"No reading at the breakfast table"

My teddy bear:  the lone survivor One of the fun aspects of my year of less is more are the emails, texts, Facebook messages I've received from people sharing with me their de-cluttering efforts.  It's also been stimulating discussing with people their reactions to my posts.  Some of you are excited and motivated by them.  Others are feeling uncomfortable but in a positive way.  Some just haven't liked them.  That's OK.  It's all part of the joy of sharing life online. It is fascinating to me as I talk to people how different we all are.  I spent a lot of my childhood in a third world country where the life I lived was an abundance of richness in comparison with my local friends.  But as I've raised my own kids in Australia I've realised how simple it really was.  I remember having the same style of brown sandals for four years in a row because there weren't any other options. Sometimes how hard (or easy) it is for us to let go ...

When our eldest child was two we had one small plastic box of toys.  By the time he was three years old and we had our second child we had a small shelf of books and toys.  By the time we had three kids we had a cupboard of toys.  By the time we had four we had a family room full of toys and by the time we had five we had toys in the playroom, the hallway cupboard and in their bedrooms. For years I have had to work hard to not end up with literally mountains of toys through our house. Every Christmas we'd kind of stumble home with a boot load of gifts.  And we have an extended family that is on the extremely conservative end of the spectrum.  I can't even conceive what we would have ended up with if we had family that over-gave. And that's sometimes what is tricky about decluttering toys.  A large percentage of them are probably gifts.  Or they're presents that you carefully chose for your kids.  Or it's a set of trains that you spend years...

This is OK I'm sure I've written about this before but every year I struggle with the pressure to be an uber mum and have some kind of Christmas craft decorating the house.  Instead I end up with a leaning Christmas tree that the kids have decorated themselves (certainly not going to make the cut for a Myer catalogue), with lights that drove the husband to distraction to untangle. There's a trend (especially in Christian circles) to create family traditions.  And I'm a total believer.  Good, healthy childhood memories and traditions have been shown to be very significant in developing high levels of security and resilience. But over time the memories/tradition trend seems to have developed into some kind of Pinterest Christmas competition.  No longer is the knitted nativity scene that Aunty Pip bought for us from the Mother's Union stall in 2003 enough.  It needs to be done by me.  And this is how my family will unite, bond and be functional. The ...

My five year old sister cut her fringe.  Big chunk out of the middle of her thick, brown fringe.  She did it with her little friend who lived next door.  They thought it would be fun to cut their hair together.  Under normal circumstances I don't think I'd even remember this as much of a big deal, because every family has one of these stories. But we were due 'home' in a few days and all my mother's planning that we would look decent (despite having lived in the middle of nowhere in India for three years) fell apart.  I remember a lot of worry about what we would wear on the plane, sewing new dresses so that when we stepped off the plane we looked OK - trying to convince everyone in Australia that we were still normal.  Untouched by life in India.  Not deprived. But then my sister cut her hair and my mother's efforts seemed in vain.  I have a strong memory of getting off the plane in Sydney, walking across the tarmac in our new beautiful dress...

When I was 7 my family lived in Bangalore in the south of India for three months.  Bangalore was much larger and snazzier than the small country town in the centre of India that we were used to.  I don't remember a lot about that time.  I do remember that the students in the flat above us used to play ABBA's 'Money, money, money' all day and I learnt the words for that song very well.  Ironic as I reflect on it now that they were theological students headed towards pastoring small Indian churches ...  Mind you, not much of my Indian childhood was untouched by music - it was just that this was Western music, music in a language I understood well.  I remember my brother learning to take his first steps.  But most importantly I remember reading a whole book on my own for the first time.  It was 'Wind in the Willows'. It was during those short months that I started to catch the reading bug.  There wasn't much else to do....

Last week I finally got around to listening to a podcast that I downloaded months ago.  Recommended by a reader it was a radio show from the States called 'Boundless' (comes under 'Focus on the Family') and it included an interview with three adult MK's. I enjoyed the podcast and plan to download others to listen to.   ( http://boundless.typepad.com/podcast/2012/02/209-mks-groves-race.html ) One of the aspects of the interview that stood out to me particularly was when one of the MK's said that she missed 'social cues' when she returned from the mission field as a 15 year old. I remember this clearly as one of the aspects of returning home to Australia that I found particularly tricky.  I just didn't quite 'get' what everyone was talking about in conversations.  About 6 months after coming back I remember being at a 16th birthday party (at a friend's house that had been recently renovated - as an aside I genuinely couldn't u...

I read this book just before I turned 40.  Significant because the author of this book and I shared our 12th birthday party together when we were living in India.  Her parents were teachers at the boarding school I attended and at the time Kate and I were, as they say, BFF.  Kate's mother threw a joint party for us and this was such a treat for me being so far away from home. What fascinated me about this book was how much Kate and I share in common in our life stories (MK's, age, Australian, school, returned to Australia at a similar age, travelled together in India in 1997), yet how we've ended up in different places in terms of faith. 'When Gods collide' is Kate's second book (her 2006 book, 'Women of the Gobi' about missionary women in China in the 1920's is a great read too).  The basis for this book was Kate's interest in the murder of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in India in 1999.  Kate says it was in t...

