. Obey God today.
One time during the first wave of transition, I was crying and talking to God. I said between sobs, “My kids won’t even know their cousins!” Then it was like God told me to really think about what I was saying.
I was single with no prospects of marriage in view. Children were a far-off dream at that point. I was carrying the weight of a sacrifice God hadn’t even asked me to make.
In Luke 9:23, Jesus told his followers to pick up their crosses daily. I learned to apply that to my transition process.
Emotionally, I acknowledged and grieved what I was currently missing in the lives of my community at home because I was far away. But, I didn’t allow myself to grieve an event that hadn’t happened yet.
Only God can see for certain how your future will play out. You don’t know that you’ll miss your brother’s wedding, never see your grandpa again, or spend every holiday season away from home.
The only sacrifice Jesus is asking you to make is the one you are facing today. And, he promised that he will give you the right amount of grace to carry that sorrow (2 Corinthians 12:9).
7. Take on a posture of prayer.
About a year before I moved overseas, I heard about the idea of creating a personal prayer posture. The friend who told me about it said it helped her to focus on being present with Jesus.
The habit of getting into a certain physical position and opening up time with God with a certain phrase can be very stabilizing in times of insecurity and transition.
I was so grateful for this practice as I weathered the adjustment to a new culture.
There were times when God seemed very quiet and I felt very alone. It was comforting to pray the words of my prayer posture and then just sit in the sanctity and intimacy that had already been created by those same words hundreds of times before.
It was like I had stirred up a current towards God that I could just float in on those days when I didn’t have the energy to swim.
There is no magical secret about this practice. Your prayers are not more effective if you take on a certain posture first. The whole goal is to honestly come into God’s presence and pay attention to him. If a prayer posture is no longer accomplishing that, ditch it!
8. It’s just life.
Leaving your home culture and building a life in a foreign country is an unusual thing. Even with our increasingly accessible world, expatriates are just a tiny percent of the global population. By relocating to a new culture, you are doing something dramatically out of the ordinary.
I was caught up in that drama at first, which made my already-heightened emotions even crazier. Every decision felt weighty. Every task felt urgent. Every prayer was desperate, and every success was a miracle.
When my body began to break down from the stress, I realized I wouldn’t be able to sustain such high intensity for much longer.
As I started to really look at my daily life, I realized it was just that—life.
I had to buy groceries and cook food. I had to pay bills and save for big purchases. I made friends, told stories, took trips, did laundry, and procrastinated the chores I wasn’t fond of.
Life was an adventure, and a challenge, and a thrill. It was also “like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone” (James 4:14 New Living Translation).
Continually remind yourself that this craziness is just life. See from God’s eternal perspective. Don’t make a bigger deal of these temporary things than they deserve.
9. Laugh at yourself.
I remember visiting a local friend’s home for the first time and meeting her elderly mother. The older woman gestured emphatically to her head when I greeted her, pulling my head down. I didn’t understand the language well enough to know what she was saying, so I very bewilderedly leaned down to tap my forehead against hers.
I learned later that it’s customary to greet elderly people with a kiss on the head. My friend’s mother got her head bopped instead because I was clueless!
There are so many funny things that happen when intelligent, capable adults suddenly find themselves bumbling around in a new culture. Don’t take yourself too seriously. If you can laugh about your mistakes, your local friends probably will, too.
I also learned the value of game nights, dance parties, karaoke, and anything else lighthearted and silly.
By moving to a new culture, you’ve introduced an immense amount of stress into your life. Temper that with occasional times to let your hair down and simply laugh as hard as you can. Trust me, those activities will do wonders for your spirit.
10. Wait it out.
In a recently released movie, a girl describes the transition to a new culture perfectly.
“You’ll feel so homesick that you’ll want to die, and there’s nothing you can do about it apart from endure it. But you will, and it won’t kill you. And one day the sun will come out – you might not even notice straight away, it’ll be that faint… And you’ll realize that this is where your life is.” (Brooklyn 2015)
Struggling to adjust to a new culture and dealing with homesickness are not signs of personal weakness or failure. They are not feelings to be ashamed of or minimized.
