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What I’m Homesick For

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I’ve been feeling very homesick lately, so I’m going to list all the things I miss here in an attempt to get them out and move one step closer to moving on.  I’m not going to include people because that is obvious and I will inevitably forget someone.

I miss:

  1. Autumn in Illinois.
  2. Red, orange, yellow, brown, and green trees.
  3. Tanner’s Orchard.
  4. Apple and pumpkin flavored everything.
  5. Crisp air.
  6. Sweaters and boots and scarves.
  7. Driving.
  8. Singing while driving.
  9. Drive-throughs.
  10. Walking into a store or restaurant and knowing exactly what to do and say.
  11. Background conversations being in English.
  12. Knowing my sizes while shopping.
  13. Knowing which stores will have the things I need.
  14. Target.
  15. Roadtrips.
  16. Paying with a debit card.
  17. Having access to Hulu and Spotify.
  18. Going to the library.
  19. Having Wifi in my house.
  20. Going to movie theaters regularly.

Three things I don’t miss:

  1. The food.
  2. The knowledge that many people around me have guns.
  3. Being in the midst of our political catastrophe.

A Week in Greece #36: RAMBO JESUS, GOODBYE ROOMMATE, TWO NEW CATS

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I was thinking about what I would write here while walking down the street, and it was literally going to include the words “I just want to be in the United States!!  Cry, cry, whine, whine.”  But then I saw someone I knew walking in the opposite direction!  But…we’ll get there at the end of the week.

It’s been a hard week, is what I’m trying to say.  Well, now that I’m looking back on the calendar, there were some really great moments too.  I don’t know!  Clearly this is not going to be a well-thought-out blog post.

Okay, so at work, we got our director back, which meant that most staff meetings were in Greek and it was translated to me and Luciana until everyone else realized that it took twice as long to do this and anyway, everyone speaks English.  This somehow set off a really weird set of circumstances where everyone kept trying to make me speak Greek.  I just kind of glared at people, and finally Natasha asked how Greek was going.  “It’s horrible.  I’m taking lessons twice a week and I’m still relearning the things I knew in January.  I feel like an idiot, but I also have zero motivation to put in more effort because when I’m at work, I’m thinking about work, and when I’m not at work, I’m thinking about fundraising, and when I’m not doing either of those things, I’m trying desperately to distract myself with books or movies.  And even hanging out with friends isn’t helpful, because it feels like work!  I like my friends here, but it’s not easy!  Nothing is easy!  So why would I purposefully add one more hard thing to my plate!?!?” In the face of this meltdown (it really happened, I said all of those things), Natasha said, “Oh.  Yeah.  Learning a new language in a new country must be…hard.”

“It is.  Thank you.”

So anyway Continue reading →

A Week in Greece #35: HD CELEBRATION WEEK, GREEK LESSONS, and a lot of FRIEND MEALS

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This week has got me thinking that a LOT of my mental downswing the past couple months was because everyone was right:  summer in Athens sucks!

Now that people are returning from holidays, life is going back to normal and I’m feeling so much busier and happier.

HD NEWS

We had our fourth Celebration Week, and as always, it was pretty great.  Well, wait, no.  Holy cow, this week has been long!  Monday was chaotic, and everyone had something awful going on in their private lives.  Our schedule was therefore out of whack, but I felt like I got to step into my unofficial counseling shoes and help people talk about the things that were hurting them.  That part, at least, was nice.

But later in the week, we had more fun times together.  “A” always talks about this souvlaki place she loves, so we all went there on Thursday.  The food WAS amazing, but more importantly, it was FUN.  We talked about all sorts of things, laughed a lot, and bonded more as peers.

On Friday, Dina returned to the office after doing fundraising in the States for six weeks.  After the Celebration Week presentations, we all sat around and ate and listened to her stories.  It sounds like a lot of people are getting really excited to partner with HD, which is exciting!  I can’t wait to see where this all goes.

GREEK LESSONS

I’m starting Greek lessons again (I was off for August).  One of Anthi’s friends wanted to offer her services to HD for free, and I’m the only one who took her up on the deal.  She’s a much more structured teacher, which is great, but the first lesson was humiliating.  We basically went back to the very beginning of everything, and although now (after two lessons) I’m catching back up to at least the middle of my old lessons, it’s just.  AGH.  I have so little motivation for learning Greek except for “I feel like I ought to.”  It’s never going to get better unless I can find a better reason to do it.

FRIENDS

The best part!  I’ve discovered that I really like having people stay at my apartment.  This is weird, because I’ve never thought of myself as hospitable, and I’m a terrible hostess.  But I love having a place where people come and go or crash for a couple nights.  I don’t want to take CARE of other people, but I’m happy to let them be in my space.

Luciana came over at 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday night rather than drive all the way to the other side of Athens that late.  We stayed up a couple hours talking about feminism and literature: two of my favorite sleepover topics!

