A Big Move

In the summer of 2017 our family moved from our house in San Marcos. That little yellow house (later painted blue because it needed a fresh face) served as our first home. It was the place where each of our four children were brought home. It was the home that Ella and Troy both left and returned to on their first day of school. It hosted many parties and game nights and bible studies and pmc (pre-marital counseling) sessions over the course of more than ten years. It was a house and home that was worth protecting and sharing. But, two years or so ago we decided to move into a house with another bedroom for our growing family. We moved. Across the street. That move seemed like a big move. We had accumulated a decade worth of stuff that needed to be sorted, packed, and moved. Eventually though, it was just a move. Across the street. 

Then, about a year later, we decided to move. Across the world. Lisa and I knew this would be big move. We knew that the change of location, culture, language – to a degree, weather, worlds, countries, continents, distance, and more would be a big move. We knew that it would shake up our earthly foundations and confuse many people, including our own children. We decided early on that we did not want to ship a container overseas because we had so little stuff that we actually needed or we felt was worth taking. (We did choose to ship my library, and that probably deserves its own post!) In a way, we had decided to take a stab at budget and wisdom enforced minimalism. Now, minimalists would be ashamed of us because we also planned to pack twelve suitcases full of stuff since the airlines allowed us that much with the purchase of our tickets. We knew pairing down ten years worth of family with kids stuff, twelve years worth of San Marcos stuff, twenty years worth of dating stuff, and thirty or so years worth of living stuff would make for a big move; but we had eight or nine months.

In the end, we had no idea just how big of an ordeal, logistically speaking, moving across the world would be! Let me just say that Lisa and I are great at procrastination, and we really slow-played the first six and half months. Pairing down our lives into a few suitcases and plastic tubs (thank you family and friends who are watching our stuff that we couldn’t part with) proved an exacting, humbling, exhausting, trying, patience-building, and faith-building task. We have a few really great friends and family who dropped everything and helped us. They were lifesavers. Lisa went above and beyond and kept things going.

We had too much stuff. We have too much stuff. I hope we are not too tied to any stuff. This move has really helped us see and will help us teach our children the proper place of stuff. We made it to Singapore with twelve suitcases weighing 49 pounds each and our carry on bags. We filled the church van! We probably brought way too much stuff; time will tell.

-Trent