I often looked at other friends who had moved overseas and berated myself for struggling so much more than they seemed to. I put a huge amount of added pressure on myself to “snap out of it” and fix the problem of my culture shock as quickly as possible.
None of my desperate responses helped the situation, which only led to more disappointment and frustration. It was a vicious cycle.
Finally after many months of this downward spiral, I threw my hands up and just gave in to the fact that I was struggling. I admitted it to my friends at home and in the new culture.
It felt like settling in for a long, cold, winter hibernation. I said some difficult “no’s” and cut back on everything I could. And then, I waited for God to do his work in that season.
And he did.
Conclusion
I talk about the first “season” or “wave” of cultural transition because I don’t think it ends after the initial adjustment period is over. We will always be foreigners now—a little different, a little confusing—even when we are in our home culture again.
That identity can be challenging. But, it is also an honor.
We can take our place among the ranks of the people of faith mentioned in Hebrews 11. “They agreed that they were foreigners and nomads here on earth” (verse 13b New Living Translation). The chapter goes on to say that they were looking forward to their true homeland in heaven.
That is the hope for us, as well. There is only one place where we will ever really be at home, and Jesus is preparing it for us right now. Hope in that as you learn lessons of your own on this crazy adventure of cultural transition!
Moving overseas is a difficult experience. But it doesn’t have to be horrible. Last year, my friend Emily Montgomery moved from the United States to the Arab world. Along the way, she has learned a lot about herself, God, and the world. Here is her advice to you.
Brace yourself.
Put into words what you imagine about the new culture. Be specific! Write the story of your life in this new place. Where do you see yourself living? What will your work be like? Who will be your friends? What will you struggle with most?
Now go one step below the surface to identify your expectations. For example, as I imagined life overseas before I moved, I foresaw lots of busyness and little time to rest.
Expectation: My life will be as full and varied as it was at home.
Reality: The pace of life in the new culture, the size of my social group, and my role at work was entirely different than in my home culture. This was a missed expectation!
If you’re a starry-eyed optimist like me, take a careful look at what is going on in your imagination. It’s not wrong to hope for amazing things—be excited about the possibilities! But, don’t set yourself up for disappointment by going into a cultural transition blind to what you’re really expecting.
You’re not dying.
Before I moved, I asked for advice from anyone who had lived overseas before. Several times I was told, “It’s like you die and are reborn into the new culture. Grieve that death and let go of who you used to be.”
I’m sure they meant well, but that advice was detrimental for my transition.
Instead of being excited and grateful about the biggest adventure of my life, I was mourning. I cried every day in the weeks before I moved. When I finally got to my new home overseas, I was not happy to be there. I was emotionally wrung out!
Looking back, I’d tell my pre-expat self to expect a lot of change. Relationships look different long-distance, I took on new roles, even my personality shifted.
But, my old self isn’t dead. In my overseas home, I’ve discovered new sides of who I’ve always been that are only visible in this context. What a gift!
Who you are does not change because of where you live. You’re not dying—you’re growing.
Tell the true story.
At the darkest point of my transition, everyone told me how normal it is to struggle. At the time, that didn’t make me feel much better.
What did help was when a friend, listening to my meltdown, asked, “What’s actually happening here?”
That stopped me in my tracks.
It forced me to look at the reality of the situation instead of just repeating the dramatic story I had been telling myself. When I looked closely, I could identify core issues and spot areas of spiritual warfare. I was empowered to fight back.
When you’re in the thick of transition, emotions are heightened. The highs are exuberating and the lows are debilitating. Find friends who will listen well, but then ask you to tell the true story.
Hint: If you hear yourself using generalizations, you might be telling a version of reality that’s clouded with a lot of amped-up emotions. Take a deep breath and rephrase it.
“Men here never treat me with respect” becomes “In this culture, men don’t show women respect in ways that are familiar to me”. This reveals a major area of cultural tension that you can explore. When do you feel respected? Ask a local girlfriend the same question. You’ll probably find that in reality, just your perspective needs to change.
Don’t listen to doubts.
I questioned my decision to move overseas at least once a day during my first season of culture shock. I was sure I had misheard God’s instructions, acted impulsively, or simply needed to “get it out of my system” and I should go home now.
