A Gift

God gave me a birthday gift on Silvana's birthday. For the first time since we've been back, I was filled with joy and thankfulness that we were back. Thank you God!!

I took the kids to the mall (Unicenter is the largest South American mall, and is just like any mall in the US) to get some summer stuff for our beach vacation. We were leaving and in the parking lot, one of the kids mentioned how huge Jumbo (the supermarket) is, and joy just started filling me. Yes, Jumbo is huge, and yes, it's my favorite supermarket here in Argentina, and yes, we are home again.

The joy continued as we drove over to our old neighborhood to look at our old house (and the girls' school). As I stopped outside our old gate, the first thing that stuck out to me were two black cats stretched out on the front stoop. Eeny, Meeny, and Miney Moe are still there! Another love gift from God, to know that our cats are still cared for, still living there, and as content as can be. Later we passed by again, and all three cats were stretched out, taking a nap, fat as can be. I sooooo wanted to call Miney Moe and cat-nap him, but I didn't. They belong together, and if they are still there, then I assume that the new owners love them.

Thank you, God, for that gift! Only You could orchestrate those three cats to be out front when we passed by. Thank you for giving me joy about being back here in Argentina. I still miss Colorado, but I don't regret being back here. Ten months before getting to this point seems like a long time. I thought this transition would be shorter.

Last night we had a woman talk to a group of us about TCK's, what's unique about them, what makes them tick, how to help them understand who they are, help them go through times of transition, etc. It was very informational and I want to read more about the subject. Two things that were impacting to me were that sometimes children (and I'm sure this applies to parents as well!) have a difficult time adjusting to a new place because they loved the last place so much and feel either disloyal if they like the new place, or feel like they don't want to like the new place because then they'll just have to go through the same heartbreak again when they leave. The second thing is that the attitude of the parents can affect the children, and if we have a difficult time adjusting, that will affect the children's adjustment as well. Both of these apply in our case. We have struggled with this move, and the kids have as well. And we all loved Colorado so much, that it made loving Argentina again a huge struggle.