Because I Needed Something To Do...

Amidst the hussle and bussle of the holiday season, we received a wonderful delivery!

So, today our home is filled with Christmas presents in various stages of wrapping, the generously provided decorations that have made our home festive all month, and two large boxes full of things from Caracas.  Such bounty!

No one could wait to dive into the boxes last night, and so toys are now strewn all about the apartment and clothes are piled on all of the beds.  Its an extra Christmas - only one week early!

This season of our lives is so strange, and we have all adjusted to having only a few things.  I have begun to love living simply.  We don't need many decorations or entertaining dishes.  The girls really only need a few toys.  And we have a library right across the street - we need zero books.  We replaced the few things we need, and have enjoyed living simply.

This next week will be filled with bounty!

I must admit, even though I have enjoyed the quiet and simplicity of living only with what we need, it was so warm to open boxes yesterday with well loved toys and old Christmas tree ornaments.  And watching the girls' excitement when they greeted old teddy friends and opened favorite books was, of course, priceless.

And so, today I unpack boxes and clean up the toys covering every surface... as well as wrap Christmas presents, ice the sugar cookies for the teachers and pack for the journey I'll take tomorrow to a dear friends' wedding.  Dave is left with the rest of the weekend preparations for the pageant and the holiday feasts.  I know he is up to the job.  And his kids have no excuse for boredom in this full house!

The Christmas that Bible Study Made

I've been quiet for the past few weeks, because life simply fell into the normal.  The girls settled quickly into school, fall sports finished and winter sports began and life regained a standard routine again - and with remarkable speed!

But the Christmas season has reminded us that we're not living in our home.  After a lovely Thanksgiving with friends, it felt rather sad to look upon the Christmas season and see such a stark landscape.  We essentially live in a hotel, and everything in the apartment is brand new.  We value each of these things for what they are, but Christmas is more about tradition and warmth and we were looking at an apartment that felt sterile and cold.

I asked the ladies in Bible Study to pray for an abundance of blessings for our family this Christmas season, and not only did they pray but they also organized.  These women loaned us a creche, cookie cutters and Christmas tree lights;  someone sent us to chop down a Christmas tree on a gift certificate.  Another woman brought her kids over to help our kids make homemade ornaments.  Our home feels warm and cozy, full of brightness and light - each item with a real person behind it.

They did literally deliver little bits of Christmas to us.  But they also prayed, and we have been provided a lovely Advent.  Lilly will perform in the nativity pageant on Christmas Eve, making the whole afternoon feel festive for our family.  And after the pageant, another family from church will follow us home for a turkey feast and lots of Christmas cookies and movies until all of the children need to go to sleep.  Our family will wake up Christmas to Santa's deliveries - of which there are many this year, with so many things honestly needing to be replaced.  We will feast later in the day and enjoy a cozy Christmas Day in a very festive, cozy and warm home.

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas to all - it certainly is in our home!

As It Was

After this latest move, we found stability remarkably quickly.  After less than two months, it seems as if we have been here forever.  This is partly due to the fact that we lived in this community only 9 months prior to this return, barely giving people the chance to miss us, and we were welcomed back with open arms.  This is also partly due to the fact that we know how to move - we have honed the fine art of chatting with new people and accepting all invitations and quickly getting involved.

But I'd like to give our family some more credit than this.  I think making such a quick transition has shown that we are essentially the same people no matter where we are.

In the midst of our craziness and our turmoil, our priorities and our routines stayed essentially the same.  Our immediate family was always the highest priority, as it should have been - Dave and I cared for our family's basic needs for food and shelter and school, both now and in the immediate future - and this took quite a bit of our time.  But we saw a few other stays and essentials stand strong.

Our routines followed through, no doubt carried back by our children.  Bedtime and morning each had their own chores and no one considered dropping them.  Personal responsibility looked the same here as it had before.  We had movie night every Sunday night, with an enjoyable new rotation of pizzas until we restocked the kitchen enough to make ours homemade again.  School looked the same, as it would.  But time out of school looked the same as well, spent in parks and libraries and museums, or spent reading books and playing simple imagination games with whatever was handy.

Sunday mornings saw the same routines as well, with us transferring quickly from a much-loved church community in Caracas to much-loved Sunday programs.  We always attend on church on Sunday mornings.  Sometimes we attend thoughtlessly, because it is what we do.  Sometimes we attend begrudgingly, sometimes only because we prioritize living and worshiping with others.  And sometimes we attend because we have responsibility and friendships and a strong desire to worship God in community.  But always we attend on Sunday mornings.  And this is where this entire concept became so stark to me.  On Tuesday, we were in Caracas and on Thursday we were in Washington and different things happened and life simply propelled us forward, but on Sunday morning we were back in church, as we had been the Sunday before and the Sunday before that.  Its just that the church itself had changed, which made the worship service an emotional time for me each week. 

In a large and well-planned move, you begin stepping out of your normal life at least a few weeks (if not a few months) before you actually leave; and you take as much time to enter into your new life as well, feeling out place and people and redefining yourself in a new space.  But with such a quick departure, we had no time to withdraw.  And returning to a known place for such a short timeframe, we have no time to redefine ourselves. 

And so a few weeks after learning we would no longer live in Caracas, we fully lived in Arlington.  Because life in one place is not actually so different from life in another.

Five Weeks

Reviewing my calendar, I just noticed that we have been back in the states for exactly 5 weeks.  How much has changed in that time!  Just looking through the photos on my phone, the variation is striking.  It goes from everyday occasions in Caracas to emergency-style photos of moving, then vacation-style photos of keeping the girls busy in the district, and straight onto everyday occasions living in northern Virginia.  Phew!

I must say, though, I do feel as if we have landed and landed well.  Everyone seems fairly settled and comfortable.  Dave has begun his language training and feels happy with his schedule and lifestyle right now.  Lilly and Sophia have been in school for 3 weeks and its as if they never left.  Lilly finished off the season with her old soccer team and Sophia is signing up for basketball.  They both jumped into swimming lessons because they missed them from Caracas, but already this seems distant to them and they're looking forward to the lessons ending in a few weeks.  They have loads of friends and are doing great in school.  Annika and I enjoy storytime at the library, music class, meeting friends at Starbucks or at the playground and generally keeping each other company.

A few interesting differences I have noticed:

Dave and I are still eating whatever we crave.  It occurred to me that this could be a celebration of having left Caracas, where you eat whatever is available.  Admittedly, we had a well stocked larder.  But still, you didn't crave a goat cheese salad and also eat one in the same day.  But here?  Absolutely!  There's a sweetgreen within walking distance - that salad will be delicious!  Feel like some Ben and Jerry's after the girls go to bed?  Nothing stopping you!  Although actually, our pants are stopping us - and now that we've identified this interesting difference, we need to put it to bed.

Also, I have given up on planning.  Dave expects this to start back up again soon, as I am organized to the hilt and a planner by nature.  Dave's putting together his travel orders for the rest of our time here, to culminate in our plans for next summer.  I simply can not build up the energy to plan next summer.  It seems an awfully long time from now.  I have very little interest in planning anything for Jakarta, or even learning about Indonesia.  Its simply too far away.  I have begun thinking about Christmas, but anything beyond that seems too far away and much too uncertain to be able to think about.  I don't want to buy anything in bulk and I certainly don't want to prepay for any hotel rooms.

I'm very in the moment these days, which makes life for my preschooler and I very relaxed.  Last month, we were living in the midst of a great whirlwind.  And although life has settled, little things still take a long time because of the sudden change.  Next year will be busy with 3 girls in school and the potential for me to go back to work.  Today, I am enjoying moving at the pace of a preschooler.

The Much, Much Nicer Social Worker

I just got a call from the district level social worker.  She said that our girls will remain at their school for the rest of the year.

I cried.

I always thought it was weird to cry because you are so happy.  But there you have it - I cried.  For, like, 5 minutes.

