Two Years In

I’ve been thinking that I would welcome a lock-down about now. It sounds lovely to imagine no soccer practice, no activities taking my teens in all different directions, and plenty of time for meandering family walks around the neighborhood. I wonder how different things would have been for us if the pandemic had hit in 2022 instead of 2020.

Of course, when I daydream, I only imagine the good parts. And I often fail to remember how the real-life bad parts have contributed to the real-life good parts I have today.  

The pandemic, as awful as it was for us, is what brought us to Redlands. If we hadn’t left Tanzania early, Gil wouldn’t have been available to take the substitute job that led to his current job. I’m happy in 2022, but we wouldn’t have gotten here without 2020, even though I wish I could erase it.

Two years in, I can genuinely say that I love where God has planted me. 

Walk beyond my neighborhood, and I find acres of orange groves. In the winter the brilliant oranges stand out against lush green leaves like California Christmas ornaments. Now that it’s spring, I open my windows, and in wafts the heady scent of orange blossoms. 

In January our family project was taking down the nine rotting cypress trees in the backyard, which gave my children the good ol’ American skill of chopping down trees with an ax. Clearing that space left me a blank canvas to plant bulbs and seeds, and now tending them is a daily joy. Worrying about my seedlings prevented me from delighting in the freak snowstorm we had in February, though my children were let out of class to dance in the crazy anomaly. (You’ll be relieved to know my seedlings survived.)

All the snow I want is just an hour’s drive away in the mountains, and for months I can enjoy it from a distance, which is where it belongs.

The other day, Grace, who is 16 and very bright, asked me to explain spring to her. “I just don’t get it, Mom.” I had a good belly laugh at that one. Of course my tropical girl wouldn’t understand spring because in Tanzania, we had two seasons: hot and dry and hot and rainy. So after I explained it to her, I made sure to bring all the younger kids up to speed as well. Add that to the list of Perplexing American Lessons on daylight savings time, how to tell apart a nickel and a dime, and the difference between “veteran” and “veterinarian.”

The kids have embraced their dad’s passion for finding good deals on used stuff, like when Gil told me he was picking up a “box of nail polish” for Lily’s 13th birthday party. It was only $5, so he assumed it would be about 50 bottles, when actually it was around 500. After taking what we wanted and giving some away to everyone we know (which still isn’t that many people), we have about a third of it left. Anyone want to visit? You get to take home a goodie bag of nail polish.

Speaking of Lily, she had been nagging me for several months about getting a hamster. I had been nagging her for several months to keep her room consistently clean. On a whim, I told her that if she could keep it clean for 30 days, we would get her a hamster. I made a really nit-picky list of what a clean room had to look like, thinking there was no chance this would actually happen.

Well, call me a fool for not realizing what teenagers are capable of. That room was pristine for 30 days, and day 30 just happened to fall on her birthday, so Dad took her down to the pet store after school. Unfortunately, on the way home, the hamster escaped his box, ran away, and hid behind the dashboard of the car. Gil spent one hour looking for the hamster and then another hour extracting the hamster, which involved disassembling the dashboard. I stood by and offered encouraging remarks, praying fervently that we wouldn’t have a dead hamster in the car on my daughter’s birthday. After drawing blood from Gil’s finger (which no one cared about by that point), the hamster (who was promptly dubbed Houdini), landed safely in his cage.

Lily’s birthday meant that we now have three teenagers in the house. Josiah now eats dinner at 6:00, 7:00, and sometimes 8:00, every night. Who gets any leftovers for lunch has to be determined by rock, paper, scissors because they are a scarce commodity. The bigger battle, however, is with media consumption, because no matter how many limits, rules, and restrictions we put on media devices, it seems like it’s always a prowling monster, seeking to devour my children. More than once, Gil has suggested we become Amish. 

Last month, I wrote an article on parenting for the EFCA blog, which you can read here. In it I hint at some of the parenting challenges Gil and I face and what I’m learning in this season. Parenting teenagers gives me moments of deep despair, but also times of incredible hope. My kids are more complex than most, with layers of adoption and ethnicity and third-culture-kid experiences. Transitioning to everything new right at the time when most kids are figuring out their identity has not been easy for them. 

But my kids are resilient. I love watching them figure out how to integrate all those layers. Last week after dinner they burst into singing all the songs they learned in their childhood Swahili classes, complete with hand motions and the appropriate accent (well, except for Josiah, who is in a particularly non-boisterous stage of life). For Grace’s big English portfolio, she chose the theme of “The Black Experience,” and her writing takes my breath away. I am learning so much from seeing the world through her eyes.

All four are very involved with sports, which I am thankful for but simultaneously hate how it disrupts our lives. Our kids did sports in Tanzania, but it rarely involved evening practice times or games in far-reaching cities. Trying to keep track of everyone’s schedule makes my head spin. One night, while on the phone, I suddenly panicked. “Where’s Johnny? Was I supposed to pick him up?”

Lily called down from upstairs, exasperated. “He’s at soccer practice, Mom. With Dad.” Oh yeah. Right.

We started a Home Group through our church, which means our home is filled with families and their kids on Sunday evenings. This past Sunday, the laughter of teenagers filled the room, up to the ceiling, squeezing through the window screens, overflowing my cup. 

My job keeps me busy and fulfilled, and daily I interact with people all over the world. Gil and I just finished teaching a series on worldview in an adult Sunday School class. I volunteer once a week in an after-school ministry program. Our kids are slowly getting connected to youth groups. We are slowly getting to know their friends. Gil finally gets to teach at school without a mask on. We have so many good things in our lives.

Whenever I give myself space to enter the memories of Tanzania, or whenever they suddenly rush at me, emotion pricks my eyes. What a glorious life we had there. Tanzania still feels like home more than California does, because it takes a lifetime to build history. But there is beauty and hope in my life that wasn’t there for a long time. I am so thankful.