"I am not a burden to God in my weakness and need."
What does it take to survive and thrive abroad? In this "Words to Wanderers" series, expats and TCKs share their experience and advice. Today, Anna shares her story.
Please introduce yourself! Who are you, what do you do, and what’s one thing you’re loving in your life right now?
First and foremost I am a disciple of Christ, learning daily how to lay down my life to follow Jesus, wherever He calls me. I am married to my Dutchie, a Mama to a pre-teen and a teenage daughter, and I am growing ever deeper in Christ's intercession for His Body, as He continually sets me before seekers of Him, just like me, who are hungry and thirsty for His Word.
One thing I'm loving in my life right now is praying Scripture over my girls (and my husband and I) at bedtime and watching with great expectation as Jesus brings in such a beautiful harvest of righteousness.
Tell us about your experience living internationally. Where were you born? Where have you lived? And what brought you to where you are now?
I was born in New Zealand; moved to Germany as an Missionary Kid with my family when I was four; back to New Zealand right before my tenth birthday; back to Germany (as an au pair) when I was 19; to Switzerland when I was 20 (as an au pair, where I met my husband); back to Germany when I was 21 (to finish my Bachelor of Arts through an exchange with my Kiwi university, where I had completed my first two years); to the Netherlands (for love) when I was 22, and back to New Zealand with my Dutchie for a year, when I was 25.
Since 2007, I have been living in the Netherlands, where our two dual-citizen daughters were born and where I completed my training to become a high school English teacher, a career I later surrendered in obedience (and ailing health) to God. We both long to return to New Zealand, but have laid down our dreams on the altar to be there for my FIL, whose health has been deteriorating, and my MIL, who has been caring for him.
What’s something you enjoy about your expat life?
I love meeting Jesus in the faces of complete strangers in my local forest. God has set the most interesting people on my path, who have struck up conversations with me or I with them. For a while it would be my husband's go-to question: who did you meet today?
I am always amazed at how hungry and thirsty people are for Jesus here, how openly they share their stories and hearts with me and how Jesus always gives me the opportunity to share a piece of His heart with them too.
Each time I walk away, feeling my heart burning with the compassion of Jesus, and in His mercy flowing, tasting even more of His healing love for me through His beautiful Presence in them.
What’s a hard thing about living abroad? How are you working through that challenge?
Being so far away from my siblings and their families, when they are going through really hard things. Prayer, meditating on Scripture, Viber messages and phone calls soothe my aching heart and help me surrender my burdens into the sovereign care and love of my God.
How has living abroad/moving around impacted your spiritual journey?
Living in 23 "houses" in my first 23 years of life (that's including the camper-van we lived in in Germany for the first six months) has definitely impacted my spiritual journey. This continual uprooting left me hungry for a place I could not just call my home but truly experience as my "home."
At first, in not finding it, I unconsciously sought to numb that unrelenting ache in worshiping my idols of self, earthly success, church and religious leaders. I turned myself into someone I am not.
Until the Holy Spirit broke through to reveal Christ's compassion for me and the home of His heart for us all. Life hasn't been the same ever since.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I still struggle and find those old patterns of thinking (and numbing) calling me back into the darkness, but the difference now is that by God's grace and help I am learning daily where to go in my weakness and need. God has proven Himself to be so faithful, becoming my Way out of the old and into the new, again and again. He is proving me His.
Now, by the grace of God, I have lived in the same house, the same town and the same country for the past fourteen years. And I now live here as one who is so very thankful for all the past uprooting, all the discipline and all the healing I have been through and am still going through. Through it all, I have experienced and am still daily experiencing the truth of His Promise to us all that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us - His whole Body - from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.
What is something you’ve learned about yourself through your travels/life abroad?
I recently learned that others see me as courageous and bold for speaking to complete strangers. I think my God-given and Holy Spirit prompted desire for connection with Jesus in others keeps trumping my fear of making a fool of myself (which I have done too 🤣). And now I see how moving so many times as a kid beautifully trained me to be the one to go first, over and over too: something I am so grateful for now (thanks Mum and Dad 😊).
God always has good gifts for us in the hard, doesn't He? It's taken me a while to see that and to start embracing His goodness and mercy to me, but praise God we serve a patient and persistent God, who gently pries open our wounded hearts to heal them. As He so lovingly reminds us:
"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it." (Hebrews 12:11 ESV).
With that incoming redemption of my past, I see a new gift of grace springing up in me: discipline. The discipline to seek attachment, rather than detachment from God, to keep asking, seeking and knocking, to celebrate my every repentance and to actively look for the new things springing up, expecting God's goodness and mercy to pour out upon me.