She was really nice.  She said that she called the state of Virginia, who enforce the McKinney Vento Act with school districts in this state.  The folks in Virginia are savvy to how the State Department works.  They say that State Department folks returned quickly to the United States are provided with housing and with resources to live off of.  This is true.  Virginia says that removes us from the homeless category.  The social worker agreed that we were forcefully and suddenly removed from our home, but also agreed that the State Department is taking care of us.

She said that we already have the permission from our principal to stay at school, and so the matter is finished.  She chatted with me about how my kids are doing under this transition, and I said they're doing great because of their place at school.  She was very supportive, saying thats always her goal. 

I did not argue with her about whether or not we should qualify as homeless.  It is a Virginia policy decision, and has now become a moot point.

I did not ask her how I should have approached the problem in the first place.  In the last week, I began to wonder what I should have done differently.  The school registrar would not discuss enrollment or connect me to the principal until I mentioned homelessness.  Is this like the political asylum policy?  According to US immigration law (Dave will quickly correctly me if I'm wrong), a person can only apply for political asylum from within the United States.  So, a person must lie on their visa application to enter the United States if they hope to request asylum.  This is our federal immigration policy.  Also useful in other situations?  As I tried to pack away the lessons learned, I thought - how should I have approached this differently?

Quickly, I made a decision.  I'm just going to plan on never being permanently ejected from another country again.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Our kids are awesome and resilient and happy.  Watching them you would never know the drama they have just been through.  But listening to their games, you may get some idea:

Sophia, pretending to be the lunch lady, greets Jack the leopard as he steps forward to pay:
Well hello, Jack!  I remember you from kindergarten!  Its so nice to have you back!

Annika's conversation between two Polly Pockets:
Polly Pocket #1: Por que?
Polly Pocket #2: Porque.
Polly Pocket #1:  Por que? Por que? Por que?
Polly Pocket #2:  Porque porque porque porque.  Porque porque.  Por que?
Polly Pocket #1:  Porque.

Lilly and Sophia playing princesses:
Please help us!  The government has kicked us out of our kingdom!

Life As We Now Know It

A number of updates to share with you:

#1 - Annika has given up her naps, almost entirely.  This timing is welcome for a number of reasons, not least because our tumultuous lifestyle has provided her very few opportunities to nap over the last few weeks.  It is a fun development for her and I because it opens wide our day together, to be filled with mornings at the library and trips to the zoo while we run to the grocery store in the afternoon.  Such good news!  However, the impact on you is severe - I lose some of my key thinking and writing time. 

#2 - Dave is falling into a comfortable routine back at FSI.  He does not enjoy learning languages and does not feel skilled at it, but we do both enjoy his schedule while he studies.  The whole family wakes up together and helps each other out while we prepare for the day, and then Dave is always home in time for supper.

#3 - The girls have all fallen into positives routines, Annika included.  Lilly is clearly happy at school, but still seems angry a lot at home.  She picks fights with everyone and is generally moody.  Every so often she throws out something like, Sometimes I think its really sad that I had to leave all of my friends in Caracas.  This move may be the hardest on her, although well cushioned by how many friends she returned to.  She packs a busy schedule of playdates and likes her teacher.  She just has a lot to process.  Annika, however, seems done processing.  She no longer notices when our old car drives by and she only rarely talks about going home to Caracas.  Sophia has been remarkably happy all along.

#4 - The highest blessing of this entire affair has been that the girls could immediately return to their old neighborhood school.  I nervously report that their status there is still on shaky ground.  We were able to enroll the girls at their most recent school on grounds that they were homeless on the day of their enrollment.  I maintain this is true, but the school social worker disagrees.  Although she sees my point of view, she believes that the spirit behind the law is to help families without resources rather than families in turmoil due to lack of housing.  She also acknowledges that staying at their school is clearly the best thing for our kids.  I believe that she wishes for them to stay put.  She also acknowledged that the principal is the supreme authority within the school, and the principal's decision to enroll our girls matters the most. 

However, she has washed her hands of our case, handing it up to her supervisor.  I don't know what any of this means.  I spoke with the Educational Liason at the State Department and she was very sympathetic but very little help or comfort.  She said that she would be happy to advocate for our family, but that I sounded articulate enough to advocate for myself better than she could - unfortunately, the compliment offered little comfort.  She also explained that she has no authority over the school district and she has seen students moved out of their school midyear because of boundary issues.

Unfortunately, we are fighting to keep our kids in a severely overcrowded school.

But she also explained that the problem may be a simple issue of paperwork and checking the right boxes.  Apparently, each child at schools in our district must fall into one category - within school boundaries, outside of school boundaries or homeless.  Homeless students must be well documented, and students outside of school boundaries must be well justified.  The education liason and I both feel that we could justify either homeless or outside of boundaries.  But we also think that lying low is the best plan.  If this new social worker never calls, we no longer have a problem.

I can not bear to think about a negative outcome.  I hate to imagine Lilly being torn from her school and her friends again, how senseless and cruel that would feel to her.  I hate to think of Sophia beginning in another classroom, although her resilience through this has been awesome.  But I also can not handle the thought of having to start over myself.  If this move has been easy, it is because we have slipped back into our old life and been supported by so many old friends.  I have enough struggle recreating a home around us, and trying to rethink what home really is without any of the things we have always carried with us.  But this current struggle is nothing but a hassle because I know my children are well, and because I have friends helping me process each step on the playground every afternoon.  This is why I choose not to think about Indonesia just yet - I can not put myself in a place of starting over just yet.  I still have new friends in Caracas, friendships cut off and left incomplete.  I am not yet ready to begin again, anywhere.  I can not be the new person at school right now, and neither can my children.

And so we still wait, and we continue to pray.  Thank you beyond measure for the prayers and words of support offered by so many of you.

The Nefarious Social Worker

The girls have been in school for two weeks now and life has filled up with the uninteresting exhaustion of shopping and running to the doctor and cleaning the laundry and racing to soccer practice.  Everything is made more uninteresting by the long list of things to do and things to buy which carry over from our quick move here.  And everything is made more exhausting by the simplicity of our kitchen, so that we do not prepare homemade meals and we eat out more often than we would like.

Still, everyone is happy.  Dave is back at FSI and will begin learning Indonesian Bahasa on Monday.  He is becoming more interested in Indonesia and is looking forward to his studies.  I, on the other hand, have very little interest in Indonesia at this point.  I am content to focus on where we are right now, and to keep Jakarta as a pleasant place we will be moving to in a long time.

I conferenced with Sophia's teacher yesterday, who confirmed for me that Sophia is doing well and is in a good place.  She said that if someone were to walk into her classroom today, they would not be able to pick out the child who had just entered into the mix.  We are seeing good behavior at home from both her and her sister, and hearing good stories about great teachers and good friends at school.  Everyone seems happy.

Annika is still settling down, but seems calmer every day.  She follows her sisters' routine, which is comforting to her.  We have discovered a music class and a library storytime, so her life should become more preschooler-focused soon, too.

And just at this point, where everyone feels comfortable and the tension seems to have left the house, it is at this point that the nefarious school social worker calls.

She called both Dave and I yesterday morning, leaving a message with each of us.  When I returned her call, I learned that she is rarely in the office - and that she only left her office number.  She waited two weeks after the girls began school to call us, and it seems that it may be at least another week before she calls us back. 

In the message she said that wanted to talk about our childrens' status at the school.  She said that she is completing the paperwork for justifying their enrollment and does not feel that they qualify.

And with this, we enter the weekend.

I cried at the thought of pulling the girls out of school again, and then I sent her an email with our story and how I see the county and national statutes as applying to our family.  I am hoping that she simply did not have the whole story, and now will happily submit our paperwork.  Once I sent the email, I grabbed Annika and drove to the school to pick up her sisters.  As happens lately, Annika fell asleep in the car.  We are at that stage in her life where she doesn't nap, but she needs to .  So she naps on the way to school.  And when we got to school, she was still napping.  So I carried a sleeping little sweetheart out onto the playground, leaned against some plastic equipment, and shared the social worker story with my friends.

