First Year in Asia

Why Transition is Terrible, But Having a Sending Agency is Not (Looking Back on a Year in Asia Part 2)

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In light of my first post, in which I explain how much I love life in Cambodia, I felt it necessary (in the interest of honesty, which is, after all, one of my highest values), to talk a little about our first month here.

IT WAS TERRIBLE.

And we even had help. Lots of help:

Help #1: My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came to Cambodia one week ahead of us and bought the essentials like beds, washing machine, kitchen appliances. Apparently it was not the purchasing of the beds and refrigerator, but the transporting of them up to the right floors, that was quite the feat. (They may even have this on video.) Bonus: They stocked that fridge and made those beds, and when they were all done with that, they picked us up from the airport.

Help #2:  A different sister-in-law made the 24-hour long international flights with us, our 4 (sometimes motion sick) children, and 16 pieces of checked luggage. Bonus: She stayed for an entire two weeks to do whatever we crazed parents needed her to do, like, say, wash the dishes, or watch the children. This was not overkill, as I initially expected it to be. When Mommy got holed-up-in-the-bathroom-sick, she was there. When Mommy was camped-out-on-the-couch-wanting-to-die (that’s not a joke), she was there. Her and her Angry Birds game.

Help #3: When I was brand new to the country and didn’t know how to cook or grocery shop, three different families brought us meals.

That first month was the worst month of my life by far – and that is no exaggeration. Our luggage got stuck in Seoul, South Korea, and didn’t land in Cambodia with us. It didn’t arrive until midnight the next day, leaving us without such luxuries as diapers, shampoo, clean clothes, and tooth brushes for yet another 24 hour-period. (If any of you know my obsession with careful attention to clean teeth, you understand what a hardship that was.) I think I had brought some deodorant in my carryon. Oh yeah. I was real prepared for missionary life.

familyonporch

Fresh off the plane and smack dab in the middle of Transition.

Note the missing shirts, proof of our lost luggage.

Mosquitos ate us alive. Hannah and Faith were jet-lagged. We were jet-lagged. Jonathan had to drive that very first day in country (remember the lost luggage??). As a newbie driver, he got pulled over by police four times that first month — twice on the first day. Such a wonderful welcome to the country, don’t ya think??

One meal was just . . . rice. Another was eaten in the haze of burnt French toast. The plastic-y cheese on those first grilled cheese sandwiches never did melt. Even our kids have bad memories of those days.

I didn’t have any privacy — we didn’t have curtains in the bedroom yet. We didn’t have padding or carpeting for stair safety, and the gates hadn’t been installed yet. (Everything is concrete here, and the stairs are majorly steep. My Harm Avoidance had kicked into Overdrive.) And I couldn’t for the life of me convince the hot water heater to produce hot water, no matter how many exasperated sighs I let out. (My husband, on the other hand, had no such issues with the water. He did, however, find the nightly sighing sessions quite humorous.)

We didn’t know where to buy anything, and we didn’t know the language to negotiate a reasonable price if we had.

And everywhere we went, Cambodians touched my kids. They hated that.

My feet ached from walking barefoot on the concrete floors.

I was so hot. And we came in cool season.

Everything was so dirty.

And I was so miserable.

While Help #2 watched the children, I lay on the couch and wanted to die. Jonathan cried. That’s very characteristic behavior for us, by the way. Under the influence of stress, I shut down; he cries. (He tells me this is the Trotter Way, and he is ok with it now.)

We sent out a desperate “please pray for us” email. (Thank you for praying! We felt all your prayers from the beginning and continuing throughout this past year.)

Then one day, three weeks in, I got curtains in my windows. Privacy! Yay! My stress levels went down by 50%. That was the day I decided I could live in this place. (“They” say transition ends when you make the internal decision to settle in the new place.)

Then a week later, gates were installed on the stairs. Now I didn’t have to follow my toddler around every.waking.minute. My stress levels went down by another 50%. If you’re calculating correctly, I was now functioning at 25% of the first week’s stress — although it’s debatable whether lying on the couch wanting to die counts as “functioning.” That 25% slowly but steadily dropped to pre-flight levels over the next couple months. (Sporadically, levels do pop back up, but only temporarily.)

