Roots

This week I've felt homesick for the first time. I'm actually rather loathe to use that term because, convinced as I am that God has called us to Chicago, this is our home now until He chooses to send us somewhere else. To be more specific, what I find myself missing is that sense of familiarity, almost safety, in my usual day-to-day life. I found myself just wanting to turn up unannounced at a friend's house, plonk myself on her sofa with a nice cup of tea (served with milk, not cream, lemon or half-and-half) and just to chat about nothing in particular. That's not to say that I find myself lonely here, because I've been blessed with many opportunities to socialise and meet new people, but it's exhausting starting from scratch. I'm so bored of my story about how we came to be here, how long we are here for (don't know), etc etc.

I'm fast discovering that I don't fit neatly into the ex-pat mould. Whilst I can have as good a moan as the next person about the fatty bacon, tasteless chocolate and ridiculous bureaucracy, I don't want the quest for a supplier of digestive biscuits to define my life. Neither do I want my focus to be entirely on what's happening 'back home', when my next visit is and when we are moving back. It was interesting to have coffee with a group of British mums on Monday, quite a mixed group, our only common thread being our roots. And that's what everyone says is ultimately what you miss most and the hardest thing to replicate overseas - a sense of being uprooted from that which is so familiar you can't even define it. For some it's the food, for some it's the humour - as one mum pointed out, Blackadder quotes just don't mean anything here - but underlying it all is the ultimately false feeling that the grass was greener.

As a Christian, I need to have a sense of 'just passing through' but that is ultimately forward-looking towards my eternal inheritance, not backwards. And whilst it's not wrong for me to miss things about the UK, I don't want that to hinder me from focusing on the job in hand and to miss out on the blessings of today. So, I will henceforth try not to moan too much or make too many comparisons between life here and there. After all, we have chosen to live in the US, however long or short our stay may be.

I suppose ultimately it is all down to where our securities lie. On the face of it there is little security in D's job here. Jobs are being cut all around - he had to let someone go just last week - and with the economic climate as it is, there are no guarantees of a job either here or in the UK. But ultimately, we believe that God will provide and we can feel completely secure in not only his ability to do so but also in his willingness to bless us.

So, here we are and for the timebeing at least, we need to get on with making things work. I am working out how everything works practically - I now have a system for food shopping which seems to work, school is going well and I am just about managing to keep all 4 loos clean. I may be the only at-home mum without a cleaner, nanny or both in the vicinity, but so far I'm still surviving. My next biggie to tackle is healthcare, but from what I've said above I'm not allowed to miss the NHS, so let's see what happens... So far I have managed to wean the children off ribena (the secret bottle in the cupboard priced at a hefty $7 is for someone else in the family). The only real sticking point to my resolution is Marmite but some things are just untouchable, n'est pas?