Without exception, everyone shared our righteous anger and had a plan of action.  It didn't relieve the tension headache that had settled above my left eye, but it did make me feel justified in my fight.  And then, Annika peed.  Asleep in my arms, she peed all over herself and me.  And really, I'd say I'm doing pretty well to have made it over 8 years into motherhood without being peed on in a public place.

And somehow it simultaneously raised the levity of the situation and also the business of the afternoon.  And until we made it home, it also raised the stinkiness of any room we entered.

Our Stuff Status

Through a series of posted sales, and through an amazing amount of work on the part of our friend Jesse, most of the stuff that we brought to Caracas has been sold.

This is daunting.

On one hand, this is amazing and exciting.  We don't have to worry about shipments or doing without - we have very little to be shipped and very few things we will be living without.  We can instead focus on replacing and rebuilding our home in whatever image we choose.

On the other hand, this is cold and overwhelming.  Replacing an entire household is not actually on par with redecorating an entire house.  Many things ought to be replaced right away.  For instance, we brought a bed for each of us to Caracas.  We sold each of those beds, and now have the money to replace them.  As we bring along our beds for continuity and to make each place feel more like home, we thought it best to buy those beds right away.  That will make this place cozier, and will ease the transition to Jakarta as well.  So, we bought beds last week.  They will be delivered tomorrow.  Yesterday, we realized that we don't have any bedding.  So, today I shopped for bedding.

Buying the beds was exhausting.  We went to a large furniture store and decided that we wouldn't walk out until we had purchased everything we needed.  It was a long few hours of shopping, but then it was done and we are happy with the result.

Buying bedding today was overwhelming.  Too many choices of color and style and price, and too many possibilities for crafting a cozy and lovely bed or for quickly putting together a cheap bed.  The opportunity within this whole project is to buy things that we love.  But I didn't find anything that I loved today, and I'll need sheets on the beds tomorrow.

After too much searching and thinking, I decided to buy one simple set of comfy sheets and order online a blanket that looks cozy and pretty.  Now I can take my time finding the right duvet covers and the favorite sheets.  After all, you can never have too many blankets.  And until the order arrives, Dave and I will sleep without a blanket.  Happily, the girls have blankets already and we found some nice sheets without having to dig too deeply.

And this is the challenge with most things right now.  I need them soon.  I want them soon, because I want to make this place feel like home soon.  But if I'm going to spend the money to rebuild my entire household, I want to buy things that I love, not simply things that will work under the circumstances.  Making most of my To Do List feel overwhelming these days.

Oh, Such a Day!

Life has begun settling down a bit, now that the girls have returned to school and we have decided to stay put in our hotel.  But abnormal is still the normal within our family.  Dave doesn't really need to go into work until Monday, and we have an amazing amount of shopping to do to make our hotel room feel more like an apartment.

Lilly and Sophia enjoyed their first day of school yesterday with very little drama.  I get the impression that Lilly is already happier than she ever was in Caracas, which may reflect as sad but certainly speaks well to the coming year.

But today's story isn't just about where we are.  We've had some crazy days lately, but Monday takes the cake and I simply had to record that story.

We spent the weekend shopping and churching and trying to settle in a bit to the new place.  And with the start of business again on Monday, we scheduled the day.
10:00 - register for school
11:30 - TB tests from our family practitioner
12:30 - drop the girls with a friend and buy a car
5:00 - back home for a nutritious dinner

As always happens with our family, we began late.  We walked out the door at 10:30 and headed straight to the school.  Columbus Day was a perfect day for registration because the staff were at their desks but the students were at home enjoying the holiday with their parents.  We brought all of the appropriate paperwork and all of our completed forms.  I walked in nervous that they would change their minds and not actually allow my kids to register, but we breezed through, fully prepared.  We peeked at class lists and chatted with the nurse and sent the kids out to play on the playground while I filled out some extra paperwork.  And then the registrar says to me, I got in a fight about you last week.

I figured she was joking and took it lightly.  She wasn't joking.  Apparently the school social worker doesn't think that we're homeless and wants to call us to get to the bottom of this.  I was floored, and could physically feel my tension level soar through the roof.  Of all people - the social worker is the one who wants to put a stop to this?

Allow me to step on my soapbox for a minute.  I've been joking about homelessness and how I feel like we're sliding into school on a loophole.  Here's the honest truth - we are absolutely homeless, and not being poor does not change that fact.  We are absolutely living in a hotel without the immediate means to live somewhere else.  And our children absolutely need the stability of returning to their home school as soon as possible. That our bank account is not empty does not change any of those truths.

We left the school under instructions to call the social worker.  I clipped her phone number neatly inside a packet of papers and went out to gather the kids.

Everyone tumbled into the car and we made it to the doctor's office just in time, where each child was unpleasantly surprised with a prick to their arm that will show by tomorrow morning whether or not they have tuberculosis.  We all made our greetings with the doctor as well, and then tumbled back in the car to head over to Kristen's where our girls would play with her boys all afternoon.  I spewed a bit of my tension at her and then we raced out to get stuff done.

Dave and I headed for lunch first, because my tension level was only rising and I was seeing red.  I couldn't discuss this without emotion entering my voice - honestly, I still can't.  We sat at lunch to talk it over, and that only served to heighten how upset I was.  So, Dave changed the subject to talk about the rest of our stuff.  We decided to sell the red chair, and needed to follow up on that sale.

For those of you who don't know, the Red Chair belongs in capital letters because it is an emblematic part of our family.  People have prayed for the Red Chair.  We have taken a picture of each of our children on each of their birthdays in the Red Chair.  We have also snuggled our kids and read countless stories and nursed sleepy babies and rocked feverish children in that chair.  It is the only piece of furniture we have had everywhere we have lived.  Possibly the only thing.

But as it is a piece of furniture, we can not have it sent to us in DC.  We are here only temporarily, and so the State Department will ship our furniture directly to Indonesia for us.  We will see most of our things in about a year.  When we realized this, we looked to see if we could replace the chair with an exact replica.  We could.  A new chair means having the Red Chair in our current home, leaving no gaps in the Red Chair photos.

Trouble was, neither of us had begun the process of selling the chair.  That is, we hadn't mentioned it to any of the people who might be interested.  And as we were sitting at the table, we realized that our best buyers were probably at our house at that moment, moving out the furniture they had already bought.  Overwhelmed by the feeling that I had probably missed my window, I pulled out my phone to send a last ditch email.  As I did, I received a message from Jesse, the friend in charge of our sale - Just sold your chair.  Can I sell the freezer, too?

This is when I cried.

I can't even explain to you exactly why I cried.  It must have just been everything - the possibility that my kids couldn't start school the next day;  the stress of not being able to sell the Red Chair coupled with the clear knowledge that we are blessed these days;  and the fact that my Red Chair was gone.

After lunch we bought a car.  I don't love this car, which is crummy.  We are strongly advised to buy a car when we arrive in Indonesia rather than taking one with us.  Buying a car for only 9 months is only fiscally responsible if you buy a car that has already lost most of its value - so we have a kind of stinky, little bit beat up Toyota Sienna for a good price and an exhausting afternoon.  By 5:30 when we were still completing paperwork in the dingy old offices of the used car dealer, I had a headache and couldn't focus on anything.  I left Dave to finish the purchase and went to pick up the kids from Kristen's house.

And after such a horrible day, we had blessings heaped upon us.  Kristen has 3 boys and a 900 square foot house.  She took all three of our girls and fed them both lunch and supper, carved pumpkins with all 6 children and gave them all a fabulous day - after having nursed on the night shift the night before.  Kristen is amazing, and getting a hug from such a good friend after such an emotional day normalizes everything.  We are in a good place.  Everything is going to be fine.