You see, I only recently learned I often say to myself: "What's the point?" not as an opportunity to figure out what the point actually is, but to excuse myself from completing a task I set out to do, mid-way, and to disconnect from God.
I realized it was related to triggers of all the past uprooting in my life, triggers coming in boundaries the Lord had called me to lay down in my relationships that have been a kind of uprooting also.
As God shone a light on that thought, however, He invited me to take it captive and make it obedient to Him. He invited me to ask Him that very question, rather than use it as an excuse to stop.
Little did I realize what He would uncover in that process of asking, seeking and knocking. Turns out that question was hiding a much deeper questioning in my heart, body and soul: "Am I worth it? Am I worth all Your hard work, all Your reworking, reshaping, restoring and redeeming. Am I really worth all Your investment in me?"
Maybe you, like me, need God to redeem your childhood of repeated uprooting to show you the beauty hidden in each uprooting. Uprootings that were only ever permitted to root and grow us in a deeper knowing of His love and acceptance of us and others, to help us to be so in awe of Him, to receive and shine the beauty of who He truly is inside of us, into this aching world around us.
Healing has been coming for me, as I have been so blessed to witness, be a recipient of, and become a part of God's steadfast love and mercy pouring out, as He is healing others, together with me.
He showed me through our ever growing testimonies to His faithfulness, that in His thinking the process of our sanctification itself is just as important and just as beautiful to Him (even in the mess) as the starting and finishing. For, to Him, it's always been about relationship, about restoring our whole-hearted connection with Him and His Body.
God reminded me that I am not a burden to Him in my weakness and need, because He so loves to hear my voice and He so desires to shape, mold, refine and grow me in sweet intimacy with Him through my asking, seeking and knocking. And He reminded me that that process of sanctification lovingly teaches and welcomes each one of us to keep seeking attachment to Him and not detachment from Him, as we bump up against our inadequacies and weaknesses.
This learning to seek attachment with Him inevitably leads to an uprooting from any unhealthy attachments to man (like people pleasing and codependency) that have been leading us into sin, just as the disciple Peter experienced in Paul's rebuke of his hypocrisy. Oh how we need God's help (also through each other) to return and rest in the heart of Jesus and to grow in His strength for us, as we learn to quiet ourselves in His Word and to lean upon Him in renewed trust. It is this setting apart unto our God, this consecration that then also prepares us to be led back out again, into a restored and healthy attachment with others, in and through Him.
Now, that question that once suffocated me is becoming a doorway of hope in Christ Jesus, as I am taking Him up on that invitation to ask, seek and knock, every time that thought rises in me: "What's the point?
And His repeated answer to me, felt deeply in my heart, is so breathtakingly beautiful:
"The point, Anna, is, and always has been, for You to come to know Me, in every person you meet, in every situation you face, in every single season you walk through and in each and every beat of your heart."
Hebrews 8:10 ESV
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
Matthew 25:35-40 ESV
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
How would you encourage other expats and global nomads? Or, what advice would you give them?
I would love to press the same little note card into their hand, as a stranger once did into mine, a note card with a picture of a sunrise and this verse (Proverbs 4:18 NIV):
The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.
My heavenly Father has used this verse to remind me that Christ's light in me is shining ever brighter by the day. I can easily get discouraged when I focus on the current struggle I am in, but praise God, He gently returns my focus to Himself. The Lord promptly reminds me that He is with me here in the mess and of just how far He has brought me. And then, I remember the truth: He truly is with me here and has indeed been transforming me from glory to glory.
I pray that they too will be encouraged and comforted, whenever Jesus reminds them of this Promise. May we all, by God's grace, remember that we are shining brighter today than we were yesterday and that one day Jesus, our full light of day, will be revealed in and to each one of us, in all His glory.
I would also love to encourage them to invest in learning the language of the place they are living in. For, this truly opens doors to connecting and engaging on a deeper level with the locals.
Almost everyone here speaks English, but becoming fluent in Dutch has brought a heart to heart connection with so many around me. And I would encourage them in that (often challenging and tiring) endeavor, to ask God to motivate them with a specific vision and purpose for doing so and to surround them with timely Words of encouragement from His Body.
Anything else you’d like to add?
I would also encourage expats and global nomads to seek a safe place, like Velvet Ashes Connection Groups and spiritual Mamas (Grandmas of faith), to pray together, share Scriptures and testimonies of praise, cry and rejoice together, confess their weakness and sins together and share songs of worship and praise together.
Where can we find out more about you?
On Instagram -- @seekandsavortheword
On YoutTube -- https://youtube.com/@kiwidutchannasmit
Thank you, Anna.
What resonated with you from Anna's story and advice? Share your thoughts in the comments, and look out for the next Words for Wanderers interview! Subscribe to the blog below, and keep up to date whenever a new post is released.
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