I heard a quote somewhere that became my mantra for the battles against doubts. “Never question in the dark what was shown to you in the light.”
God invited me into a different culture after a specific time of seeking direction. The decision was confirmed and supported by my spiritual leaders. I had completed trainings and preparation courses. All of that happened in the “light” before the transition.
It wasn’t until I fully resigned myself to being overseas for the full length of my assignment that I found peace. I stopped imagining what would happen if I gave up and moved home. My heart finally settled into making the best of what I had.
If you’ve committed to being overseas for a specific length of time, just assume that is still what God is asking you to do, even when it gets hard. Don’t consider doing anything else. If God wants you to break your commitment early, he is capable of getting your attention to tell you.
Get in your zone.
I define a comfort zone as a situation where I know what is expected and I am capable of succeeding. In my own culture, I subconsciously orchestrated my interactions so I spent most of my time in my comfort zone.
That handy little ability is not possible when you enter an unknown cultural context.
Right after I moved, I had an identity crisis that lasted several months. Because I was not operating from within my comfort zone, I wasn’t acting like myself.
I was often surprised by my responses. Experiences that used to excite me no longer did. The limits of what I could handle in certain situations were different than they had been in my own culture. It was so disorienting.
And then I started to develop a comfort zone in my new context.
As things became more familiar and I learned the cultural norms around me, some of my old traits began to reemerge. My confidence started to reappear slowly.
There will always be some parts of your comfort zone that cannot translate to the new culture. So, parts of your personality will only come out when you visit home. But, there are also new layers to yourself that you never saw before, that only exist in the new context.
Be brave and engage the new culture. It will be uncomfortable at first, but remember that you are expanding the zone where you can truly be yourself. It’s worth it!
Today is a special day for us– our second anniversary! On June 7, 2014, we said “I do” at Whitton Avenue Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a beautiful day for us, with a lovely ceremony and a fun reception afterwards! We made a promise to each other that we would spend the rest of our lives together, no matter what. It’s only been two years, but so much has happened in that time.
On June 7, 2015, we celebrated our first anniversary in Indiana. We were there for our friends Phil and McKenna’s wedding , which had been in Michigan the day before. We woke up on the seventh at our friend Marcus’ house in the Berne, Indiana, a small Swiss town. We spent the day exploring a science museum, Science Central.
Today, June 7, 2016, we spent the day on our home island, Saint Martin. Since Ben has medical school tests next week, he had to be in class for half the day. But at 3:30, he was mine– he took half the day off to be with me, even though he has a lot to do! We discovered some new hiking trails behind the causeway on the Dutch side. The trail took us and our puppy through the woods, past the Rastafarian Farm, and out into the French capitol, Marigot. We picked low-hanging tamarind seeds to snack on during the walk.
Later, we went to Advantika, a Thai restaurant that was highly recommenced to us. Finally, we went to Carousel for ice cream cake! We eat cake on the seventh of every month to celebrate our marriage. An anniversary called for something special: cookies and cream ice cream cake.
So far, we’ve celebrated both wedding anniversaries in different locations hundreds of miles apart. If things continue as expected, we’ll spend at least the next two in new places. I’ve learned many things from our journeys, but one of the most important is this: “home” doesn’t mean a specific geographical location. Rather, “home” is defined as the place your beloved is, wherever that may be.
![IMG_2002[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.3rdculturewife.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_20021.jpg?resize=604%2C453&ssl=1)
![IMG_2012[1]](https://i0.wp.com/www.3rdculturewife.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/IMG_20121.jpg?resize=604%2C453&ssl=1)
Every day, there was something new to discover. I snapped peas, fed a calf, got a new bread recipe… even hanging laundry on an outdoor line for the first time in a decade was fun and fresh to me.
One of the most wonderful parts of the whole experience was the sense of belonging that permeated the entire week. The Brown side of the family treated us Johnsons just like their own side of the family. We got the same welcome and the kids got the same treatment. I had to stay a couple of extra days after the rest of the Johnsons left, and the Brown/ Wilson family invited me to stay in their house and made me a part of their family. I’m not even their in-law (does that make me their out-law?), and I still got a family welcome. Even the kids accepted me like family and invited me to do this or that with them.
