The Top 12 Not-So-Charming Realities of Our Intercontinental Journey
Revealing the Unseen Challenges of Life Between Two Continents
Recently, while out running errands, I ran into an old friend from high school. As we stood in the produce aisle at the grocery store catching up and inquiring about one another’s families, we shared about the different paths that life had taken each of us on since graduating from high school.
When she made a comment about how exciting my life must be, what with traveling overseas for missions, journeying back and forth to my husband’s home country in Mozambique, and now planning to establish a life there, I must admit that I was a little taken aback.
She made it sound so romantic and adventurous, and I suppose on one level it is. (After all, my husband and I did confess our feelings for one another for the first time under a starry sky on a safari in South Africa.) But the day to day reality is anything but.
Based on what my friend described, I think she envisions our life to look something akin to this:
When in reality, our life abroad actually looks like this most days:
My friend’s comment made me wonder if others might think the same. Therefore, I felt like an honest and transparent post was in order for our readers to better explain what living between two worlds is truly like (at least for us).
So without further ado, here are some of the less exciting and romantic realities of our day to day.
1. Longing - I feel that the word “saudade,” a Portuguese word that has no English equivalent, best describes this challenging aspect of our lifestyle. (The phonetic spelling - well, for us southerners anyway - would be pronounced something like “sow-daw-day” for those who are interested.)
According to dictionary.com, saudade means “a deep emotional state of melancholic longing for a person or thing that is absent.”
You see, no matter where we are in the world, one of us will always be homesick. When we are in Mozambique, I miss my family. When we are here in the U.S., my husband misses his family.
2. Finances - In our current economy, jobs in public education and a distribution warehouse would already make finances tight for a family, even in the best of situations.
Add to that the fact that we are trying to simultaneously support and build a life for our family on two different continents, and you will find that the financial burden can feel nearly crushing at times.
And trust me, we are not aspiring to live some extravagant lifestyle. I am talking basic necessities here. The Lord has currently provided for us here in the U.S., but we are currently praying for the following for Mozambique before we go back next summer:
at least one reliable vehicle in Mozambique
a small cinder-block home in our village that simply keeps out the insects and animals
running water (or at least a well on our property)
solar power so we can have some lights inside and maybe a refrigerator to store our food
funds to purchase our tickets (it’s typically $7,000 round trip for the three of us, and that was before our economy lost its mind)
funds to purchase the travel visas for my son and myself (last year it was around $500 for both of us)
I also want to be sure and add that my husband and I look to Paul as our model for missions. He was a tentmaker by trade and did not want to be a burden to people.
“Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you” (1 Thessalonians 2:9, NLT).
We are praying specifically that the Lord would provide online careers for us that would allow us to live and travel between the U.S. and Mozambique (and anywhere else the Lord wants to send us) throughout the year so that we could do full time ministry no matter where we are located. Please agree with us in prayer for these needs.
It is very easy to get extremely discouraged when thinking of all of the needs in front of us. However, we try to always remember that when God calls you to something, He makes a way.
I love how my pastor’s wife recently said it: “If it is God’s vision, then He will supply the provision.” Amen and amen!
3. Management and Efficiency - Making decisions and ensuring that things are accomplished from the other side of the world presents a challenge on a whole other level.
Imagine trying to orchestrate the construction of a home through WhatsApp. Yea.
4. Communication - Sometimes things don’t translate well, both literally and figuratively. I grew up in Kentucky and speak only one language: English. (Well, two languages if you consider “Kentuckian” to be its own language.)
On the other hand, my husband is a brilliant linguist. Seriously, he has a gift from God when it comes to language. His first language is a tie between Portuguese and Shangaan (the local dialect in our village), and he is also fluent in English.
He is also conversational in Swazi (language spoken in neighboring country Eswatini), Zulu (language spoken in South Africa, another neighboring country), French, and Spanish.
While my skill at charades has grown exponentially, not being able to fluently speak the language of my family and friends in Mozambique has been a major struggle for me and led to some pretty awkward situations and misunderstandings.