Soon after I got the girls home, I got a message from Esther.  We are downstairs with supper.  Can you come down?  We just met Esther and her family at church on the day before.  They are new to the area and her daughter became fast friends with Lilly in Sunday School.  She brought over a pot of chili, salad and cut veggies, and a bright and cheerful mum to set on the table.  Esther is amazing, and getting a hug from such a new friend after such an emotional day makes me realize how blessed we are.  We are in a great place.  Everything is going to be fine.

epilogue:  We were not home by 5:00 for a nutritious dinner, but that was covered by our friends on a different and better schedule.  Dave tried to call the school social worker and she didn't answer.  She never called us back.  We have done our duty and assume she is letting it go.  The Principal has allowed the children into the school and they are now in their second day of class.  Everything is going to be just fine.

A Decision-Filled Weekend

This weekend saw many decisions.  Allow me to list them for you:

1.  The powers that be decided that our next post will be Jakarta, Indonesia.  Dave will spend this year learning Bahasa and we will arrive at post in July 2014.  This is a 2-year post, and Dave will spend one more year doing consular work and his second year doing economics work.  This meets his bureaucratic requirements of doing 1 full year of consular work (in Venezuela he only did 9 full months), making his Career Development Officer happy.  But it also moves him into his chosen field of Economics, making Dave happy as well.  We're hearing good things about Indonesia and feeling good about this post.

2. The staff at our old school decided to allow Lilly and Sophia to return.  This was not a sure bet, but it is a true praise.  They started school today.

3. We decided to live in temporary housing the entire time we are in Virginia.  That means we will stay in the serviced-apartment we moved into on Friday afternoon.  It is small - I doubt it is more than 1,000 square feet.  And it is on the 18th floor, meaning we have no yard of any sort.  But it has 3 bedrooms, giving the girls some space to squirrel their things away and make it their own.  It has a fabulous location.  And it does have a lovely view.  And most importantly, we are already here and decided to avoid anymore dramatic changes.

4. We bought some clothes and shoes and toys and groceries and school supplies and a car.  We decided to replace the red chair.  And we did.

5.  Our friends in Caracas decided how to price everything we left behind, and then sold the vast majority of our stuff.  Now we need to decide what to do with the leftovers, and decide how and when to replace which things and with what.

Just writing this makes me exhausted.  I go into restaurants now and just stand staring at the menu, unable to make one more decision.  But God is good, and has brought us to a place where we can afford to live and are surrounded by people who love us and are very actively caring for us.

A Fresh New Day

I woke feeling much more relaxed this morning.

Yesterday was a hard day, where I focused on what we didn't have.  Not having a decision made me tense.  Not having more space made me edgy.  Not having nice weather made me feel cooped up.

This morning is better.  Both Lilly and Sophia have playdates scheduled for today.  We sleep in a bigger place tonite, where Dave and I have not only a bedroom to ourselves but can also enjoy a living room and a balcony without sleeping kids.  Ah, the luxury!

Amusingly, I had an action adventure dream last night where we were caught up in international intrigue and had to dramatically leave the country under the support of our friends at the embassy.  It was much more dramatic within the dream that in real life.

I have very little of import to share, and am blogging more to journal than to share information.  I enjoy keeping the story live.

For our next post, the options are now down to two - and the decision making seems entirely out of our hnads.  We simply wait to hear where we will go next and when.  There is something nice about this, leaving us space to simply pray on it and trust in God's control rather than my own judgment.

At this point, we have two options on the table.  We will be happy with either option.  But they will have dramatically different impacts on our life for the next few years - not only in location but in the major choices we will make about how our family functions.

So, today we wait again.  We wait to know what kind of car we need and what kind of future we have in store.  And I pray a lot, to feel peace that God has a perfect place prepared for each of us.   We have seen God answer this prayer so many times and I have faith that our next place will be good.

Exhausted

The stress seems to be getting to everyone today.

Dave and I were both emotionally soft yesterday, but in ways that we were still able to support each other.  This morning we're more just tense, and snapping at each other.  But snapping at each other in this ridiculously kind way - unkind words always followed by something about trying to be supportive.

Lilly is getting edgy and having trouble behaving.  We can't blame her.  She is cycling through the same 3 outfits every day and keeps being forced to tag along on grown-up endeavors.

Annika struggles to behave.  When asked to do something, she simply digs in her feet and refuses.  She's tired all of the time, rarely getting the chance to nap.  This afternoon, we came back in time for her to nap... and she's refusing.

Sophia is actually doing fairly well.  She enjoys the books from the library and the restaurants where we're eating.  Taking the Metro has been exciting, and so have our various field trips - the public library, the National Building Museum, and the National Mall.  She's had two playdates.

Tomorrow we move into a larger hotel - a 3 bedroom apartment near our old home.  Once there, we will begin unpacking and cooking at night.  The girls can start school next week and we will all begin to fall into some sort of pattern.

But today, we still have very little.  We still don't know Dave's next assignment - so we don't know if we will be in DC for 1 month, the remainder of the school year, or the next 3 years. We've had at least two announcements of the final decision, to have it later reneged.  My tension level rises each time.  I've now told Dave not to share any announcements with me until he knows for sure.  In that case, he advised I stay out of email.

Despite the large mocha I drank only a few hours ago, I am exhausted.  I may just turn on the television for the afternoon, and lie down with Annika for a long nap.

Homeless

We lived in Virginia less than a year ago.  So one of my first phone calls while we settled back into the area was to the girls' old elementary school.  I called right away and asked if we could get them back into school.  Their school is critically overcrowded, housing 6 classes per grade and teaching over 50% more students than the building was built to hold.  Do they live within the school boundaries? 

No, I answered honestly.

Then they can not come to school here.  She remembered me, and she was kind.  But she has no space for extra students, even if she did like them.

I kept asking questions, trying to worm my way in.  I was taking up her time and she was getting annoyed.  Then I grasped at the last straw, What if my kids are homeless?

She got quiet, put me on hold for a few minutes, and then told me that I should come in and talk to them.

So, here's the funny thing.  By any definition of the word, we really are homeless.  This truth feels shocking.

I assume that the rules in our home county follow national guidelines.  Here are our guidelines.  We qualify as homeless as long as lack a permanent address.  Lacking a permanent address, we qualify for the local schools as long as our temporary address is within the boundaries of our county.  This could be sleeping on someone's couch, parking our car at the Walmart or living in a hotel.  The last one is us.  If we qualify as homeless within our county, we can then choose to attend either the school nearest our temporary housing or the school our children last attended.

And there we go - I can register my kids at their old school, and they can start as early as next week.  Hallelujah!  Stability found!

Further blessings within this designation - once we register them for school, so are allowed to stop being homeless.  That is, if we find a home within the county but outside of our school's boundary, our kids may remain at our school until the end of the school year. Hallelujah!  Flexibility found!

So, we have answered the school problem, and thank goodness for that.  But, we still have the problem of being homeless.

Today, we are waiting to hear which post we will see next.  At this point, we believe the choice is between three jobs.  One would have us living here for at least the next one and a half years, probably two and a half.  The second would have us here through the school year, living in temporary housing and attending language training until we move to post over the summer.  The third would have us leaving immediately, with no additional training.

Should we stay in a job here, we have to find our own housing, and fast.  We love the idea of staying here, and providing that stability for our kids.  It also gives Dave the option to attend some short-term training classes which we would otherwise not bring our kids in for.  Dave is excited about the job opportunity.  But I'm only excited about coming back home if we are actually coming back to our home neighborhood.  Beginning all over in a new town, a new school and a new neighborhood seems overwhelming to me right now.  I was already working on making new friends and finding a new place.  I have no energy to do that again.

If we stay here, we only want housing in our school district.  This is the decision we reached yesterday.  As far as we can tell, there are 2 houses for rent and 2 houses for sale in our district.  Of these, one is far too small and one is far too expensive and one will change school districts next year.  That leaves us one house, for sale and only just barely affordable.

If Dave gets the language post, we stay in temporary housing for the year.  This isn't all bad - the government pays for temporary housing, and has already found us a 3-bedroom apartment.  This keeps our salary consistent, instead of halving it with rent or mortgage payments.  That is great.  And because of the homeless rules, that housing may be anywhere within our county.  No problem.  The apartment is furnished and serviced with dishes and blankets, so we can take our time replacing all of the things we left behind in Venezuela.  This is good as well.  And we are hearing really good things about the post.  This is great, too.  Of course, its still awfully unstable.  Following this plan, Lilly would be in 5th grade before ever having attending a school for more than one full year.

