The Expat Journey

Over the past few months I’ve written several personal posts about an upcoming move overseas.

I have several reasons for sharing this personal journey on my business blog:

1. Because I LOVE leading change.
2. Because there was a season of our lives, that was filled with continuous unwanted change.  …So much so that it was like being hit with enormous waves, each one would knock us down, we would stand again, and another would hit.  It was such a confusing and painful time that to this day tears surface when I think about it.  When the waves stopped crashing there was not much about our lives that looked the same.  And then the transformation within us began.
3. Because of the growing realization that individuals and organizations need direction and encouragement as they navigate their own seasons of change.

Change has a way of opening our eyes and ears, it focuses us on what is most important and can be a catalyst that helps us become better people and better leaders.  

My hope is:

• That by sharing the details and the emotions of our expat journey that you or someone you love will find encouragement for whatever you are in the midst of.
• That you will be reminded that you are not alone in the struggle to navigate change.
• That when you are ready, you will help others by sharing your story!

This is our journey as it unfolds!

As we contemplated the decision but did not tell anyone: 

• Comfort or Magic… Stay?  Go?  Go?  Stay?

After we made the decision to go, and the reality set in: 

• The Holidays and Tears  

When we were finally able to share what we were doing with the world:  

• Turning Unwanted Change into an ADVENTURE

As our journey begins:

• Everything the Light Touches
• Faced with a sink or swim situation ~ What do you do? 
• The Invisible Woman 
• Navigating Limbo, In the Midst of Change 
• Expats:  On Life & Leadership
• Learning’s & Joy:  In the Midst of Change
• Life on an Expat Compound – AKA Sesame Street
• Thankfulness, Beauty and Struggle ~ In a Foreign Land

~~~

It is interesting to note that In the first few months that my husband and I were dating, we attended a retreat together.  At one point in the weekend we were given a poem, and asked to read it to everyone in attendance.   At the time we made our decision, we did not think about the poem, but as our journey begins I wonder if we were being prepared way back then for this season in our lives…

To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.  To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out for another is to risk involvement.  To expose feeling is to risk exposing your true self.  To place your ideas, your dreams before the crowd, is to risk their loss.

 To love is to risk not being loved in return.  To live is to risk dying.  To hope is to risk despair.  To try is to risk failure.

 But risk MUST be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.  The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing.

 He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love, live.  Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave; he has forfeited freedom.

 Only a person who risks is free.

“The single best way to develop leaders is to take people out of their safe environments, and away from the people they know, and throw them into a new arena they know little about.  Way over their head, preferably.  In fact the more demanding their challenges, the more pressure and risk they face, the more likely a dynamic leader will emerge.”  Bruce Wilkinson

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