That first month is what we call Transition — the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad period of physical, emotional, and spiritual Chaos. (To read actual journal entries from that time, click here.)

I’d like to take a moment here, to say, that without the training and support we received from Team Expansion, we’d probably still be drowning. We use the material from Team Expansion’s required training multiple times a week. Our sending church’s elders also requested that we attend a week of intensive marriage counseling before leaving the States, and we use that material nearly every day as well.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Transition is Terrible. Sending Agencies are Amazing.

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Post Script:

While my first month overseas was by far the hardest month of my life, it does not follow that my first year overseas was the hardest year of my life. That distinction belongs to 2008. I do not merely speak for myself in this; Jonathan agrees. That was the year he began work as a first-year nurse in Truman Medical Center’s Emergency Department, while continuing to work part time at Red Bridge Church of Christ. He had to work nights and attend extra trainings and was extra tired. I was pregnant with Hannah, endured intense morning sickness, and fought overwhelming fears about health throughout my pregnancy. 2008 definitely beats out 2012 for the Hardest Year Award 🙂

Yays and Yucks (Looking Back on a Year in Asia Part 1)

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— by Elizabeth

NOTE ABOUT THIS SERIES:  I spent a lot of time in December and January reflecting on my first year overseas. Then I wrote it all down. In a 6-part series. Yes, I know that a 6-part series is waaaaay too long, but what am I if not long-winded?? (It could have been worse, you know. I scrapped a few ideas along the way.) My fiancé used to suffer through my jabbering till 2 am nearly every night, despite being in his first year of law school and working 3 jobs on the side. Boy, do I have a lot to say. (Oh yeah, and my fiancé still married me. More evidence of the existence of True Love.)

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I love my life. It’s true. I loved it in Kansas City, and I love it in Phnom Penh.

We learned in missions training about the paradox of yays and yucks — the good things and bad things that happen in life – often at the same time. A friend recently described it as roses and thorns. People make decisions in life after listing out the pros and cons of a particular situation. And then “normal” people take the road that has fewer yucks, right?

Well, if I were to list out all the yays and yucks of living here, my yuck list would be longer. Muuuuch longer. You might question my normalcy. You might question my sanity. And you might question my claim.

So here’s my answer to those questions:

It’s because the weight I assign the yays is much heavier than the weight I assign the yucks. It’s like those weighted percentages in school. How we wish that our grade would depend more on the homework, which usually garners about 10% (sometimes none!). Quizzes are in there somewhere. Maybe a term paper. But the bulk of your grade is based on test scores.

God has granted me some heavy-duty yays this year. He has given us health (by missionary standards anyway). He has given us a sense of home and belonging. He has given me close friends in this country. My marriage is better than ever. (Research has found this is not the norm.) And I have peace in my relationship with God. (To any men who read this, I do apologize that my blessings are heavy on the relationships. But I am, after all, a woman, so what else would you expect??) These blessings are worth more to me than all the language mishaps, cultural isolation, sweat, dirt, bugs, and stinky smells combined. And believe me — there are more bugs and stinky smells than you can possibly imagine.

So in the weighted grade of my life, the yays count like tests, and the yucks count like homework. Go figure.

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 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ. Philippians 3:8

In Search of Christmas Spirit (or, an ode to Christmases past and present)

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— by Elizabeth

I remember seemingly endless 8 hour drives in the snow from my home in South Dakota to Grandpa and Grandma’s home in Iowa. I remember being stuffed into a house with 30 other cousins and aunts and uncles and stuffing myself with hoska and rolickies and kolaches (Czech pastries my grandma would make).