The third option is to leave right away.  The girls aren't excited about this, and neither are we.  We would keep them out of school until we arrive at post, giving them a dead month or two in the states.  They would have two moves within one school year, and then arrive at a school very different from one they have ever seen.  The school at this option only teaches 60 kids between pre-kindergarten and 8th grade.  Grades are combined and classes are small.  We hear that this is a great way to teach the kids - very similar to a Montessori school, with very individualized learning for every student.  If you've got to lose half of your school year, its probably best to catch up under such conditions.

This post turned into a bit of a rambling mess, which is nice evidence of where my mind is these days. We have a ridiculous number of choices to make immediately, but as of yet have no information for making them.  Decisions range from the very big ones I've described above to even the very small.  We could use a laundry basket in this hotel room, and certainly in our future life.  But do I buy one today at Target?  Or will the new place on Friday already have one?  Sadly, nothing is simple this week.

But even being honestly and flounderingly homeless, we are still in our home community.  We went to our home church on Sunday.  Dave is back in his old office building.  We know this metro system with our eyes closed.  We've got Target and Starbucks and things that make us feel cozy and comfortable when we need something.  We've got friends.  We've got lots of friends offering to help and just to meet up for coffee.  And we've got friends outside of town offering to come in and visit or to donate furniture.  And we've got a countless number of people praying for us and thinking about us.  With the thoughts and prayers of so many supporting us, who can be against us?

Fifteen Minutes of Fame

I wanted to title this post Sabotaging the Venezuelan Government, but rather absurdly, that type of tongue-in-cheek title would probably prompt the Venezuelan government to empty all Americans from their country.  So, we'll stick with Fifteen Minutes of Fame.

Here's a fun little exercise.  Google Dave.  Use his first and last name - which I am not typing here, because I don't want this blog to come up when you google him.  Amusingly, there is a rather famous man with the same name.  Googling Dave, even within his 15 minutes of fame, does not bring up our Dave for quite a while.

So, google Dave with his first and last name, and add "Venezuela" to your search criteria.  Now you've found all of the articles that have been posted over the two weeks about our situation.  We landed in every major newspaper around the world - The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine.  We had friends Facebooking us that night, as they heard Dave's name in a story on the BBC.

Here's our side of the story.

Venezuela and the United States have not exchanged ambassadors since 2010.  According to diplomatic protocol, in the absence of an ambassador, a chargé d'affairs run the embassy.   Dave had the honor to act as the control officer for the chargé for a short trip to Bolivar state.  They went along with a small crew of people.  As I understand it, the control officer is the person responsible for all of the logistics of the trip.  He spent hours putting this trip together before they left, and he took notes and handled phone calls on the trip.  He arrived back home on Friday night, and we all breathed a sigh of relief because we would finally get our regular lives back.

Apparently, they were being followed while they were in Bolivar State.  Agents of the government videotaped them leaving from a meeting with community groups, and posted it as proof that our little team of Americans was plotting to sabotage the Venezuelan government by breaking down the electrical grid.  You've got to see this.  The Star Wars style rolling text and the dramatic music from Requiem for a Dream are supposed to be proof positive that these Americans were doing something shady.

On Monday, President Maduro gave a televised speech announcing these fowl accusations, naming our three diplomats by name, giving each of us 48 hours to leave the country, and then shouting in English, Yankee, go home!

Our personal whirlwind began soon after that, and I'll leave that for another story.  The public story still had some unfolding to do as well.  The United States stood firmly behind our three diplomats, and brought us home in glory.  Dave had meetings and photo ops and handshakes from a number of higher-ups within the State Department, and many offers for help.  In a standard diplomatic tit-for-tat measure, the United States expelled three diplomats back to Venezuela.  These are the families I feel sorry for - its one thing to uproot your life and your family on short notice.  But at least we uprooted to the land of Target and Starbucks and have-a-new-cell-phone-set-up-within-20-minutes.  Much worse to be sent to Venezuela with only 48 hours notice.

And that about ends the public story.  Our personal story is much more amusing, and much more of a whirlwind and a roller coaster.  But my kids are bouncing off the walls of this little hotel this morning, and I've promised them a walk on the National Mall.  So you'll just have to wait for the next installment.

Tuesday Morning

I was planning on posting more of last week's story this morning... and then the morning began.  Lilly and Sophia slept until 8:45 - which is over an hour later than they've been sleeping lately.  Dave and I stayed quietly in bed until everyone awoke, making the hotel room a bit of a madhouse once everyone got moving.  Dave made quick dashes between the shower and the closet to get himself into the office.  Lilly and Sophia felt fabulous on their lots of sleep, and kept playing around rather than getting chores done.  Annika woke up in a foul mood, and over an hour later we have only convinced her to put on her panties.  She's sneaking a chocolate chip cookie while I write this.

So, no story that requires any thought this morning.  Simply an update.

The list we received on Friday night was dismal.  When Dave went in to start talking to people yesterday, it began to look much better.  A few posts which we found pathetic could actually be good options.  A few posts were added to the list, and they could be good options as well.  Dave interviewed for a position here in DC, and that option has many positives as well.  As the whirlwind continues, we expect to have this sorted out by the end of the day today, tomorrow at the latest.

That is good news in many senses.  We can't consider buying a car until we know where we are going next.  We can't put the girls in school until we know how long we will be here.  Should we leave early, we have a ridiculous amount of shopping to do right away.  Should we be posted in DC, we need to find a car and local housing as soon as possible.

We expect this weekend to be a mad rush, no matter what.

We are still riding on the good will of others, and thank goodness for that.  And our family is buoyed by the many prayers being offered all over the world for us.  And praise God for that.

The girls and I are taking a vacation attitude to the week, since we are otherwise stuck in DC anyway.  Yesterday, we metro-ed to the library and grabbed lunch at Cosi.  Although this seemed like a rather normal urban American day to me, it felt very exotic and exciting to each of the girls.  Today, we will make our way over to the Building Museum and hope that it is not too crowded.

I've probably lost my train of thought at the end of every paragraph as I've written this post, which is a good picture of where my head is these days.  But we are currently feeling positive about job prospects, Lilly and Sophia are enjoying their vacation, and we have more comfortable housing set up for Friday.  Under the circumstances, what more could we ask?

The Sale

This week is such a long and complicated story that I’m breaking it up into little stories.  Interestingly, most of these stories are of rather pressing concern to us.  So, the story that I happen to be thinking about right now is the sale.

We left Caracas with the things we could fit into 10 suitcases and nothing more.  This was largely clothes, with a few toys and books, a hard-drive and a cell phone.  We also had a backpack full of medical records and baby books.

Everything else is still in our home.  Most of it is being prepped for a massive sale taking place this week.

The situation in Caracas is unique in a few ways.  First, the State Department would be happy to ship out everything that we have.  But the Venezuelan government will not be so keen.  Many people have seen their shipment sit in customs for months before being released to sail.  We have a feeling that with the president kicking us out, our stuff would sit for even longer.  We must have a particular attachment to something to want to leave it sitting in a Caribbean port for half a year.

We do have a particular attachment to some things.  The red chair will be shipped to us.  Our china, and various pieces of our household which were given as gifts from special people.  Artwork made by the girls.  But the list of stuff we need back is surprisingly short.

Second, the economics of the country make it to our financial advantage to sell anything.  The situation is more complicated than I ought to go into here, but we expect a sale of our things to work out well for us.

So, we hit the ground on Wednesday night with very little.  Dave and I spent much of the day on Friday making the necessary immediate replacements – we bought a computer, a stroller and a camera.  Most other purchases need to wait until we have more space and more information.

We are currently in a 1-bedroom serviced apartment located in the district.  We expect to move into a 3-bedroom serviced apartment located near our old neighborhood by the end of the week.  At that point, we can think about any other things we need to live.  But more than just lack of space, we also face a ridiculous lack of information.  We can’t buy a car yet, because we don’t know if we need 4 wheel drive for the rough roads of Africa or something more compact for urban Europe.  Replacement will move slowly and thoughtfully, at least in theory.

