When I was a kid, my family had an advent calendar that we used every Christmas season. It had little paper doors and behind each door was a part of the Christmas story. When Isla was a baby, I wanted to recreate it to use as our advent tradition as well. I rewrote the story a bit (gotta use that theology degree!), adding some pictures to help them remember the story before they could actually read it, and made a paper chain that we hung on our Christmas tree. Each night we’d pull a ring off the chain and add to the story bit by bit. By halfway through the month, the kids would have the story ..read more

Way back when it was time to choose a school for Isla, we were a bit lost. A colleague of Caleb’s at the time, who we shared similar values and goals with, recommended the school where his kids went… so we did the interview and registered her. We had no clue how very different the many options were from each other, nor the trajectory the school choice would put our kids on. Now after many years in Lebanon, moderating groups with 400+ expat parents, and working with kids in multiple schools, I have a much clearer picture of the educational system and options available. At the beginning of 2020 ..read more

Beirut is not the easiest place to learn Arabic. It’s completely doable to live here for years and never pick up more than basic phrases. You can shop, socialize and entertain yourself all in English or French if that is your desire. But just because it isn’t easy, doesn’t mean it’s impossible! We are positive proof that foreigners can (and should! but that’s for another post) learn Arabic while living in Beirut. It will take hard work. You have to be annoying about forcing yourself to practice speaking, even when people continually answer you in English. You have to be intentional about getti ..read more

It’s been almost two years our kids have been home. They’ve had a few weeks of semi-normal life here and there before the Revolution kicked off, before covid lockdowns started, and at the end of last year when things were starting to open up again in Lebanon, but for the majority of the past two years, they’ve been home. School was online, youth groups shut down, and even play dates were limited as roads were closed and then as we tried to maintain a smart social bubble to protect our friends and families. Our kids’ school did a great job with online school, and to be honest I was never really ..read more

What would you do with 10 hours of electricity? The immediate thought, when you are dripping with sweat, is AC. Or do you turn on the water heater so that you can take a shower at the end of the day? Ooh, ooh, what about laundry? Do you use the internet or try to get some meal prep done and use the microwave, food processor or blender? Ah, scratch that last option, you can’t prep anything too far in advance because your fridge no longer has enough power to keep food cold enough. You get 10 hours, only 10. What do you choose? And by the way, this isn’t government electricity that you can use a ..read more

My 11 year old writes a name on the wall with a piece of chalk, while another volunteer uses a broom to cover the space with a homemade paste mixture. Some of the names are familiar – Alexandra, Isaac, Sahar – but most are just names. The next step is simple… grab a rolled up poster, line up and stick the bottom, and then unroll it upwards, revealing a portrait. I knew the art installation would be powerful, but I had no idea how moving the act of pasting the portraits to the wall would be. When I saw the call on social media for volunteers, I knew immediately we’d help out. We’ve been a fan ..read more

It’s been almost 18 months since this season of school closures began for kids here in Lebanon. When the Revolution broke out in the fall of 2019, we found ourselves home for weeks because of protests and road closures. Some of the big international schools have contingency plans for such situations, but most schools were left scrambling when the days turned to weeks. Our kids and I developed a really nice and fun rhythm of home learning during those days, and that served us well when just a few months later, schools were closed again when the first corona cases were diagnosed in Lebanon. Like ..read more

When our eldest child was five years old, we were spending the afternoon at a secluded park in North Carolina, surrounded by trees and not much else. All of a sudden, I realized my daughter was nowhere to be seen, and after a quick and frantic search, we discovered her in the public bathroom. We had to have yet another conversation with our daughter—born and bred in the Middle East—about life in America and how she shouldn’t wander off alone. “Yes,” she replied, “America isn’t safe like Lebanon is.” A little devotional I wrote was recently published on Parenting Pathway, the parenting minist ..read more

I’ve always been a rule follower. Caleb likes to tell the story about how I ruined his proposal plan when I refused to jump a fence to sneak onto a golf course. I’m usually comfortable with rules. I want to show respect to those in authority, and I don’t like getting in trouble. Not always of course. My kids have yet to wear the school uniform pants they are required to wear to school… because the uniform pants I can buy from The Children’s Place are much cheaper, better quality, fit better, and look nearly identical. This is a “spirit of the law” rule for me. I feel I’m following the spirit o ..read more

It’s not the first time it’s happened, and for any of you who have been following the blog over the years, this post might feel familiar. After living through a difficult or traumatic experience, after post after post of heavy material, how do you go back to writing about daily life? By moving on, are we forgetting those who are still living with the effects of the explosion every minute of every day? Is it tone deaf to write about our lockdown activities and setting up our new house when others are breaking the law every day to work just enough to buy bread for their children? It’s the first ..read more