A Year of Packing

All of the stuff that I own is now somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. On a ship. The CMA CGM line- perhaps you've seen their containers as you sit and wait at your local railroad crossing. Or maybe that's a coastal region privilege. Anyways, my couch, my books, all of our bicycles, my precious scrapbooks, all of my children's toys, our computer, all of it- on a ship now, hopefully avoiding icebergs and such. It's a strange sensation. One that I am certainly not the first to feel. A self-imposed asceticism.

As I've mentioned before in previous posts, we have been in the process of moving for a long while. I packed up much of our home in order to stage it, when we put it up for sale in April of 2012. We had then given our "yes" to join the work of L'Abri Fellowship in Switzerland. My uber-colorful home:

had to become a blank canvas for potential buyers. And thus, part of my soul died.

OK, not exactly, but the day my fireplace turned from turquoise to off-white was a painful day indeed. My cluttered (and wonderful!) craft room became a guest bedroom. All boxed up and un-Anna-ed. Toys were minimized, personal pictures taken down and what had been our home for 5 years became much less of a home. 

During the months of a "For Sale" sign in our front yard, we applied for authorization to live and work in Switzerland. In month 6 of waiting (10 months after we listed our house), we sold it -miraculously! More on that another time. We moved our family of 5 into my parent's generous living space while we waited.

And waited. 

The number of documents we had to fill out, our confusion, as well as our patience all grew in the long months. Christmas of 2012 came and no word. Spring of 2013 came and went. Another school year ended. The conversations in which people asked "Aren't you supposed to be moving to Switzerland?" piled high. Our initial, excited momentum died away. Sometimes it felt like only my Pinterest board for "Chalet Ideas" kept the dream alive. 

But also prayer. Mostly prayer. Not "prayer" as a discipline, but prayer as a real conversation with a Person. My husband and I prayed together. We prayed with our boys, my parents prayed for us, my siblings prayed, our church prayed with and for us. Without a continued confidence that God is for us -that we believed he had called us to the work of L'Abri, we could never have waited through the nearly 400 days of waiting. That is 54 weeks, my friends. After the lady at the Swiss Consulate told us that this process usually took 8-10 weeks, we waited for 54. 

And now finally I'm looking forward to UN-packing! In approximately one month, we will get to UNPACK, nestle down and be at home in Switzerland. My Pinterest board will, Lord willing, become a living, working, healing, hospitable place. Our place.