So, back to the sale.  This is where it gets really interesting.  The government will allow us to sell our things when we leave a post.  In fact, they are involved because they help facilitate the change of money for us.  We sell things in the local currency, and they help to reimburse us in dollars.  But they set limitations.  We can not sell anything for more than we originally paid for it.  We are not allowed to make a profit, assumedly so that we do not set up a little import-export business on the side.

They’re willing to trust when I say that my jacket is worth $50 and my saucepan is worth $65.  But they’re not willing to take my word that the bunk beds are worth $4,000.  Every item that I claim I bought for over $335 must have an original receipt, or documentation of the price.

So, an army of our friends have been trolling our house.  They’ve been pricing everything in there – and it’s a lot of things to price.  They’ve been pulling out things worth more than $335 and researching what modern iterations of them cost.  They’ve been pulling together spreadsheets of the documented cost and will keep spreadsheets on who buys what and how much is spent.  It’s a mess of paperwork and I feel so blessed to have people we can burden this with.  People who we trust.

So, in the end we will have very few possessions and a pile of money in the bank.  The pile of money is exciting, until I think about the stuff that it represents.  We did not bring along to Caracas anything that we did not want or value.  We had very few items in the house that we did not use.  So, I expect that we will replace most of the things we sell, or be a little less happy without them.  And it makes me sad to think about the next place we live.  It will be filled with brand new electronics and shiny new toys, but its going to take that much longer for it to feel like home.

Status Update

We bought a computer yesterday, and this morning we got it connected to the internet.

I'm building a list of things to write about, but this morning I lack the brain power or stable emotions to do it well.  Also, my kids are all awake and itching to get out of the hotel room - possibly why I lack at least the brain power.

But here's a quick status update for everyone in the family, starting at the bottom.

Annika is struggling.  She is of an age where family is of primal importance, so comfort comes from simply sitting with one of us.  But she has no understanding of the changes swirling around her, and it makes her pretty upset.  Right now, she is walking around the hotel room singing, "I wanna go back to Caracas!  I wanna go back to Caracas!"  Our upset 3-year-old will feel much better once we stabilize.

Sophia is cruising.  When we told her we would leave Caracas, she asked if she could have the window seat on the airplane.  She got the window seat and she enjoyed the flight.  She recognized things in Virginia and is enjoying the company of her grandparents (who hopped in their car and drove from Chicago on Thursday to meet us here and help out).  She feels like she is on vacation.

Lilly has recovered.  She was sad to leave her friends in Caracas, but she feels at home in Virginia.  We had dinner with her best friend's family last night.  Every show on the television is in English.  We're eating at good restaurants and hanging out in parks.  She gets to sleep on a rollaway bed.  She is happy.

Dave is under a lot of stress.  He is trying to manage his career under rather unmanageable circumstances.  People in the State Department are being wonderfully supportive, and promising to take care of him in his next tour.  But one very friendly bureaucrat is enforcing a few rules which really ought to be waved under the circumstances.  She seems to be the person in control of his next position, and she refuses to think outside of the box.  She has provided of list of only 5 options for the next post.  Professionally, each one of them is disappointing.  Geographically, each one of them is in a hard-to-staff city.  He is essentially being offered the very bottom of the barrel in terms of entry-level positions.

I'm having trouble describing how I'm doing.  Maybe because how I'm doing seems to change dramatically by the hour.  When doors begin closing for me, I sink pretty fast.  When things work out for us, I feel like I'm leading a charmed life.

Things will stabilize a little bit this week.  Dave will be in the office beginning Monday.  We will move into a serviced apartment at the end of the week.  But this will leave me by myself more often, or trying to accomplish something with the constant company of three lonely, bored and stressed children.

Please keep praying for us.  I should be able to post more regularly now, so y'all can follow the story more closely from now on.

Finished

It is finished.

We have packed our luggage.  We have said all of our good-byes.  We have designated one room for our HHE, one room for our UAB and the rest of the house for items to be sold.  We've given out instructions to friends on where to negotiate, who needs the keys and how to get ahold of the housekeeper.  We've sold our car.  We've backed up our computers.

We've set the alarm for 3:30am - less than 3 hours from now.

We will leave with my cell phone, but neither iPads nor computers.  They will be sold in Caracas and replaced this weekend.  I'll do my best to blog short updates via the phone, but don't count on much.

By order of the President of Venezuela, we leave Caracas tomorrow.  We never expect to return.  We don't know where we will go next or when we will see again our items in shipment.

We don't know when we will see again our friends.

I'm really tired.

Living the News

Looking at the New York Times this morning, the front page top story is that the government is shutting down.

Top story on the Americas page of the International news, Venezuela Expels 3 U.S. Embassy Officials.

Both stories are about us.

Dave is actually named in the Venezuelan article - he, along with the chargé d'affairs (we have no ambassador here) and another colleague have been expelled from the country.  President Maduro said Dave and the other two officers by name in his speech.  Its amazing.  I believe they're accused of plotting to destabilize the country via the power grid.  Awesome.

We learned this yesterday - Monday.  I woke up today - Tuesday - at 3:30 in the morning.  I tried to go back to sleep for quite a while, but gave up by 5:30.  That's when I checked the news.  As of 12:01 this morning, the U.S. government has closed shop.  All non-essential employees are supposed to stay at home.

Through all sorts of confusing finance, our global embassies and consulates have the funding to stay open for a few days past the first of October.  This is good news for us, because we need a lot of help today getting all of our ducks in a row.  But once we leave Venezuela, there is very little argument that Dave will be an essential employee.  Furthermore, many (all?) of those still reporting to work will go without paychecks.

We are leaving most of our things in Venezuela.  We hope to sell everything that we leave behind, but U.S. law forbids us from making a profit on this sale (because that would make us importers, I assume).  So we are going to do nothing more than recover the cost of the things we will replace.  Still in question is whether or not that is true of our car.

Well, lets be honest here.  Most everything is still in question at this point.  Our entire family flies to Virginia on Wednesday.  Tomorrow.  That much we know.  How long we will be there, where we will stay, where the girls will go to school, what Dave will do immediately and how he will find his next job are all unknown.

Lilly is very upset.  Sophia is excited about the airplane ride.  Annika is looking forward to sleeping in a hotel tomorrow night.  Dave nearly threw up when he learned the news, but has been moving steadily forward since he got home last night.  And I am in my element right now - I can do crisis, and I am nothing if not organized.  We have friends rallying around us in town today, and people sending prayers from all over the world.  We face a challenging time, but we are so blessed.

Psalm 43

Big news today - will explain more later.

But we talked to our pastor tonight, and he is praying Psalm 43 for us.

The Creatures in Our Neighborhood

Looking out my window and seeing the Avila - beautifully forested low mountain that separates Caracas from the Caribbean Sea - I am constantly reminded that I do not live in Kansas anymore.  But my day-to-day life includes many of the things normal to life anywhere - getting the kids to school, running to the grocery store, and fixing dinner make Caracas feel like a very normal city.

But every once in a while, we go for a walk and see something which reminds us that we live in the jungle.  It may have been paved and constructed over in the past few years, but it is still jungle and home to many large and beautiful creatures.

 I passed this little green guy on the sidewalk in front of our building.  He is a bit bigger than my largest finger.  He's awfully cute, but I didn't touch him because aren't fuzzy caterpillars supposed to be poisonous?

We've found some more typically brown and small ones in our garage.  We don't touch them either, but we do generally stop and stare at them on the way to the car.

While the fuzzy green caterpillar is kind of cute, this guy is just plain creepy.  He's a vulture of some sort, and if I'm working quietly in the living room he will land on our window sills and wander around outside.
As we keep our windows open nearly all the time, and we don't have window screens, I am superglad that the embassy installed this netting.  When I first saw it, I thought the netting was to keep my kids from falling out the windows.  Now I think it is to keep these big ugly birds from wandering around inside.