So I am being serious when I ask you to please genuinely pray that the Lord would give me a supernatural download of both Portuguese and Shangaan so that I might be able to more effectively minister to those that the Lord has called us to.
5. Cultural - As I’ve shared before, my husband and I were keenly aware that cultural differences would be something that we would have to navigate in our marriage and family. All of our day to day decisions involve constantly trying to balance two cultures at once.
Meals are a simple, but obvious area where mixing of cultures takes place every day in our household. You never know when you come over if you will be offered a southern meal consisting of some version of (most likely burnt, if I am the one cooking) meat and potatoes or a hearty serving of rice and delicious Mozambican chicken stew.
When choosing a name for our son, we had to weigh out the meaning and pronunciation in multiple languages.
There is a constant battle concerning the settings on vehicles and electronics between the metric system and the U.S. customary units of measurement.
Currency always has to be converted in our conversations, too.
We celebrate two Independence Days in the summer - Mozambique’s Independence Day on June 25th and America’s Independence Day on July 4th, and we have not yet decided if Santa will be part of our Christmas or not.
These are just a few of the more light-hearted examples of cultural balance.
6. Isolation - One not so light-hearted reality is that as a multicultural couple and family we often feel alone in our struggles. Don’t get me wrong - we have a fantastic support system both here and in Mozambique. However, they cannot fully relate to our unique situation and the challenges we face.
We do have friends here in the U.S. who are also doing life as a multicultural family, and many are also from Africa. But even then, every marriage and family is unique in what they face, so our empathy and understanding for one another’s situations are still limited to a degree.
Plus, even within that group of friends, nobody is desiring or attempting to live in both of the spouse’s respective countries. Most of them are firmly planted here in America.
7. Distance - The sheer distance alone can be tough.
When traveling one way, it typically takes a solid 48 hours between the long flights (the longest single flight I’ve had there was 17 hours, plus the additional connecting flights), layovers, and drive time to the village from the city.
There is no way to quickly reach loved ones, and that thought is always in the back of my mind no matter which continent we are on.
In my mid to late twenties, I used to travel solo internationally quite a bit. I remember one time when I was packing for yet another overseas trip, my dad asked me if I was sure that this was a good idea. By that point, I had already made many treks alone around the globe, so I was confused by his worried tone.
I laughed and said, “Yes, Dad, I’ll be fine. I’ve traveled lots of times. Why are you so worried?”
I’ll never forget the way he looked at me and said, “Because if something happened to you, I couldn’t get to you to help.”
Ten plus years later, and now with a child of my own, I can better understand the anxiousness that was in his eyes. The truth is that we can’t get to our loved ones from Mozambique to the U.S. and vice-versa in any kind of timely manner.
Even if we miraculously could find (and afford) a flight that was leaving the same day we needed to leave and were then able to actually make it to the airport, it would be at least two days before we could get back home. That is a sobering thought for both me and my husband, especially since we are both extremely close to our families.
8. Stress and Worry - I am well aware that everyone, regardless of what their life may look like, has their own personal battles and stressors. So the simple fact that we experience stress and worry makes us no different from anyone else in that capacity.
However, there are just some days where it all seems heavier than others. Or maybe the heaviness comes from the way our worries can vary so much from one second to the next. We never know what to expect.
For instance, at the end of last May, while our friends and family here in America were gearing up for summer break and family vacations, we received a message from back home that elephants had come through our village and destroyed many of the crops that our family and other residents relied on for food.
Before I met my husband, there was an incident where he had to chase out a black mamba that had crawled under his infant niece’s bed.
Another time, we received a phone call that a viper had spit in my mother in law’s eye while she was outside with our young niece, and they were needing to get her to a doctor for some medicine.
I cannot make these things up.
And then there is the major (and terrifying) situation that has been going on in northern Mozambique for a few years now between the government and an ISIS-linked group that locally goes by the name Al-Shabab or “Mashababos.” (You can read more about events from last year in Mozambique here on the Human Right Watch site.)
