state of the union

A few nights ago, as we all gathered around the dinner table after a long day of all. the. things., I started peppering five unassuming Allisons with questions. An almost-three-months-in State of the Union, if you will. “How are you feeling? How are you doing? How are WE doing? Are we okay?”

Because, nearly three months in, I sometimes wonder, “Alright. We’re doing this thing and HOLY MOLY we’re actually okay. I mean, I think we’re okay. Oh shoot. Are we? No really, ARE WE ALRIGHT?” As if I’ve been waiting for the bottom to drop out and am shocked to see us still standing. Still liking each other. Not only surviving but thriving.

So, one by one, we went around and shared the highs and lows and good and bad.

“It’s not that different. Actually, it’s way better than I thought. It hasn’t been that hard at all.”

“I miss toy stores.”

“I love our school.”

“Sometimes church is way too long, and I think they should just speak English.”

“I’m afraid to make best friends here because I still have my best friends in America.”

“I love our yard and our dogs.”

“I miss feeling known.”

“I miss our church.”

“I miss ESPN.”

“I miss easy-to-make foods and wonder if there’s a black market here for prepackaged meals and hearty preservatives and some wholly unhealthy cheap and fast food every now and then thankyouverymuch.”

Because no really. I have flown through more tomatoes and boxes of baking powder and bags of flour (oh my gosh the flour) in the past three months of my life than probably ever. Combined. Times five. Help me Lord Jesus and please rain manna in the form of baking mixes and processed junk food down from the Heavens above AMEN.

Hands down, that’s precisely what I miss the most in living here. Ease. Everything just seems to be more difficult, less intuitive, more time consuming. It’s no one thing that floods us with daily stress but a constant drip coming from countless directions. Power’s out again? Drip. A kid’s puking and you’re not quite sure if it’s malaria or that extra piece of pizza? Drip. It’s dinner time and you just realized your chicken is rancid? Again? Drip. Drip. Drip.

Don’t get me wrong. This hasn’t come as a surprise to us. Nor are we over here languishing in sorrow and tears. No, we are loving Malawi, and the general consensus from the state of our union the other night was overwhelmingly positive. This is not just semantics, nor am I trying to appease worried grandparents. We are truly thriving. We’re thriving AND we sometimes struggle. Both/and. We’re loving life AND we’re being dripped on constantly. The kids have good days, and they have days where they announce to seemingly the entire capital city, “I JUST WANT TO GO BACK TO AMERICA AND WATCH TV AND GO TO TARGETTTTT!”

Both/and.

And so we keep on. We keep on marveling at the beauty of this country. We keep on plowing through language. We keep on with homework and school projects and soccer games. We keep on with the ordinary and with the awe-inspiring. We keep on slipping in the puddles created from the slow, steady drips and then we get the heck back up and go at it again.

So, just like that one kid of ours said, maybe this life here isn’t all that different after all. I think it’s easy to look at pictures of our life here in such a seemingly exotic location and think that we’re living this National Geographic-ish fairy tale of a life. That every moment here feels significant. But if our “state of the union” proved anything, it’s that this life here is just one big mashup of the extraordinary and the mundane.

Three months in. Same but different. Still fighting to remember that, whether I’m scrubbing a sink full of dishes or treating malaria in the bush, it’s all sacred. It’s all worthwhile. It’s all part of my calling. And it’s all good work.

So, keep on, my friends. My friends knee deep in diapers and sleepless nights. My friends who clock in and out of their workplace every day silently wondering, “Am I making any difference here? Does this even matter at all?” My front-and-center friends. My behind-the-scenes friends. My friends who, despite their exotic overseas Instagram pics, question if they’re adding any value at all. And my friends who see these exotic overseas Instagram pics and wonder, “What do I even have to show for my work?”

Solidarity. In the mundane and in the novel and exciting. In the questions, worries, and doubts. May we all keep doing the work that’s in front of us, trusting that any work that has been given by God is good and sacred indeed.

Even when it involves rotten chicken and entirely too much baking powder and nary a frozen meal in sight.

Carry on.