There's value in a third.

By the end of 2018, Daniel and I will have lived in four different cities, separated across three different countries, within our first two years of marriage…. Whoa.

For those of you unfamiliar with why we’ve been moving all over the place, I hope to answer some of your questions and even share a little window into our adventure over the past year.

A couple of weeks ago an old friend asked me if Daniel and I are just on an extended vacation until we decide where to live. Let me just clarify that little thought…That is definitely not what we’re doing.

Shortly after we got married I officially moved to the U.K. where Daniel got a job working for Aberdeen Standard Investments. To save word length and everyone’s level of interest in this blog post, he now works for a financial asset management company that has many offices around the world. His job is within a graduate program, which means that his role within the company changes every four months, and more often than not so does the location of where he’s working.

We started our married life in Aberdeen, Scotland, this was where Daniel and I met and where I studied abroad for a year. We were there for two consecutive ‘rotations,' meaning we were there for eight months. After which, we moved to Edinburgh, Scotland for four months and now, drumroll please… We’re moving to London, England for four months.

Because of how the rotations are spaced out, Daniel and I quickly realized that each four-month rotation is a third of our year. As we look forward to each new location or each new rotation, we often ask each other, “What do you want to do with your third?”

Now that I’ve hopefully summed up why we’ve been jumping around locations, I wanted to share a little bit of the crazy, wild, new and sometimes difficult journey we’ve been on.

My first lesson in moving every four months is that there is no handbook or template for the wife who is moving alongside her husband. When Daniel first got his position we quickly learned that he was the FIRST ever ‘grad’ to be married. Therefore, what I decided to do during these four-month spans of time was entirely what I wanted to make of it.

After a little bit (okay a lot a bit) of anxiousness over where I would work in our first rotation within Aberdeen, I was given the opportunity to work for a local cancer charity, Friends of ANCHOR. During that time I learned so much about the power of giving. I saw firsthand how one person’s donation could change the life of someone battling a cancer diagnosis daily.  

I’ll never forget some of the endless cultural differences or nuances I’ve encountered along our journey. My second lesson is to not fear differences, but to encourage and welcome them. Growing up in a city that offers very little by way of public transportation, I was very intrigued to see what a bus ride into town on a ‘double decker’ would be like. I sat down next to an elderly gentleman and kindly smiled and offered up some small talk. “How are you? I’ve just moved here from the states to do a study abroad at Robert Gordon University. What’s your name?” This was met with an aggravated expression and a low-pitched dismissive grumble. You see, I didn’t understand U.K. Bus culture. I laugh thinking back to this moment as I now know, (with hundreds of bus journeys under my belt) that minimal eye contact is key and small talk is NEVER encouraged on the bus. Part of the fun in exploring a new place or a new culture is experiencing all the differences and yet choosing to engage with someone in the midst of them. I could share hundreds of other frankly embarrassing stories of things I said during my first few weeks in Scotland, but people are kind and more often than not they love explaining why they love their city and their culture. Conversations are more interesting when you bring something different to them.

My third lesson is that no matter how much time you have in a certain place or with a certain group of people, maximize every moment, every conversation and every opportunity because they matter.

Our next big move was to Edinburgh for four months, which seemed like such a short amount of time in retrospect to our time in Aberdeen. We packed up our car, a very small Nissan Micra which for those of you who haven’t seen us driving around or pulled over by the police, is multi colored due to a previous ‘incident’ involving the front bumper…Even with the lack of space, we somehow managed to pack up our ‘mini cooper’ so full of clothes only the tops of our heads could be seen by passersby.

The first week was very exciting and full of lots of tourist site-seeing while Daniel was at work. Each day I would try out a new coffee shop until I found the one with the “perfect” caramel latte. Eventually though, the extrovert that I am got a little bored of seeing the sites…Alone. Because of this I am fairly certain that I over shared with the landlord in our building, gabbing for thirty minutes at a time as she kindly nodded and eventually reminded me that she needed to get back to work.

There is a scripture that says “taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him” – Psalm 34:8 –

How many of us know that following the Lord is full of unpredictable twists and unexpected turns? After a couple of initial lonely weeks I began seeking the Lord for his outlook on my time. I’m beginning to learn that it’s not so much our titles or what we do that concerns the Lord, it’s the heart we do them with, and whom we do them for. It’s looking at all of our thirds and realizing that they matter to God. That he can do infinitely more in and through you if you allow him to use them.

Using the excuse of “oh what can I really do in four short months” really didn’t seem to work on God. If a moment in God’s presence can change the trajectory of someone’s life forever, why couldn’t I use four-whole-months to dig in to people’s lives in Edinburgh…To care for the who instead of the what.

So that’s what I did.

Two weeks later, I was volunteering for a local charity called ‘Edinburgh City Mission’ that champions local churches in Edinburgh to run food banks out of their building each week standing alongside the homeless, at risk, vulnerable and in need.

During this time Daniel and I got plugged into Hillsong Edinburgh Connect. A church plant from Hillsong London with a heart for Scotland. Many of us imagine Hillsong to be a mega church with thousands attending each week with a rockin’ band and perfectly dressed attendees. While that’s true in many cases, all of the churches that are called ‘Hillsong’ started with a handful of people with a heart after God and a passion to see many lives changed and transformed. For us, it was amazing to see the church from the ground up, with no fancy lights or equipment, but with people, who love God and are called according to his purposes.

I don’t write all of this to glamorize moving every couple of months, or to say that we’ve gone about it in the best of ways. But I write to say that God is faithful. That if you posture yourself with open hands, and don’t let ANY timeframe stop you from loving his people, he will provide every opportunity you didn’t know you needed.

So what’s next? Well, your guess is as good as mine. I know that I don’t want to waste any time. I want to spend every minute loving God’s FAVORITE creation – his people.

Down the line there is potential for a rotation within the states, which would provide a whole new adventure for us both, and particularly for Daniel who has never lived long-term in the states before.

If I could ask something of you, the reader, I would ask for your prayers. That God would use each of our ‘thirds’ for his purposes. That we wouldn’t get caught up in the “this location is colder than our last one, or people aren’t as easy to get to know here…. Or where’s that perfect caramel latte?” ;)

Ultimately, if you’ve made it this far into reading, I would like to thank each and every one of you who have made our time in each location a blessing. Truly for making what could have been a tiny blip on the calendar year one that we will forever remember and reference.

If there’s any bit of take away from our journey, it’s that your story is precious to God no matter the location, and that there’s value in a third.