Just returned from a great week at a missions conference in the mountains.  Very busy (I was helping with the baby creche) but encouraging and so, so challenging. Here are some random thoughts from the week: 1.  I know lots of people at this conference.  I've been going since I was a little girl, so this is no surprise.  And I don't say it to brag.  I take great encouragement from attending year after year and seeing people who were my friends at 17 who are now off serving Jesus in Spain or older people who are now seriously old still attending and trusting Jesus. 2.  Gee, don't people ask some insensitive questions of the missionaries in public contexts?   "So, I'm not quite sure on why you decided to leave country X.  I'm not quite clear.  Perhaps you could spell it out a bit for me in front of 300 people?"  Nice work people. 3.  I worked with the best team ever in creche - and I've been on A LOT of teams.  T...

This week I'm spending the week at a missionary conference and I'm chairing a session on the topic of taking your kids overseas.  As a TCK (Third Culture Kid) myself I'm always interested in these sessions so it will be fun to be chairing it.  In honour of this conference I thought I'd share two books with you that I read earlier in 2011. They are both by Marion Knell, an English writer who has done a lot of work with TCK families.  These two little books are easy to read, and while none of it might seem like radical stuff to those who have thought a bit about the topic, they are still very helpful.  Helpful because they raise some of the broad issues that families face as they move cross culturally ('Families on the move' is good to read before going o'seas).  And also the issues that families face with 'reentry', the term given to families moving back to their home culture. I found reentry a very difficult time in my life and I think it took m...

Earlier this year, we had dear friends stay with us for a few days who are missionaries.  We worked with them in India in the mid 90's.  The husband is a MK himself and he and I went to the same boarding school in India (although 15 years apart). We were chatting about the funny things that you carry through your life as a result of the boarding school experience.  My 'thing' is that I love, love, love, long hot (very hot) showers.  This was because the boarding house that I lived in, had a water shortage.  So we'd often have to have bucket baths at the main school during the lunch hour.  These were 2 minute baths, with half a bucket of hot water and I had long hair.  It was stressful.  So it's not rocket science to work out why I love hot showers so much. Our friend kept helping himself to copious amounts of milk out of the fridge while he stayed with us.  Apparently this is his 'thing' that he's carried with him out of going to boarding...

Over the summer I enjoyed reading a book called 'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver.  It's not a new book (1998) but it was recommended to me a few times in the space of a couple of months so I thought I should read it. This book is the story of a Baptist missionary family- dad, mum and four girls (age range 15 down to 5) who move from the States to a village in the middle of the jungle in the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) in 1959.  The country is on the brink of gaining independence from the Belgians and they enter into a political minefield.  They are the only non-Africans in the village, they cannot speak the language (which creates all kinds of problems), are a very long journey away from the nearest town, making them dependant on an unreliable pilot to fly in their supplies.  After they arrive in Africa, the family discovers that the father has in fact only a very tenuous support from the mission agency.  When he refuses to leave the country after in...

Tomorrow we're off on our annual week long holiday to a missions conference.  This conference is run by the mission group that my parents worked for when I was a little girl growing up in India.  I've been going to this conference forever and our kids have gone since they were born. It is a great conference with an incredible children's and youth program all run by volunteer young people (I did my time as a uni student helping out with the primary program for four years). For many years I struggled going to this conference because I felt like we needed to GO.  That we needed to pack our bags and go to Africa/Cambodia/Alaska - whatever was the country of the moment.  This is what I call 'MK guilt'.  Not experienced by all, but experienced by many.  You grow up with such a strong sense of 'being a missionary is the hardest, most important, valuable thing you could be doing as a Christian' that anything else becomes a bit of a cop out. So when we decided t...

If you are a MK and you haven't read this book - you should.  It will speak your language.  This book was fabulous because I saw what had been in my head down on a piece of paper.  That's always such a powerful experience. If you have a friend who is a MK you should read it.  My husband works with university students and found it really helpful in better understanding the MKs that he has met through his ministry. Does anyone have any other recommendations of books/websites that are helpful for MKs?

Coming back to Australia when I was almost 15, for many years I felt like I didn't really fit in (I probably still feel that a little - see my previous post  ).  I felt that I didn't quite 'get' all the social nuances of relationships.  I was unsure of how I fitted into this new world. This is a very, very common experience for MK's. But you know what I've learnt?  That this is not just an experience for MKs.  This is an experience of human beings.  Talking to my friends who have always lived in Australia, there are still things that make them feel like they don't quite fit in. Perhaps it was not being cool enough at high school. Perhaps it was feeling not as clever as other friends.  Perhaps it seems that everyone else at church is really connected and they don't feel connected.  Perhaps all the other mums at school are involved in a busy social life and they aren't.  Perhaps it is thinking differently about something that everyone else ...

One of the great things about getting older is that I feel a lot more settled with my life story.  I don't feel so reticent to share it with others.  In fact, as I've got older I'm valuing more and more my childhood rather than desperately wishing I'd had a 'normal' childhood in Australia. I lived in India between the ages of 5 and 14.  My parents were missionaries and we lived in a Bible college in a little Indian town in the middle of India.  Between 9 and 14 I went to a British boarding school for missionary kids which was a two day train trip away from home. When I was almost 15 I started attending school in Australia.  I had a posh accent and soooo desperately wanted to assimilate - quickly.  I lost that accent fast and started to try and learn about life in Australia.  What it meant to be Australian.  A real Australian.  Not just one that celebrated Australia Day and ate Vegemite.  It wasn't easy. I found the later years of hig...