Natasha came at 11:00 p.m. on Friday night (she flew in late) and stayed for two nights.  She is scared of Hans Harrison, so I gave her my room and slept on the couch.  That is where Hans Harrison often sleeps, so I woke up in the middle of the night to him settling down heavily across my neck.  It was uncomfortable but so cute, so I let him stay.

But before that, I went out to dinner with Kendra to celebrate her recent engagement.  We talked for hours and hours, and I’m so glad to have an American friend in Greece.  We talked about how there are these concentric circles of walls between ourselves and other people, and it’s such a slow, exhausting process to take them down.  One of the walls is between ourselves and people from other countries, so being with Kendra means one less wall to take down.  It’s nice.

On Saturday, I met Maria and her husband John for lunch.  Just two Greeks and an American eating Persian food while discussing their recent trips to Sweden and Slovenia!  I like having couple-friends, and I like that Maria can be both my Greek teacher (when I’m not taking free lessons) AND a friend.

On Saturday night, the Holargos girls (me, Tatiana, Natasha) wandered the neighborhood to find somewhere to eat.  We wound up at a creperie, where we each got savery crepes before splitting a crepe with CHOCOLATE, BOUGATSA CREAM, and CRUMBLED COOKIES.  Omg.

And then on Sunday, I actually went to church!  Woo hoo!  I still sat by myself, but afterwards there were many more people there that I knew, returned from summer holidays.  Bible study is starting up this next Wednesday, so hopefully I can deepen some relationships and feel more at home at church.  We will see!

Sunday Summary #40

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There is only one thing worth seeing this week on the Internet, and it is Sia’s music video tribute to the 49 children (this video makes it so obvious that they were just CHILDREN, having fun and being dumb and maybe reckless, but children nonetheless) who were murdered in the Orlando club.

Maybe you’ll be able to get through this without crying, but I sure couldn’t.

The Benefits of Fundraising

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It’s easy to complain about fundraising; after all, it is very awkward and stressful.  But the past couple days have been really encouraging for me, and I remembered something important.

I chose this.

I have a lot of contacts with a mission organization that pays its missionaries.  I could have tried to work with them (and I actually did serve through them when I spent five months in Senegal), but I decided that I would rather raise my own funds.  Why would I possibly choose to make my life more difficult?

  1. Fundraising keeps me humble.
    There is nothing quite like saying, “The only way I can do this thing I want to do is if you’ll help me,” to create humility.  I go through much of life believing that I am in control and that I only need to rely upon myself.  It is good for my ego to have to rely upon other people.
  2. Fundraising inspires me to be grateful.
    If humility means giving control of your life to someone else, then WOW does it feel great when they take care of you.  Although I can definitely be a self-centered asshole at times, it really helps when I stop and think, “This person worked hard to make money.  They could spend that money on clothes, vacations, or a new phone.  They could buy BOOKS with that money, but instead they are giving some of it to me.”  And that never fails to fill me with a wave of incredible gratitude.
  3. Fundraising gives me opportunities to draw close to people.
    In addition to the closeness that comes from asking for help, there is a second closeness that fundraising provides.  I recently started praying through the list of people who donated to me last year.  Not praying that they would give again, but just, attempting to dig into those humble and grateful postures where I bring people before God and ask him to bless them.  This does wonders for my heart, and I find myself madly in love with dozens of people after these times of prayer.
  4. Fundraising gifts me with opportunities of people drawing close to me.
    This is actually my favorite part of fundraising.  I am a needy person, and I so love when people send me messages.  I guess opening myself up and admitting that I need help financially reminds people that I also need help emotionally and spiritually.  One of the best parts of this is when someone I haven’t talked to in a long time reaches out, and my heart just absolutely overflows.

Humans are needy creatures.  We cannot survive on our own without the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual support of others.  Fundraising helps me admit that I have needs, and (revelation I had while in counseling) when I open up about my needs…they get met!  So whether you’re in a position to need fundraising or not, I encourage each of you to get vulnerable with someone trustworthy and tell them one of your needs.

With that in mind, if you’d like to make a donation to help me stay in Athens, Greece and continue working in a safe house for women who have been sexually exploited and trafficked, click below!

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Enneagram 4: Walking Through the Hard Emotions

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I’m an Enneagram 4, which means when I feel an emotion, I think, “Let’s feel more of this,” even when it’s a bad emotion.  That said…

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My word, this week has been heavy, and it’s only Tuesday. I had a rough weekend-I felt lonely and alone (two similar but different emotions), overwhelmed by the idea of continuing to live in a foreign country, hopeless that I could ever create a community here like the ones I had in Peoria, Jackson, Fatick, and Dallas. I threw myself a pity party by staying isolated the whole weekend and eating more chocolate than is perhaps healthy.

