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I love my crazy international life. I have had the gift of traveling to orientation a few weeks ago to talk with new TCKs about the adventures of moving overseas, but this past week, I also had the privilege of sharing about transition with a group of interns spending a purposeful amount of their gap year in Cambodia. For one, it’ll be the first time she’s ever left New Zealand.

I was invited into the space by one of their program leaders who has spent time living in Nepal and America and is raising cross-cultural Norwegian-Kiwi kids with his wife. I’ve loved the touch points with this family about culture and international living that are not part of my day to day in my church role. Last week, they’d had me over just to chat about cultural differences, and this week as I went back in to specifically look at the first three steps of the RAFT they should build before their upcoming trip, I was able to reference some of the stories from the previous week of how my Americanisms clash or mesh with Kiwi culture.

One of the things I’m so, so grateful for being the same is finding people who are purposeful in their prayers for my healing all over the world. This week I had a few rough moments to emotionally process what my doctor told me was going to be a several month long reset for my body. I was a bit disappointed, and there were some hard moments on my body. When I was feeling particularly low, I got a text from a Kiwi friend telling me she was praying for me. It was so beautifully timed as an encouragement to me to keep persevering through this journey that doesn’t have an end date.

I built my RAFT well when I left Germany and arrived her in New Zealand two years ago, but I also live in the reality that I’m still an American here and have the layered reality of being a Christian who has citizenship in heaven but have been sent for a purpose to live here in New Zealand for such a time as this.

Our church is doing a series on Esther, and as I’ve been soaking in that book, I’m convicted of how I want to live on purpose in a broken world that doesn’t often recognise God at work. Am I paying attention to the movements of the Holy Spirit? And am I responding with courage and confidence?