9. Physical Toll - This lifestyle takes a toll on us physically at times. When traveling, our bodies are constantly encountering new foods, bacteria, time zones, etc.
When my husband first arrived in the U.S. four and a half years ago, he dealt with a plethora of stomach issues due to the change in his diet. Also, within a month of being here, he was admitted to the E.R. with extreme flu-like symptoms.
The extreme changes in environments has resulted in skin issues at various times for all three of us.
We have to make sure we are always up to date on vaccines, have our malaria medication, bring antibiotics, and stock up on over-the-counter meds just to be cautious any time we are traveling because we do not have access to a doctor in our village.
Oh, and I can never forget the time just this past summer when my son and I contracted cholera while visiting our family back home. Seriously.
10. International Politics - We are constantly navigating the political landscape in the U.S., Mozambique, and everywhere in between (literally). Global issues that once seemed so distant and, ashamedly, irrelevant to me, now are always on my mind.
Presidential elections carry much more significance for me now.
The BBC news app is checked as frequently in our home as the local news.
Any changes to immigration laws or policy in either of our countries can potentially separate our family.
Tensions between the U.S. and the rest of the world suddenly seem to impact me and my family on a much more personal level.
Thankfully, my heart knows that we serve a God who has turned the hearts and minds of many a ruler, so we do not have to fear. It’s just that I have to remind my brain of that truth from time to time.
11. Guilt - Goodness, so much guilt. Over everything. I feel guilt over not being able to help everyone who needs it. Guilt because we hurt our family every time we leave. I feel guilt over how this lifestyle might impact our children. Guilt because both of our families worry about us constantly. Guilt because we may need help from others from time to time in order to achieve this vision that the Lord has given us. The guilt can be staggering at times.
I am trying to learn that when I feel the twinges of guilt to stop and take it straight to the Lord. Often, after further reflection, I realize that the guilt and shame have crept into our lives because we were trying to take upon ourselves the burdens of the world instead of relying on God to meet all of our needs.
It’s a delicate balance, and I pray that we never lose our empathy or our desire to help those who need it, but I also pray that we can learn to first lay things down at the feet of Jesus.
12. Faith - This kind of lifestyle tests our faith almost daily. One day last week, my husband and I were trying to draw out some rough blueprints for the house that we are needing to build before we return to Mozambique this summer.
The builder back home needs to start gathering the supplies and wanted us to let him know the dimensions of the house.
I couldn’t help but laugh wryly and made the comment that it was a little crazy that we are drawing out blueprints for a house we need to be built by this summer, yet we still have no idea where the funding will come from.
My husband sighed and reminded me, “Yea, I guess that is true. But if we could do it on our own, then we wouldn’t need God, right?”
Ouch. Touché.
Final Thoughts
I am aware that this entire post could potentially come across as being whiny (especially since I am American) or read as being just one big complaint. That was truly not my intent. I just wanted to paint a more thorough picture of what our life looks like right now.
But do you know what is not on our list? Regret. Even though there are challenges and unique struggles that we may face due to our intercontinental circumstances, I would choose this life again and again if given the option.
In fact, just the other night while rearranging some books in our bedroom, I came across a devotional that I had bought for my husband shortly after we had met nearly four and a half years ago.
Smiling as I reminisced over the early days of our relationship, I read aloud the note I had written to my husband in the front cover of the book a few years ago. I had signed it as “your future wife.”
He playfully laughed and said, “And do you regret it?”
I grinned at the absurdity of his question. “No,” I replied. “I don’t regret becoming your wife for even a moment. I love our crazy life.”
And now that, my friends, is just one of my favorite charming realities that I do get to live out every day.
Interested in learning more about this crazy life?
If you enjoyed this post and would like for us to post a list of what we consider to be the BEST aspects of living between two continents, please be sure to like and share this post.
As always, we pray that the Lord blesses you greatly and that you forever look to Him as your personal guide and Savior as we all continue to travel between two worlds. 🤎