I remember my mom’s sugar cookies and butter cookies and thumbprint cookies.  I remember staying up late and eating popcorn and watching It’s a Wonderful Life with my parents and my sisters. I remember being fascinated by our German candle pyramid.

candle

And I remember “that one Christmas,” when money was so tight that we weren’t going to get any presents, and how it didn’t matter to us anyway, but someone gave us money on Christmas Eve, and how totally surprised we were the next day.

Jonathan and I developed our own family Christmas traditions since we married 12 years ago. We would go to a Christmas tree farm, find a tree that was invariably too large for our miniature apartment, cut it down, and crunch it into our microscopic Geo Prism. String it with lights and childhood ornaments while Amy Grant’s Home for Christmas album played in the background. Watch the Muppet’s Christmas Carol with friends and White Christmas with family. I would make those peanut-butter-ritz-sandwich-cookies-dipped-in-chocolate (what are those things called anyway??).

We continued our traditions (and adopted new ones) when we moved back to Kansas City. More kids were being born all the time, and we would include them in the cookie-baking, fire-making, tree-picking processes.  Every December Jonathan and I would go to Skies restaurant at the top of the Hyatt and eat Sky High Pie – their famous three layer ice cream pie. We would remember our year and dream about the next one. We would drive our family around the city and admire the Christmas lights on Ward Parkway. We would go to Crown Center and absolutely freeze while our children played underneath that enormous Christmas tree outside.

crowncentertree

Cambodia has no cultural cues that it’s time to celebrate Christmas. Life goes on much the same as it has all year. No cold weather. No Christmas lights, no music, just more of the same wedding and funeral tents blocking traffic. No crazy shoppers. (Or perhaps the shoppers are as crazy as they have been all year??)

We had planned to spend Thanksgiving with some other Team Expansion missionaries, but the week before Thanksgiving, our kids got sick with Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease. It’s highly contagious, and we needed to stay at home until all our children had caught it and recovered from it. (This means we were quarantined at home for a full 2 weeks, by the way.) So instead of spending Thanksgiving with our friends, we were alone — and lonely. Our friends delivered some Thanksgiving food. I didn’t feel very festive. I didn’t even want to celebrate Christmas if it were going to be different from Christmas in America.

We hadn’t brought our ornaments from the States because of lack of space in suitcases in January. I didn’t want a tree if I couldn’t have my own precious ornaments (reminiscent of a toddler temper tantrum). Then I watched a Christmas movie and read a Christmas book (both modeled after the classic A Christmas Carol story). And then some family visited us at the last minute, bringing some of our ornaments with them, and giving us the motivation to buy an artificial tree.

Later that week I watched Isaac’s Christmas play at church. I listened to these songs being performed by children from all over the world. In the middle of one of the songs it hit me: I can celebrate Christmas in Cambodia — because I’m with others who celebrate the Christ Child.

And I cried.

(Of course.)

We sang all my favorite carols at church that day, from Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel, and Joy to the World, to Oh Holy Night and What Child is This? I felt like I had come home.

We’re going to keep old traditions in Cambodia. We’ll still watch Christmas movies (most likely with the  air conditioning cranked up). We’ll still decorate a tree and listen to Christmas music. We’ll still read the Gospel according to Luke.  But we’re going to make new traditions in Cambodia too. We’ll probably always sing, along with the Bronx-accented camels in Isaac’s play, “I walked so far now my hooves.have.corns” and remember that time when Isaac was singing it in the shower and we were listening and Jonathan wanted to surprise him at the “corns” part but when he opened the door, Isaac was so scared he fell on his backside onto the bathroom tile. (Ouch!) We’ll dance to Straight No Chaser’s 12 Days of Christmas on our tiled living room floor. We’ll joke about how “we spent Christmas down in Asia” instead of the song’s “I spent Christmas down in Africa.”

tree

And we’ll celebrate this Christmas with dear friends.  As long as we don’t get sick again (and feel free to pray for that), we’re looking forward to eating a Christmas meal with two other families here in Phnom Penh — friends who have become dearer to me in my first year in Asia than I could ever have imagined.

