Monday, April 4, 2016

Temporarily Homeless-in April, the month of the military child.





My 4-Hers.
It's done. We've attended our last Awana, 4-H, and PWOC, had our last parties with friends and we finished painting, cleaning, and clearing and on the 31st we turned in our keys to the place we called home for 42 months. Painting was the most significant break in turning 11120 from our home to a place that held our stuff. At every duty station you create a new "family", a tribe if you will, of people that make life sweeter because it's shared. And Fort Campbell was no different. We found wonderful friends here that will be dearly missed even as we look forward to finding our Daegu Tribe.











Many questioned if it was worth it, painting all those walls. And we say YES! Even dealing with the stress of priming and worrying (which I really shouldn't do...when will I listen to God on that one?) about whether we would have to pay (we didn't). For the last several years this place felt like our home because we made it our own, even adding landscaping and created a land mark, "Oh, the house with the red living room."




So now we are staying at my mother's house as we wait for my passport to arrive and pray that we will all travel together. I tease her that having us so close for awhile will make it easier for us to be so far away for awhile. It's not easy having a family of 6 move in with you, especially when you aren't exactly sure when they'll leave!


Missing the baby. Easter with my siblings and their kids.
 
We are loving this opportunity to be with family (our birth Tribe) and seeing those who will be with us our entire lives. I immerse myself in the memory making and try not to think of what we will miss by being half a world away. Although, we have been very blessed in having always lived close enough to regularly visit so that our kids still feel like they know their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins and we aren't too much the stranger to my siblings children either.  I am looking forward to being able to mail them all packages with special Korean treats and hope my family will be willing to post lots of pictures to facebook, and updates of the mundane parts of life for us...hint hint!  Today I'm catching up on work, sorting papers, and sent Mike off with the kids to make memories at the zoo.

April is also recognized on military installations around the world as the month of the military child. All those little humans known as "dependents" on official forms but in reality are some of the most independent people I've met. Typically these kids move every 2-3 years, saying goodbye just about the time they truly feel settled into a place.  I regret at times that the choice my husband and I made to make the military a career means they don't have the same roots we had by growing up in one community then I think of all the opportunities we've had because of the constant moving.  I also remember that God knew this was the future for these kids, and He has grown in them amazing character traits of openness, discernment, adaptability, perseverance and resiliency that will benefit them throughout their lives.