Twelve weeks ago, my wife, my 12-month-old daughter, and I packed up our apartment in the United States for Squish’s biggest adventure yet — three months of travel, missions and adventure from the Great Lakes to Sydney, Australia and the jungles of Indonesia.

Our first month was a time of transition. After a huge cull, we packed everything we owned into a few suitcases and lived in Angie’s parents’ basement. At the time, I was working long hours, Elsa was starting to walk, and Angie was in the thick of morning sickness. Fortunately, my in-laws are godsends, and we had lots of help when we needed it most.

Our next stop, via Los Angeles, was Sydney, where we spent a week seeing old friends and sharing a holiday house with two of my sisters, their husbands, and their baby daughters, whom we met for the first time.

Soon, we were on to Bali, where we met up with my other sister, along with her husband and tribe of five boys. Elsa had now met all of her Aussie cousins and had even learned most of their names!

Adaptable

To get to our most far-flung destination in Indonesia, where Angie and I have established an Early Learning Centre (ELC), we travelled via the city of Manado. By the time we arrived, poor Squish had taken six flights and slept in eight different places in three countries.

Despite it all, Squish has impressed us with her enthusiasm and willingness to adapt. Take just her mode of transport as an example. In the US, she rode in a back-facing car seat; in Australia, a forward-facing one; in Bali and Manado, no car seat at all; and where we are now, she rides in a carrier on mum on the back of a scooter wearing a helmet!

Some adjustments have proven a challenge. We are currently straddling the equator, with scorching temperatures and sky-high humidity. Our little Wisconsin girl is simply not used to the heat, so we have learned to pat her down with a cold, wet cloth when the heat overcomes her.

At the ELC, she has taken a crash course in socialisation, putting up with lots of loud, happy children screaming, toys regularly disappearing from her grasp, and teachers setting boundaries she isn’t used to.

Stability

As mentioned in a previous post, keeping Elsa’s nap and bedtime routines consistent — complete with a sound machine and black-out tent that goes over her cot — has been essential. We have also given her lots of intentional “Mum and Dad” time in the mornings and evenings. With so many changes to face each new day, she needs to know we are her safe and stable place. A packable high chair has also proved very useful, given that we never quite know where we’ll be eating or whether it will cater to kids.

Our social media posts during this whirlwind adventure tend not to feature the airports, hours of mind-numbing travel and jet lag that we have learned to tolerate. Even so, we have made some incredible memories and walked in step with the plan the Lord has laid out for us.

Our next stop is home. We are finally settling in my home city of Adelaide, where we own a rental that we plan to transform into our first ever fixed abode.

For those who have been following Angie and my journey since we got married, nothing has gone quite as we had planned. We faced a cancelled wedding, moved interstate in search of work and accommodation during the great Covid panic, struggled with fertility and applied to adopt, moved to Indonesia only to learn the day we arrived that we had matched with an expecting mother, moved again to the United States while Elsa’s adoption was finalised, and have now returned to the jungle to wrap up our project here.

Needless to say, we are yearning for rest, and cannot wait to arrive home. Even so, we wouldn’t change any part of the last four years. It’s been a blast and a great blessing.

And with number two due in January, something tells me the adventures of Squish are just beginning.

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Image courtesy of Unsplash.