Culture Days

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— by Elizabeth

A week ago a high school student came to my house for math tutoring. I noticed the neighbor children pestering her as she waited for me to unlock the gate. When I let her in, one of the girls grabbed a handful of my stomach and yanked. As my student pushed her moto into my house, a boy followed her inside and began examining some of our stuff. I told him, “ot tay, ot tay,” which means “no, no.” Then I tried to lead him out of the house – I had not, after all, invited him in. He just laughed, repeated my request in falsetto, and shuffled out slowly.

A day like that makes me want to lock my doors, hide myself in my bedroom, crank up the air conditioning, and watch a movie.

It’s what I call a “bad culture day.”

The next few days I didn’t want to go outside, or even unlock the gate for our house helper in the morning. In fact, I asked Jonathan to unlock it. I just couldn’t handle another neighbor kid violating my house or my body. (These neighbor kids live in the boarding school next door – and I had never seen those two before. They don’t have normal social boundaries, even for Cambodians.)

But today I had errands to do, so I called my tuk tuk driver and walked out my front door. I paid the bill that was due and bought the items on my list. I even talked to my driver. (He wanted to know my opinions about the U.S. election. Opinions I will not be sharing in this blog. : )

Fast forward to this evening. This evening our children begged us to let them play outside on the street. We initially created a play space for them on our roof in order to avoid playing on the street, where children and adults alike touched them too much. We’ve spent a lot of time on the roof in the last several months. Lately, though, they don’t want the roof. They want the street. (That desire in itself is a huge step forward into the culture for them.) So out we went, culture-avoiding-me included.

First Jonathan stopped by a local Khmer restaurant to pick up some supper. We love their fried rice (and its price!). We started eating it in front of the house while the kids played. That’s a very Khmer thing to do. They cook in front of their houses over an open fire, just like they’ve done for thousands of years, and then eat outside as well. Nobody touched me or my children rudely. We talked with the older ladies. One of them particularly likes our children, and told us tonight that it makes her happy to watch them play. Later, when Nathaniel slipped on the wet pavement, they were very concerned for him to clean his scrapes well.

Even Faith, my shy little one, played and laughed with the girl next door. (That was a first, by the way.) We felt a sense of belonging in what we did tonight — eating Khmer food, speaking the Khmer language, and playing with our Khmer neighbors.

It was what I call a “good culture day.”

A day like today gives me the courage to go back out and try again. It gives me the courage to interact with the people – unwanted touches included.

God, give us more good culture days.

Waiting for our fried rice carry-out at the local Khmer place.

On the Road Again (Trotter Traveling Troubles)

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Two Christmases ago Kansas City was blanketed with snow. We set out cautiously from our home at the Red Bridge Church of Christ Parsonage for a Christmas morning with the Raymore Trotters. Less than a mile into our journey we watched a car spinning in the snow, unable to drive onto Wornall from the side road. A man was pushing the car, to no avail, so Jonathan stopped and pushed with him and helped them onto the main road.

Just this week Nathaniel remembered that experience. Jonathan confidently replied that a car would never get stuck in snow here in Cambodia.

It is precisely because we never get snow in Cambodia that we can go swimming any time we want.  Our favorite pool is at the Kingdom Resort 20 minutes out of Phnom Penh – where the street signs aren’t in English anymore. We’ve been planning to take the kids swimming for a couple weeks now, and they were excited to wake up this morning and get on the road. After applying copious amounts of sunscreen (Moms and Grandmas, I know you care about this detail!) we buckle up and start out, keeping a close eye on the temperature gauge. On our last Resort excursion, the radiator overheated, and Jonathan was forced to wait by the side of the road for 2 hours while a providentially placed mechanic “fixed” it. I took the kids ahead of him to the pool via tuk-tuk, but Jonathan missed out on the water fun.

So naturally, we watch the temperature gauge with appropriate levels of fear.

After an uneventful drive TO the pool, we enjoy ourselves for a few hours. When we are homeward bound again, I think to myself, in 20 short minutes we will be home for lunch and nap time. What a wonderful world!

