Kid Steps

I've mentioned frequently that I'm VERY thankful God is calling us to move overseas now with our kids as old as they are as opposed to 3 years ago or 3 years from now.  There are many families who do this with babies, but I'm really, really thankful we aren't one of those families.  : )  (And I don't know if a 13 year old would be as flexible as my wonderful 10 year old has been!)

Timothy's Little Lion and favorite blanket

So instead of taking "baby steps" toward moving to Peru, we're taking "kid steps".  In the last week or so I've noticed all of us processing what's coming in the future in different ways.  Timo is still trying to grasp what in the world we're doing.  He knows we're moving to Peru, but I realized today that he probably thinks it's just for a few months like it was when we went to Canada.  Very logical.  And not exactly right.  So we're slowly working with him on what we're doing.  He's concerned about Peru being "very far away" but little things like looking online at the kind of house we might live in or talking about grandparents coming to visit are helpful.  Kid steps.

Toby's Big Al & Blue Bear

Mikaela's Belly Bear

Toby and Mikaela's concerns right now are more about which stuffed animals they might have to part with. Some people might roll their eyes at that, but I totally get it.  And in many ways I'm doing the same thing.  I look at the shells and sand from various beaches around the world that I've collected through the last 20 years and wonder what I'm going to do with it.  Store it?  Give it to someone else?  

The jars sit on my desk for now so I can enjoy them awhile longer.  But I think also of the boxes waiting to be sorted in the garage and know there will be some hard decisions to make and most of them are only hard because I love things like my kids love their "stuffies."  Because these "things" remind me of people or other houses or other seasons and somehow it feels like if we let go of the things I might lose a bit of myself or something.  But I also enjoy the fun of dreaming about how we might decorate our home in Peru.  What fun to get to start over!

 So I'm going to listen to the advice I gave Mikaela and try somehow soon to just start.  Just start going through things and find the easiest stuff to part with - things I won't even really miss right now.  Because in spite of the amazing amount of stuff we got rid of last summer, we still have more we can part with easily.  And then we'll deal with the harder stuff (whether to part with it permanently or temporarily or take it along somehow) when we get there. Kid steps.  : )

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."  Matthew 6:34

God is good!