*Day 1 of 31 days of Traveling & Living Overseas with Kids
**All stories are true.
This past January our family of 6 handed over 30 pieces of luggage to an airline representative
and left the States for a temporary 1 year assignment in the Middle East.
My husband’s job requires him to travel the region
and while we have to pay our own way,
the kids and I join in whenever possible.
It’s apt to come up and so I’ll explain now.
We have many reasons why we pursue traveling internationally with kids.
We desire to instill in our children how vast & small the world is……
There are so many languages, so many ways to live, but all of us need
Jesus, food & water.
To educate us on other cultures, foods, daily practices, landscapes & opinions…
…floating in the Dead Sea in Jordan,
enjoying stretching Turkish ice cream,
watching women carry luggage on their heads in Egypt.
We want to increase our children’s self-esteem and confidence in
who God made them to be….
This comes from daily interactions in a foreign language,
going to a school where the primary language is Arabic,
and of course bartering in different languages.
We want our kids to develop a love for others different from us…
We have done this through giving a beggar our to-go food,
laughing over mistranslations,
recognizing beauty in all humans as they are His image-bearers.
We want to grow our patience…
-standing for hours in airport lines (or waiting for an airport to open!)
-walking all day searching for a single shop within a medina
-finding King David’s cave in Israel after climbing beyond our comfort range
-smelling the tanneries in Morocco
We want to remember that the Holy Spirit lives within us always
and our eternal home is in heaven…
So when we don’t know the language or our riyad has bugs in the curtains
we can remember whose we are and where our true home is.
Some of the countries we’ve visited are:
Egypt, Turkey, Israel, Morocco, Spain & Jordan.
And there is more on the calendar in the coming month or two.
These next 30 days I’ll draw from my experiences (good & bad),
to hopefully give you a realistic account of traveling internationally with kids.
And on an ending note, my friend gave me permission to stop if this type of writing schedule is too much for me.
Hopefully I’ll stick with it and meet some new friends! 🙂
A Small Thing In Your Eyes 
This looks wonderful! Looking forward to reading about your family and this adventure! We plan to move overseas in a year or two, so I am excited to read some of your tips and experiences.
Kelly, I hope you can glean some wisdom. At the very least, learn from our mistakes ;D
This is so cool! My family moved overseas with me and my 5 little siblings in 2004 (and at this point, all but the three college students siblings are still overseas). My 31 Days series is actually stories from the kid’s perspective of how I experienced my parents’ decision to move. You might be able to guess that I have a pretty positive view of this adventurous lifestyle! Your kids are making precious memories!
Hi Rachel! Thanks for stopping by. I’ll have to look it up! I grew up in Japan and so I too have found cross cultural experiences to be beneficial and wonderful for the kids!
I’m so looking forward to following along as well. I’m Devi and am writing about transitions and moving for 31 days. We lived in Switzerland and Sweden as a family of four and are now on our way to Australia. I’m a former TCK/MK as well, by the way. Always great to “meet” others who blog.
Devi, nice to meet you! I’ll check out your blog! It’s always fun to meet like-minded friends 🙂
This is beautiful, how exciting to share the world with your kids on this way x
I would love to do this! What wonderful memories your kids will have. I have a friend who spent a chunk of her childhood in Egypt. It really impacted her life, in a positive way. I’m looking forward to your posts.