POLAND {A snapshot of one year}

Almost two months ago now, we crossed the one year mark of living in Poland. I've wanted to write an update about where we are at (emotionally) as we passed this one year mark of living cross culturally and so many thoughts have gone through my head that I just haven't been able to sort through them all; the memories, emotions and lessons learned into one pretty little blog post. All these things just keep swirling around in my mind. So I have attempted to do my best at narrowing it down to blog post length and not a novel-because believe me, we could probably write a novel at this point about our experience in the first year here!

So here are some things we would say...

• We have learned a lot. A LOT! About Poland, the people who live here, the language (oh the language), about ourselves and mostly about how much God loves and cares for people.
• We find that it's important for our family to keep some type of routine in traditions (ie. family movie night each week, etc). As our kids have gotten a little older, and able to play board games, we have started to incorporate a game time together...we hope to make that more consistent. These times together as a family, playing and having fun remind us that we are a team, we are family and we are each other's support and daily encouragers. 
• We have dance parties. Doesn't every family? If not, you should. We notice that when tensions are high or attitudes need adjusting, we turn on some music (maybe a little loud-sorry neighbors) and dance around our living room. On occasion, friends have joined in for our little dance sessions and smiles and laughter ensue. 
• Steve and I adjusted to the transition of living in Poland very differently. And the waves of sadness, excitement to learn new things and lessons the Lord has (and is) teaching us are constant...each of us learning and adjusting to all of the differences in our own timing.
• God has given us a deeper gratitude for his love, faithfulness and reassurance that He is worth it. 
• Flexibility is essential. We heard this many times before moving abroad...and I can't stress just how much it is true and needed. And if you fail to be such, you will inevitably get frustrated or disappointed...or both.
• Expectation management is key to balancing life in a new culture and while working with people from day to day. Both Steve and I naturally hold very high expectations of ourselves and each other (and many times, other people) and can often find ourselves disappointed if we aren't careful to manage those expectations accordingly. 
• The Spirit can (and will) do as He wills. It is vital to beckon him to come and breath life into each day.
• Patience, Kindness and Grace are all words that have shown up daily in our vocabulary and qualities that we desperately seek to increase in our lives each day (with ourselves, each other, our children, and others)...and believe me, we have no shortage of opportunities to practice increasing these qualities!
• We are often tired (some of that is due to having small children of course) but also there is a sense in which things wear us out a bit more than when we lived in the States. 
• Between the two of us, we have lost around 45 pounds - I won't say who has lost most of that weight ;) I remember when we first moved here and Steve started dropping pounds, whenever we would FaceTime family back home they would jokingly ask, "are you eating?" Haha! Walking (or biking) most places rather than taking the car (especially since we didn't have one the first six months here) has been the reason for this...we used to think walking everywhere was a bit annoying since it wasn't something we were used to. But now, walking a few miles to get somewhere is just common. In fact, when a friend recently visited us from the States, they asked us to take them to this certain place and Steve said, "oh yea it's just a short walk this way..." and a couple miles later our friend stated, "yea y'all have switched to the European mindset of "just a short walk this way". So if you ever come visit, be ready to walk a lot!
• There are many moments that God has used in our time here to take what we know to be true in our heads and make it real in our hearts. These moments haven't always been easy but we know they are needed.
• Our kids have begun to say and do things that show the mark of a true cross cultural kid. Things like: "A while ago, when we visited Germany", "When will we go back to Florida?", or jumping back and forth between Polish and English in the same sentence and making note of where things are made (on toys, clothing, etc.). Walking the transition of moving across the ocean with three small kids is a topic for another day but what I will say, it is much more difficult than we anticipated.
• We miss a lot. What I mean by that, is we seem to miss a lot of things culturally as we have adjusted. There are many times we don't understand what's being asked (not just because of language barrier but because it doesn't make sense in our minds), or we understand later than we should have (whether that is knowing about how certain holidays are celebrated here appropriately or what our kids should have had at school on a particular day). But we are learning and missing less the longer we live here. Even today, we had to have something for Isaac at school that made no sense to us whatsoever, but we tried our best, and Isaac showed up with the proper things and the teacher was beaming and congratulating us on getting it right! We have also learned that it helps tremendously to ask our Polish friends many questions to help us understand best we can.
• Things still frustrate us at times. There is a sense in which just living in a place not where you grew up that just adds a general level of stress...then to top that with other stressors will only raise stress levels higher and increase frustrations. We are learning the best way to manage stress and frustrations and continue to ask God to gives us what we need each day and in each moment.
• We are developing friendships and continue to find new friends here, but of course we still miss our family and friends in the States. The amount in which we miss these people hasn't decreased, but it has gotten easier to deal with as we live in our new home in Poland...and like I said in our six month reflection post, we love having modern technology that allows us to stay connected.
• Hugs and snuggle time are important for our family. We try to take time each day to sit down with each child and snuggle (or as our son says, "huggle", the combo of hug and snuggle). This helps them (and us) feel secure and connected together as a family living cross culturally.
• It's important to take time each day to think about the good parts of our day and thank God for the many ways we get to see Him at work in and around us.

As I said earlier, it would honestly be impossible to include everything we have learned in the first year of living in Poland in one blog post. So thanks for taking time to read our thoughts about the first year. I will leave you with a couple pictures...

August 2015 - Just couple weeks after we arrived.

August 2016 - Celebrating our ONE year mark by eating in the mall food
court where we first went upon arriving last year.