Tag Archives: acceptance

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6 Lessons From Change Ready Kids: On Life Outside of “Normal”

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Do you know anyone that is struggling with a change in his or her lives right now?  Do you know any organizations that are in the midst of extreme change and sinking instead of swimming?  Are you aware that 3 of the top 10 Critical Human Capital Issues for 2013 are CHANGE related?

A series of events in our expat journey has convinced me that anyone that has grown up as an expat child has developed wisdom and skills that will help others navigate change.  So I asked a couple of friends to share their experiences.  (Special Thanks To:  Amy Murphy & Lynette Elrod Hudson for sharing their stories!)

After hearing their stories, 6 lessons stand out:

1.  Provide vision and stability in the midst of extreme change.

“When we moved to a new country, my dad would go ahead and scope things out and then come back with great stories of what he had found. Sometimes he would be gone a month or two as he started a new job and found a house and we finished that year in school, so when he got home we were just happy to go wherever it was to be together.”  Lynette

479757_10151689092104766_952536038_n2.  Form relationships with people based on their character, not the color of their skin …Or the shape of their face!

“The first time I realized that people of different races looked different was in 3rd grade.  (I’d been an expat child since I was two.)  I thought my classmate had a flat face and I asked, “Why?”  Amy

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Moving forward when you don’t know, what you don’t know…

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As my husband and I prepared for our international move we went to the bank and ordered the currency he would need when he arrived there.  The banker was a young man who had grown up as an expat child in this foreign land.  The currency arrived without incident and my husband had nothing to worry about.

Two and a half months later, as I prepared to leave the U.S. to join my husband. I went to a bank in a different city to order the same currency.  When the teller asked if I wanted small or large bills, I quickly said small.  (Using my U.S. filters and thinking about how hard it can be to use big bills in the U.S. or in Europe.)

The day I went in to pick up the currency.  Every teller knew immediately who I was.  (I thought that was odd.)  A few minutes later a teller emerged with four large wrapped packages.

iStock_000008219942XSmallAs she opened them she revealed 4 “bricks” of bills.  I was in shock! 

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Life Overseas: Turning Unwanted Change into an ADVENTURE!

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Life Overseas, Expat, Unwanted Change

New beginnings and fresh starts…

  • Can be exciting and fun!
  • Can also be pain-filled and very challenging because an ending has to occur before a fresh start happens.
  • Can be terrifying because they require you to leave what you’ve known and to change.

One of my life’s messages is encouraging others to make choices to leave their comfort zones, reminding them about all of the things they miss out on each time they choose not to take a risk and pointing out all of the growth that happens when they embrace change.

In the fall of 2012, just after sharing this message, my husband was asked to take a new position, across the world, in the only place we said we never wanted to live.

When I got past the shock, got a lot of basic questions answered, and spent quite a bit of time in prayer, I thought of a friend of mine…  

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Broken? You Can’t Have an Omelet Without First Breaking the Eggs

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Oliver TveitMy Grandfather was a WWII Battle of the Bulge Veteran and although his nature was to accept whatever life handed him and to move on, the memories of the brokenness and devastation that the war created left a shadow of questions that haunted him.

Broken Egg

For years he did his best to cope, while raising a large family and tending to a farm.  When his youngest grandchildren started asking about the war he found some healing by sharing stories with family and fellow veterans, but the questions themselves remained.

In 2004, 60 years after the battle he accompanied a number of veterans back to those battlefields. Considering the devastation of the homes, the cities and the lives that were directly impacted by the battles, grandpa was not sure what kind of a welcome they would receive.  Much to his surprise, everywhere they went they were treated as heroes!