Three months later…

Yikes! It’s been so long since I’ve posted anything. Last time I posted I just needed a place to break down all of the hardships surrounding our housing situation. Well, here I am three months later and the situation is almost the same!

We moved into a new apartment the first week of December, and it is incredible to say the least. It is a great size, (the living room is big enough to do my Zumba workouts! Woot!), and very modern which means very nice. The only setback is the rent is way over our housing budget. Seeing as it was the first apartment offered to us in the three months we lived here, we took it anyways. We figured if we couldn’t raise the support to cover it, we would just pull from our savings. Worth it to have a place to live.

Because our landlord is trying to sell the place, she will only sign a contract for three months at a time. The contract is useless however, because if the apartments does sell she can ask us to leave within 30 days no matter what the contract says. The good news is that she doesn’t expect it to sell soon and she really wants us to be able to stay there till we leave in July. As much as she can help, we will be able to stay in that apartment as long as possible.

So it looks like God does not want me to have a secure housing situation this year. What a ridiculously nerve-wracking lesson of dependence on Him He is teaching me. He is teaching me though. And I’m beginning to see proof in my life of me learning. I’m beginning to see where I am leaning more and more on the Holy Spirit rather than myself.

What else am I learning? I will be working on more posts to tell you about it. What are you learning?

Honestly….

So this week has been really hard for me. So hard in fact, that I really don’t want to post about it. Especially when I think about all the people that will potentially read it- my parents, my other parents, my siblings, my other siblings, my students that I always tried to be so big and brave for, etc. But I’ve always liked the fact that I have no problem being vulnerable with everyone. And I would also feel guilty and like a liar if I only ever posted about the light and fluffy stuff. But the truth is, life is not light and fluffy right now. This is the hardest it’s ever been. To break another misconception that all missionaries are super-Christians, I thought I’d share some of my current struggles. You know, just to prove that I’m human. And maybe to let someone else in the world know they’re not the only one stuck in a pit right now.

Many of the people reading this already know this fact about Uppsala, but for those just joining us I will clue you in. Finding housing has been our greatest challenge since we’ve been here. Cale and I have been blessed to have our current apartment for three months, and it truly is the most amazing apartment in Uppsala. However, come December we are homeless again. What’s most frustrating is that we’ve spent almost everyday for the past three months looking for housing and have had no success. The only possibilities we encountered was a basement of someone’s house that would have been community living for the rest of the year, (being married we felt a little justified in turning that one down), and another apartment that we were invited to come see but were not chosen as the tenants. Needless to say, I have felt pretty hopeless in this situation. I have not felt settled, even with a great place right now, since the day we arrived, and it is really upsetting and depressing to think I could very likely be homeless for Christmas. For those of you that do not know me- I decorate for Christmas November 1. 

I don’t want to write this for your pity or just to have a place to whine. If that was my goal I would have about ten more paragraphs in this post, because there are so many other huge things that I am struggling with currently. Uppsala itself is incredible and I love living here. But the rest of life- the perfect life that I left behind is something I miss so much right now. I told most of my friends when I left that although leaving my friends and family and ministry was the hardest thing I have ever had to do, I knew that God would only replace it with something better. I still believe that, but if I can be completely bare and honest with you- this isn’t better yet. There is no way I’m ready to pack up my bags and head home yet. But, for the first time in my life, my eyes won’t open all the way, because they are so puffy from spending so much time crying in the past week. And that’s the honest truth from someone who is so desperately trying to be obedient to what God has called her to. 

Misconceptions about Missionaries- part 2

In my last post I began by excitedly explaining about our previous trip to Italy and the fact that we got to visit such an incredible place. I need to revise some of the statement I made. I definitely think I have the best job ever. But one of the greatest misconceptions about missionaries is their fairy-tale lifestyle living in some exotic foreign country- like Italy, France, England, Sweden, Spain, etc. When we were working to find ministry partners so many of the people we met with made comments such as, “Wow, moving to Europe for God? How do I sign up?” or “Man! Have a nice vacation!” or “So, you’ll be working during the week and then what? Partying it up in a different country every other weekend?” 

Living in another country is so different. Please don’t misunderstand. I am not trying to place blame or guilt on those who made (or may have thought) something like the comments above. I, too, envisioned something like a fairy-tale life moving to and living in Europe. But then I moved here and left everything I knew- everything that was familiar- behind. Something as simple as grocery shopping stresses me out now. I’m never certain of what I’m buying because it’s all in Swedish. Almost none of the brands here are the same as in the States and they don’t have about three-fourths of the things we have, (no Goldfish!). I rarely know how much I’m paying for something since I’m still not very good at converting Krona to Dollars. It’s still hard to locate things in the store. At the end of this process I always hope I remembered to bring a shopping bag, otherwise I’ll have to purchase one in order to get the food home. And then there is always the hoping all of it will fit in my bike basket so I can get it home. Cale and I also have the talent of completing our shopping at the exact moment it decides to downpour! This is one example of my adjustment to living somewhere new.

The greatest testament to this particular misconception is our visit to Italy last week. I will say that living abroad for a month already changed my attitude towards how I approached this trip. This wasn’t vacation- it really was work. Immediately upon entering a country we become students of the culture. We study everything- all the way down to the way they hold their silverware when eating a meal.

I can say without a doubt that I would never want to live in Italy. Not because of the silverware though. Because doing life there makes you have to look past the Colosseum and St. Peter’s Basilica and Trevi Fountain and the Roman Forum and the Spanish Steps. Doing life there makes you realize that there is garbage and graffiti everywhere. Or that when you walk outside you need to hug your purse in front of you like a baby in order to guarantee not getting pick-pocketed. Or feeling like you’ve got lung cancer after being outside for one day around the thousands of people that smoke. Or that people in this culture don’t make friends or interact with each other the same way we do in the States, so it might take a long time for you to find someone who truly feels like a friend, (remember you live here now- possibly without friends). You begin to realize that this is just another big city somewhere in the world starved of God’s truth and love. Living in another country is so different.