This big fella was right in the middle of the girls' school, in an outdoor plaza which is always full of people.  I did not move him, but I worry for the poor kid who unwittingly stepped on him while chatting with their friends.  He was not just wide - he was tall, too.

 

This dude is well camouflaged by the stone wall about a foot behind him.  Look closely, though, and you'll find a spider who was nearly as big as my open hand.  But to allow you to see the size comparison, I would have had to put my hand very near to this guy.  And he was really big.  I did not want to do that.  I didn't even try to sell my kids on it - we just took the photo and ran.

But here is the piece de resistance.  This photo belongs to National Geographic Kids, because when we came across our own specimen I was too astonished to pull out my camera.

We were driving home from church and saw an iguana in the middle of the road.  We were driving on the right side of the road, and he was lying across most of the left side.  Apparently, a typical iguana is about 6 feet tall and this guy fit the bill.  Luckily, no one was approaching from the other direction.  Also luckily, the guy in the car in front of us took it upon himself to get the iguana out of the road.  Here's what happened, though.

When the guy - probably 6 feet tall himself - opened his door to approach the iguana, the lizard reared up on his hind legs and flapped open all of those flaps of skin you see around his neck.  He looked fierce!  The guy was unintimidated and continued to shoo him across the road.  The iguana first hid underneath his car, and then eventually jumped into the bushes.  But jumping is exactly what he did, almost the entire time.  He kept rising up onto his hind legs and lunging toward the guy, spreading his gills out wide each time.  After a while, he was lunging himself toward the brush on the side of the road and once he reached the edge he disappeared into it entirely.

Bidding

Less than a year into our life in Caracas, and we are knee-deep in the bidding process for our next post. 

Dave's assignment in Caracas is for two years, so since we arrived in December 2012 we are supposed to leave in December 2014.  But what we learned in January and February this year was that mid-year moves are really hard on the school-aged kids.  Because of the particular job Dave is in right now, and because he works for an amazingly bureaucratic machine, we are not allowed to extend our time here to the next summer.  That being the case, we are trying to curtail the position and to move this coming summer.

We first saw the bid list for the summer cycle back in April and we've been playing with it ever since.  Dave's made a number of emails and phone interviews.  And I'll be honest, the whole process has been rather exciting so far.  We are excited to live in loads of the cities listed, and every time Dave finishes an interview he emails me how excited he is about the job.  We feel like we have nothing but positive options available.

But then Jeannine went and made us nervous.  Chatting with her last week, she said, So, now that its the middle of September, you must have a pretty good idea where you're going, right?  Is Dave anyone's number one choice?

Um, as far as we know, he is not anyone's number one choice.  So, now we're both a little nervous.  Here's how it works.  Everyone bidding on next summer's jobs is looking at the same list, and has been looking at the same list since April or so.  They've all been calling the folks in positions of power and lobbying for the jobs.  Some people cinched their jobs early on, because they knew the right people and had things pre-arranged.  Other positions have been moving along a more standard hiring process of multiple interviews and references.  But the list remains the same until a day early in November, where each hirer will submit who they are hiring into a computerized system.  That's the day you know where you are going.  Before that, you only get to learn that you are someone's top choice.

Our top choice was Taiwan, but they weren't interested in Dave.  We chatted with Guangzhou for a while, and although Dave is still interested in the job, the family is less interested in the number of moves it takes to get there.  And so, at this point in time, our list is: 

#1:  Beijing, China
#2:  The Operations Center, Washington, DC
#3:  Dhaka, Bangladesh

People at each of these posts have expressed interest in Dave rather recently, so he seems to be in the running for all three.  Where things will go from here, God only knows.  Which is one of the things we like about the lifestyle.  We put in all of our hard work to make good things happen, but at some point the only thing we can do is trust that God has a good plan for our lives.

Counting My Blessings

Headline this morning:
Explosions, gunfire at Kenyan mall as armed attack enters 3rd day

When we were bidding on our current post, we listed Nairobi as our number one choice.  We were disappointed when another member of his class was assigned there instead, gave him a hard time for his good luck, and began worrying about our safety in Caracas.

Praying for everyone impacted by these acts of terrorism, and feeling too close to this violence.

The Kids, They Are A-Changing

Our oldest child is our most difficult.

This is partly because she has many unique challenges.  She has a temper like you would not believe.  She hates sleeping in, and so can not catch up on her sleep when she stays up late.  She is a perfectionist, panicking when the world is not black or white.  She can be a bully.

And she hates moving.

The move here was her most difficult, by far.  The previous move had been in the middle of kindergarten.  Kindergarteners are so friendly, and she is such a good reader than she fit in academically without a problem.  At that age, kids are simply an extension of their family.. and so if the family moves with them, a move is not so hard.

But the move here was in the middle of 2nd grade.  She had a best friend in Virginia, and that best friend lived only two doors down.  They could play outside after school.  They could hide in the neighbors' backyard, or climb the magnolia tree and disappear together.

When we moved in the middle of 2nd grade, she had no best friend just down the hall.  Now we livedin a high-rise, and we have no other kids in the building.  She struggled.  Moving in the middle of the year is hard, and she struggled to fit in.  But her teacher saw a good fit, and matched her up with Marcella.

Marcella was a good friend for our daughter.  They were both smart kids, good at school and loved to read.  They were sweet kids who cared about each other and could play with anyone.  Being with Marcella made her feel at home.

And then Marcella moved.

And now third grade has begun, and we are more than 6 weeks into the school year.  The teacher is good.  The other girls in the class are good.  The work is good.  The after-school programs are good.  And still, she tells us that he doesn't want to go to school.  She throws temper tantrums.  And she misses America.

And the other reason she is our most challenging daughter is that she is our oldest.  When our youngest does something out of line, we simply smile and give her the appropriate consequences.  Ah, three year olds.  But when our oldest child begins to act out of line, we just look at each other with confusion.  What is typical of 8 year olds?  Are they gaining independence?  Is it harder to make friends?  Is school becoming more challenging?  Have the boys grown cooties?  I suspect that the answer to each of these questions is yes, but I'm not entirely sure.

And the floundering is enhanced by the recent move.  She was happy in 1st grade, when everyone liked her.  She struggled in 2nd grade, when we moved.  And she struggles again in 3rd grade.  Is this because of the move, as she believes?  I have a hunch that 3rd grade is harder in every sense - the schoolwork becomes more challenging, the homework calls for more responsibility, and the social life is no longer simple.

Ah, for a handbook on my child.

Disappearing Children

A few nights ago, our housekeeper babysat while Dave and I had a date.  It was a sorry excuse for a date, because it was actually Back to School Night at the girls' school.  But we went out to dinner afterwards, and we didn't put our kids to bed so it felt like a date.

We got home at 11:00pm.  Little Annika was still awake, but the other two had eventually gone to sleep.  This did not bode well for the nannying expertise of our housekeeper, but at least all of the girls were safe.  We put Annika to sleep and the housekeeper went to bed in our guest room.  Caracas is a dangerous enough city that babysitters generally spend the night rather than going home late.

We finally got little Annika down, and then went into the big girls' room to tuck in the sleeping children.  Lilly was in her bed and got a kiss, but Sophia's bed was empty.

Dave and I searched the entire house.  We looked under tables and inside forts.  We looked in closets and bathtubs.  The child was not anywhere.  We began to panic.  How could a 6 year old with a babysitter simply disappear?

Finally, we knocked on the guest room door.  Maxima?  Lo siento, Maxima.  Dónde está Sophia?  Where is Sophia?

Está aqui.  She is here.

Apparently she had gotten angry at Lilly while she was in bed, and stormed out of the room.  She decided to sleep in the guest room, having no idea that Maxima would join her there later.  Poor Maxima just assumed she would have to share a bed with a 6 year old all night, and gave no complaints!