My hopes are shattered 5 minutes down the road when we find ourselves trapped in Cambodian Gridlock.  Cambodian Gridlock is not the same as American Gridlock. Cambodian Rules of the Road do not require distinct lanes (although lines are painted on the roads). Whoever is bigger, more expensive, honks his horn first, or flashes his lights first, has the right of way, even if it means he is driving into oncoming traffic. Whoever is smaller, less expensive, or slower to honk horn or flash lights, MUST yield, even if he is in his own lane of traffic. Motos seem to be able to fit anywhere.  They fill in the cracks of traffic and keep moving even when all other vehicles are stopped. Like water molecules in a jar of rocks.

Here is a picture of traffic, the “normal, natural, right, and good” way – the American Way. See how the 2 lanes go in opposite directions but don’t interfere with each other? It’s so pretty.

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Here is a picture of traffic the Cambodian Way. It is Cambodian Free-For-All, Every-Driver-For-Himself, as each lane expands to cover all lanes, in all directions. See how it would be nearly impossible to break up? Of course you do.

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We saw construction on our way to the pool, and by now it has totally blocked the flow of traffic as cars on both sides try to barge past the block. We’re on a national highway, which means we are often driving through or avoiding pot holes that have the dimensions of car tires.  The road isn’t very wide, and the “shoulders” are mud.  But these muddy shoulders are exactly where the cars are heading in an attempt to push through Cambodian Gridlock. You know it’s bad when even the motos can’t move or when the Cambodian drivers turn off their engines, get out of their cars, and look around as if to say someone should fix this mess.

Indeed.

Our kids are tired, hot, and thirsty. I’m tired, hot, and hungry. Fellow drivers and passengers like to stare at my 4 white kids — we’re always a comical sight here.  For a while we turn off our engine to avoid overheating (we’re still scared of that radiator, because it still leaks every single night), but the heat and engine exhaust suffocate us. We turn the engine back on. We’re all a bit bored. We start to sing.  Old favorites like “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord,” “There is, Beyond the Azure Blue,” and “Jesus, You’re My Firm Foundation.”

A big truck is pushing us out of his way, so we scoot over. Remember, he’s bigger, so he has the right of way. A Lexus or two (emblazoned with the letters LEXUS) passes by us. Remember, they’re expensive so they can do whatever they want. I get this funny churning feeling in my stomach that says I’m surrounded by too many cars.  Claustrophobia is closing in. Then we hear some whistles. We see several uniformed men directing traffic.  Slowly, the car in front of us moves. We follow it. Thank you Mr. Police Men!  I realize it’s the first time I’ve had a positive thought about police officers in 4 solid months.

After a bit of zippering from 3 city-ward lanes to 2, we find ourselves behind Gourd Man. He drives a moto and pulls a wagon brimming with gourds. Enough to overflow the bed of a pickup truck.

It’s a lot of gourds. A lot of big, green gourds. Gourd Man gets stuck in the mud. Directly in front of us. He eyes Jonathan. Jonathan puts the car in park and gets out. Straight from the pool, he is wearing Old Navy floral swim trunks and University of Missouri Tiger flip flops. (Hey! No judging please. They were the only flip flops on sale in the middle of December when we were packing to move to Asia.) He wades into the mud and pushes the gourd-wagon while Gourd Man pulls with his moto. Triumph! He is unstuck. But wait, that’s a lot of mud up ahead of us. He will get stuck in the mud again, we just know it. We follow Gourd Man until he does get stuck again, but this time there’s enough “shoulder” to drive around him.  Bumpy, muddy shoulder. At this point we’re desperate to get home. Every-Driver-for-Himself, right??  We leave Gourd Man in the dust, er, mud, as it were.

Thank you, Cambodian Gridlock, for eating an hour and a half out of my precious Saturday afternoon. You will not be easily forgiven.

As it turns out, that Christmas morning with the car stuck in the snow is not unrelated to this story. It was not the last time Jonathan had to push a stuck vehicle. The only thing that has changed is the material in which the vehicle gets stuck.