–Originally posted in 2012–
Nikki and I were conversing in Khmer (Cambodian language) at the dinner table, trying to have a conversation without our younger two children understanding what we were saying. Our oldest child, now 11, was listening in and – I thought, since she was pretty fluent in Khmer when we left Cambodia – understanding what we were saying. I asked her a question in Khmer, and she didn’t reply. I persisted, and asked her another question. She asked me – in English – to stop.
I (stupidly) asked her why she didn’t want me talking to her in Khmer, and she said because she couldn’t understand me anymore. So I (unthinkingly, and very stupidly) told her how surprised I was by how much Khmer she had forgotten. She put her head down on the table and started sobbing, momentarily overcome by the sadness of having left so many people she loved and the deep regret of forgetting the language that connects her to her past life. At that point, all I could do was tell her that I was so sorry I had said that, and that it was not her fault that she was forgetting her Khmer.
Her mother (thinkingly, and very smartly) reminded her that if she were back in Cambodia for even a week that the language would start coming back to her. And Nikki assured her that, someday, we might have the opportunity to go back and visit again. The obvious problem – and one my sweet. sweet daughter is very aware of – is we have no idea when or if that opportunity might come along. And yet, moments later she was doing fine, finished with dinner and working on her homework, back to her usual happy and sweet self.
But that little moment at the dinner table is a reminder of the cost of the decisions that we have made. The decision to leave America and extended family and spend nearly a decade in Cambodia. The decision to leave Cambodia. The decision to leave America and extended family again and start a new life in Uganda. There is a real cost to those decisions. It is a cost not just for Nikki and I, but for our children. Maybe even more for our children. Maybe that is part of what it means, for our family as a whole, to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus (Luke 9:23).
The cost is real. It bubbles below the surface of our lives, only rarely rearing up above the surface. But it’s there. Daily.
And yet the reward of this pursuit is so great. There are plenty of perks (our oldest, for instance, had been to about as many countries as her 11 years of age) but the real reward is that our children are happy, healthy, and thriving. They all transitioned well from their lives in Cambodia. They have all enjoyed our time in America immensely. And they are all doing well having started over again in Uganda, as we seek to follow where Jesus leads us.
Three kids. Three life transitions. Three continents.
There is every reason to expect that at least one of our kids would not be happy, or health, or thriving. And yet they are. I can’t imagine a greater reward than that! What joy it brings me to see our kids living, growing, and loving God & their neighbors. Our little family can declare: “The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” (Lam 2:22-23, NASB).
And as an added perk, we can declare it in more than one language.