So, the once disappearing girl was crazy enough.  But tonight we put Annika to bed without her lovey.  It seems to have been left in the garden, and we will surely find it in the morning.  But tonight, she has no binket, which made her feel very lonely.  The sweet girl cried a little, and then - ever resilient - she talked about how Jesus would keep her company and keep her safe.  Such a good girl!  We kissed her and left the room.

Two hours later, Dave and I came upstairs to go to bed.  Again, we went to tuck in the sleeping little girls.  But in Annika's room, we found no sleeping little girl.  I checked the stuffed animal box - no girl.  I checked the closet and under the bed - no girl.  We looked in the chair and the hidden corners of her sisters' room - no girls.  We checked behind and underneath the bean bag pillows in the den - no girl.  We began to panic.  How could a 3 year old with her parents in the house simply disappear?

I peeked up at Lilly once more.  She sleeps on the top bunk, spread out amongst piles of books and animals, with the covers always bunched up to the side.  And there, amongst the covers, smooshed against the wall, slept her little sister.  It seems that Annika remained scared and went into her sisters' room to seek solace.  Sophia was already asleep, but Lilly must have been awake and invited her up the ladder.

So sweet to have sisters willing to share their bed.

And here's to hoping that Annika kicks all night long, forcing Lilly to move into our bed in the night, allowing little Annika to sleep a little bit longer in the morning.

American Independence

I've heard it said that the defining characteristic of Americans is our friendliness.  Especially within the United States, people will discuss how Americans are immediately welcoming, although generally only superficially.  I've heard it described as a low fence with a high wall - we'll let you right into the front garden, but its hard to be welcomed into the house.  Many other countries have a high garden wall, but once you're into the garden you're also welcome in the house.

This is true, but I think its not the most significant difference.  After all, many cultures are friendly.  And friendliness differs drastically by cultures within American.  No, I see independence as the defining characteristic of an American.

I've been thinking about this as I watch our housekeeper care for Annika, and as I watch nannies bring young children to music class.  It annoyed me to watch nannies follow children around the classroom with a water bottle pointed toward their face - can't that child manage her own drink of water?  It made me crazy that our housekeeper doles out cookies instead of fruit when I'm not here - Annika needs to understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy food.

We saw these same patterns while we lived in China, where they also made me crazy.  Children on the playplace at McDonalds would have parents following them around with a chicken nugget in their hand.  When sufficiently prodded, the child would turn to take a bite and then continue playing.  If they choose to play instead of eat, thats their own problem!, I would think.  Our Chinese housekeeper Wendy and I would discuss this frequently, because her own daughter was near Sophia's age.  As a 1- and then 2-year-old, I rarely fed Sophia.  She could eat with her hands, and eventually she figured out how to eat with a spoon.  Wendy thought this very impressive.  She reported back to her family that my children never needed help getting their food to their face.  They answered back, and these children make no mess?  To which Wendy had to reply, No, they make a horrible mess.  There is rice all over the floor when they finish.  She and her family decided it is much simpler just to feed the kids themselves.  And to that end, she was still feeding her 5-year-old niece.

This seemed insane to me.  How can these children learn to be fully functioning adults?  And yet somehow they do, because both China and Venezuela have their fair share of fully functioning grown-ups.

It occurrs to me that as a culture, Americans teach our children independence immediately.  We are much more prone to You can do it! than to Here, let me get that for you.  And this must be directly related to the way we treat our elderly.  Other cultures would not consider a retirement home as a viable option for their grandparents, but we tend to assume that our grandparents would not want us waiting on them.  When we spend so much time teaching our children to care for themselves, I wonder if we make it less obvious how selfless a job parenting is?  Possibly caring for a child's every need makes dependence upon your family so much more familiar, and creates the assumption that of course you will eventually care for your parents as well.

The Small Church Challenge

Dave and I were members of a small church back in St. Louis, many years ago.  I was a social work student, we were committed to living in the city and we were excited to attend an urban church.  The face of most urban churches in St. Louis 15 years ago was the same - a small group of primarily older couples who have held membership in the church since its heyday.  The churches are beautiful old buildings, now crumbling alongside their membership.  And the members are beautifully dedicated to their church and their city, but also to the way they have worshiped for the past 50 years.

So, when we joined the church we were young and energetic and immediately asked to be integrally involved.  We each had our own keys to the building and were responsible for our own committees.  And by the time we left that church, we were both exhausted.  For a small church to run any programs, everyone needs to be integrally involved.

When we arrived in Caracas, we joined the United Christian Church.  And we were both struck by how much it reminded us of that little urban church in St. Louis.  The church building itself is beautiful, with a pitched roof and dark wood pews and colorful stained glass windows.  It is an old building, and the non-transient members are old as well.  Much the same as in St. Louis, things change slowly and everyone is needed for any programs to run.

Dave and I held back when we arrived last year.  We don't feel called into any of the volunteer opportunities available, and still felt the burn from having exhausted ourselves at our last small church.  We went home for the summer, and we attended our home church in St. Louis a few times.  This church is large and growing and excitingly active and beautifully organized.  My kids loved going to Sunday School and Dave and I loved the worship and the preaching.  We can back to Caracas intent on helping our current church home to draw a little closer to our old church home.

I admit - my vision was tall.  Our church currently sees maybe 50 people in the pews on Sunday morning, but frequently teaches 15-20 kids in the Sunday School program.  Sunday School excited my kids in St. Louis and so I set it as a goal to see Sunday School excite my kids here in Caracas.

I volunteered to organize Sunday School for the year and to run worship for the kids.  I uber-organized our volunteers into a system of teams with two different classes and one break-out session each week.  I dialogued with my stakeholders and felt very positive about implementing this fabulous new plan.  Except, I forgot to talk to one of my stakeholders - one who represents two of the 6 volunteers and 5 of the 15 children.  And as it turned out, she was not on board with most of my suggestions.  And as it turned out, maybe no one else really felt the need for change either.

And now I'm feeling kinda funny.  On one hand, I feel a bit silly for over-enthusiastically trying to make-over our Sunday School program single-handedly.  On the other hand, I feel relieved not to have much work left to do anymore. 

I am still running worship, which has me pretty excited.  I'm looking forward to getting to know the other kids, and to seeing each of the kids begin to learn some worship songs to carry in their hearts.  That should be enough church service for this year.

Ranchitos

Life has been very busy lately.  Lilly celebrated her 8th birthday this week.  My music classes began this morning.  I've volunteered to organize Sunday School at the church.  And then there are the power outages and the groceries missing from the stores and the extra work load Dave took on this month.  Life is busy in our house!

When life is busy, I compose posts and then lose them to the other things going on around me.  So here, rather than another rambling post doing nothing more than journaling my day, here are some photos I took on the way to the beach last weekend.

The poor in Caracas live in ranchitos.  We are absolutely not allowed in this neighborhood, by a rather nanny-ish decree of the US government.  You see, the security forces within the U.S. Embassy have mapped out the more and less dangerous parts of this city.  They do this in any foreign post - you'll hear about it on the news sometimes in war zones.  The green zone is the safe part of the city.  Caracas has no green zone.  The yellow zone is somewhere one ought to be wary.  We live in the yellow zone.  It is very small, but does encompass the school and our grocery stores and favorite restaurants.  Much like our community, it is like living in a small town.  We are supposed to be out of the orange zone by 8:00 at night, after which crime rates jump dramatically.  And we are actively encouraged (in fact, I believe we are forbidden) from entering the red zone.  At a guess, I'd say that 80% of this city falls in the red zone.

So, back to the ranchitos.  Having not explored them myself, I can't give honest details.  But they ramble up the hills all around town, looking as if the lower houses may be structurally sound and then people began adding walls and ceiling and light fixtures all the way up the hill in a very ramshackle way.  They generally have electricity and running water, all illegally.  And it appears that many of them do not face a road, but rather a sidewalk or a set of stairs.

I'm so curious what they look like inside, these ranchitos.  And as I'm looking, I realize that although these photos capture the drama of layer upon layer of houses climbing up the hill or over an area, they don't show how precariously some of these houses will perch one upon another.  The ranchitos are where what quick destruction this country could see in the face of an earthquake.