Then I went to work and it all got heavier. Staff members shared some extremely difficult life circumstances that they are dealing with. I led our morning temperature check with the participants, and it took three times longer than usual because they too were dealing with huge things.

One of the things I love about the enneagram is that it states that the best things about our personality are also the worst things. Continue reading →

A Week in Greece #34: ELIZABETH LEAVES :(

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I have so loved having Elizabeth here!  She is one of my very best friends, and on top of that, we have extremely similar living/traveling habits.  For instance, our decision to take a 9-hour ferry from Crete to Athens instead of a 50-minute flight turned out to be pretty disastrous.  We left port at 9:00 p.m., and the entire boat turned into a chaotic mass of people scrambling to find a chair, bench, or piece of floor to call their own.  The majority of the trip consisted of trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in while the lights were fully on, then being woken up at 5:30 a.m. to stand for an hour before they let us off.  BUT, after admitting to each other that this was not a great decision, we both agreed that it was an adventure worth having and we were glad we’d experienced it.  It’s nice to have a friend like that.

It was also nice that Elizabeth did all the Athens touristy things on her own!  I went back to work this week, and while I was at meetings or doing lesson planning, Elizabeth went to the Acropolis and various museums.  It felt great to not have to take care of her, and I was grateful for the opportunity to avoid paying to see the Parthenon for a fourth time.

Instead, we spent evenings watching movies.  We had both prepared feminist masterpieces to share with the other: I wanted her to see Magic Mike XXL and she wanted me to see Ex Machina).  One night we went to IKEA, Continue reading →

DUBSMASH at the Palace of Knossos in Crete

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I have a new obsession:  Dubsmash!  This app has provided me with HOURS of gleeful giggling at my face, which is honestly one of my favorite pastimes.  I think I’ll try to put together some compilations like this one so that everyone else can have a good laugh (and perhaps join the app yourself!  and friend me so we can send dumb videos to each other!).

The Palace of Knossos is remarkable and beautiful and everyone should visit it while in Crete…but you won’t see much of that in this video.  Instead, there are time travel references, screaming Indiana Jones, and a valley girl who almost definitely existed thousands of years ago too.

Sunday Summary #38

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1|  Travel as Therapy – an Introduction by The Book of Life

I love the idea of considering travel destinations in terms of psychological virtues rather than surface level pursuits of a “culture weekend” or “island hideaway.”  And I love their examples of places to go, as well as the accompanying virtue, at the end of the piece!

“In the future, we would ideally be more conscious travellers – aware that we were on a search for places that could deliver psychological virtues like ‘calm’ or ‘perspective,’ ‘sensuality’ or ‘rigour’. A visitor to Monument Valley wouldn’t just be in it for a bit of undefined ‘adventure’, something to enjoy and then gradually forget about two weeks later; travelling to the place would be an occasion fundamentally to reorient one’s personality.”

2|  Yesssss!  The Star Trek cast is killing Dubsmash!

A Week in Greece #33: ELIZABETH ARRIVES

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August is tourist season, and I’ve been so happy to host visitors taking advantage of their summer holidays-first my mom and now one of my closest friends (Elizabeth co-writes the Let’s Talk  About series with me). 

But before Elizabeth came on Friday, I had a normal workweek.  Not much to report there, necessarily. Two staff members are out on holidays, and we’re just about finished with our summer schedule. That means slowly getting ready for the return of our official classes (thank God) and me working on fundraising things (I’m up to about $4,000 out of $32,000!)
What a good time to self-promote! Donate online today at www.gemission.org/donate! 

The main interesting thing this week was all the skype conversations I had with strangers and old friends.  An unexpected theme arose from these conversations where I was reminded of my primary interest in ministering to ministers, and thinking about how that might play out someday in missionary member care or a retreat center or who knows! It’s really fun to see how I am accumulating experiences and developing skills that will lead me on a hopping path to new opportunities. 

I’ve been feeling a lot lately, just how much I love my life. I’ve frequently wondered if I would be happy if I died suddenly and soon, and…yes! I feel like I am living life to my fullest. I’m taking advantage of opportunities that come up, I am giving to the world the best of myself, and I am constantly learning and growing and transforming. I feel so content (in the midst of fear and wanderlust and anger) knowing that I’m living the life I want to live. I’m so lucky. 


That pickiness only increased on Friday morning when Elizabeth arrived! She is my kindred spirit and my mental soul mate, and so far we are having so much fun together. We went to Heraklion, Crete for the weekend because we’re both massive history nerds, and last night we stayed up until 1:00 drinking wine and eating cheese and talking about the freedom that comes from actually believing in God’s grace. Today we spent hours at the museum full of the most amazing Minoan artifacts, and we’ve been eating great Greek food to stay energized. Also napping. Right now is nap time, so as soon as I post this…zzz.