Reflection: At Home in the World

I've been reading a book of epic adventures.

Of one family taking a year to learn and experience life together through traveling abroad. 

Of their longing for home. 

And of learning to live with both the desire for exploration & the need to be rooted.

I'm sitting on my porch, sipping a homemade pumpkin spiced latte.

The fall season was recently kicked off with the endless PSL posts spamming my instagram feed. Rather than feeling left out, I decided to get creative. It paid off and now I think mine are better than Starbucks. It has been a year since my last "official" PSL, so I may be deceiving myself. And yet, after encouraging our local coffee shop to add it to their menu, I was asked for the recipe. It will be available next week (you're welcome, expat friends).

Looking around, it's anything but fall. Green leafed trees and blooming flowers are in my view. However, this morning there is a cool breeze, in which I find myself hidden away in my grey sweater, pretending it's fall. I take every opportunity to wear my favourite sweater. My husband looks at me all cozy and laughs. But I feel at home in this familiarity. 

Between nibbles of homemade banana bread, I glance up to watch my growing boy climb trees and chase after his best friend, who has become more like an older sister. Those two are inseparable. I thank God for our little community, 5 nations represented in our little compound. 

I think I've begun to feel at home here.

Reflecting on the word home, has me thinking back over the past year. I have made it one of my personal missions to transform our apartment into a home. It has been a process, allocating space in our luggage to bring over a few meaningful things including: precious photos of family & friends, select wall decor, two mason jar candles and even the essential oil diffuser we received for Christmas last year. It may be silly and of course these items were never on the "essentials" list for Tim (his included cheese balls & stuffing from a box). 

It's made a big difference for me. I love creating an environment that inspires and uplifts. And nothing inspires me more than walking through Michaels or Hobby Lobby (window shopping, of course). However, the closest stores would take over two days of travel to get to. So, I've had to get creative. A few months ago I found someone to make me a large canvas to paint. While this painting represents that our hearts belong here for the unforeseeable future, it's not quite finished. It's a working progress. It will be added to and changed, just as we have been as we've made our transition to this beautiful country. 

I'm thankful for the familiarity these items bring to my house. But more importantly, home is wherever my husband and son are (although, I wish everyone I love could move here with us). To feel at home means to feel relaxed and comfortable; in harmony with surroundings; on familiar ground. After a year of traveling back and forth between Africa and North America, I finally feel at home. In fact, near the end of our time last spent in North America, I mentioned to Tim that I was ready to go "home." That was a big deal for me. 

We've been transplanted here in the Ugandan red dirt soil. It stains feet like a deep tan until it is washed away in the shower. It covers the house with a dusty coating and makes sweeping multiple times a day is a daily chore. It cakes itself to my little ones hands after a morning of play outside. It's a constant reminder that we live here, in Uganda.

Over this past week, I've been realizing that the things that would have frustrated months ago I've become so used too. However, I will still yell for my husband to kill the intruding cockroach because I will never find comfort in that. 

With the turn of the last page, a family's year long adventure is over and another one begins. 

"Travel has taught me the blessing of ordinariness, of rootedness and stability. It can be found anywhere on the globe. It's courageous to walk out the door and embrace earth's great adventures, but the real act of courage is to return to that door, turn the knob, walk through, unpack the bags and start the kettle for a cup of tea. In our rituals of bread making and wine tasting, tucking our kids into bed and watching stars flicker from a chair on the back patio, we are all daring to find ourselves at home, somewhere in the world."     - Tsh Oxenreider

Of course, our situation isn't the same experience that this book depicts, but I can definitely relate to the need to be rooted, while living in a culture and country that is not my own. To create the familiarity that a homemade Pumpkin Spiced Latte and a favourite sweater brings while still embracing all-year summer weather, delicious passion fruit and endless Kitenge fabrics to choose from. 

To finally feel at home in Uganda, has brought with it a deep peace about where the Lord has called our family.

I can enjoy both the adventure and rest in the comfort of our home, away from home.