I am asked often, “So, what did you do to prepare for moving to another country?”  That’s an incredible question and I have an incredible answer for those who are asking.  A word of caution though, what my family did is not the only way to prepare for a huge move across the ocean. It worked for us and I definitely think there are some points of wisdom in this list. While we were accomplishing these processes during our wait to move, we had the feeling of forward motion. We weren’t just sitting and waiting. We were actually accomplishing things and thus getting closer to what we saw as the coming new reality.

I want to remind you that I am writing from a personal perspective. There isn’t a doctoral research project attached with these thoughts and family practices.  What we walked through in our preparation we viewed as training for the “field” even before we reached our official training for departure. By keeping a “training”  mindset, it helped us to try new things in preparation for the transition we were embarking on as a family. We laughed a lot at our failures and bungles. We told ourselves that as difficult as challenges are in the United States, it is better to try and experience them first in a familiar culture than to have them forced on us in a foreign cross-culture. So, with that in mind, I encourage you to launch out in a “training mindset” before you actually move to another culture.

The list that follows isn’t in an order of importance like a step by step guide, but more in the vain of a smorgasbord of options to pick and choose from as they best fit your family’s personality, living context and time frame for moving. In our experience each family will have to deal with these issues at some point in the process of relocating to another country as a full-time cross cultural worker for the sake of the Gospel.

Wipe the Debt
Romans 13:8, “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.”
As soon as we knew we were moving to another country we extinguished any and all debt we had so we could be completely free of the extra stress of financing debt in a foreign country.  There is enough stress on a family living overseas trying to adjust to new customs, mores, systems of living, and relocating to a non-English speaking country without trying to balance extra financial problems. We raise our own financial support. Our family believed it would be unwise to have others financing our debt while we were attempting to raise our living expenses.

Save, Save, Save
Prov. 21:5 – The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
Cut your expenses when you have the control rather than having the changes forced on you.  Save any dollars you can in your budget. Every family has waste and excess in their family budget. So begin to track all your expenses to know where each dollar is being spent. By tracking the expenses you will have the necessary knowledge to know where you can cut expenses and increase your savings. You will be glad you did when you are sitting in another country.  The discipline of saving will require each person to “die to yourself” in regards to personal wants and desires. I discovered that many of my purchases were unnecessary and were for convenience sake. This will be a great training ground for your family and you personally since many tasks that are required for daily living in another culture are not designed for convenience.

Learn to Live on a Single Salary
Phil. 4:11-13 – Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

We were a two income family before moving overseas. As soon as it was possible we began living on one salary. Living on a single salary helped us to knock out debt quickly, since we able to use the second income towards debt retirement.  It also required us to readjust family spending habits in our home culture before it was forced on us in a foreign culture. When the debt was gone, we were able to save money for one-time expenses for set up in our new country such as furniture, small appliances, and transportation options.

I discovered that living on one salary became a training ground for the practice of contentment.  I had to question each purchase with “Why am I wanting this item?” Learning to live with what I had was an important lesson for me leading up to our move. It also helped me prioritize my spending habits and save money.

Communicate to Family Quickly
As soon as we definitely knew we were relocating overseas, we told our extended family. It was a one year process for my wife and me to fully come to grips with God’s call to another country. The amount of time it took us to work through the decision to move was stressful in many ways. We believed it could also take the same amount of time for our families to get fully on board with our decision to follow God’s call. Even though they were positive toward our response to obey the call of God, it was an emotional struggle that our parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, and extended family had to walk through and take time to process. Being able to talk about this early in the process and often over a period of time prior to the move proved to be very beneficial for everyone involved.

Learn to live Simple
Gal. 5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Gal. 5:13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.
I want to state that possessions aren’t bad unless they occupy a space that was designed only for God. In our process of learning to simplify our living we had to look at our things and decide what was most important and what things were extra. I am a sentimental person when it comes to family possessions. There were things I had held onto for many years that needed to be examined to see if they were truly things to be kept and stored away, or trinkets of little value to our family. One example deals with pictures. Our family had stacks of pictures that needed to be looked through and categorized. We discovered that in our multiple, multiple, multiple (yes..repetition) boxes of photos were many duplicates and pictures of things that didn’t matter at all. You can only have so many pictures of the animals at the zoo from your last vacation, blurry pictures, and people you don’t remember. We were able to sift the photo boxes down tremendously.

We called into question each little trinket that rested on a bookshelf in our bedrooms and living room. We went through each cupboard and discovered doubles and triples of some cooking utensils. Why in the world did we have three and four sets of dishes, some packed away in the attic, when we could only use one set at a time? There were many closets to go through, beds to look under, and boxes to open to decide what could go and what should be saved.

In a period of 12 months we had three or four yard sales to de-clutter and shrink the amount of things we felt we needed to live. Everything was sifted through in our home. Chest of drawers, closets, pictures on the walls, and the attic were opened and cleaned out. We realized we couldn’t take it all with us (we moved with suit-cases only, no large cargo containers). Things we couldn’t let go of in the first yard sale eventually made its way out of the house. The culling process was necessary for us to determine what was most important and what was extra.

Include the kids
We have three teenagers in our family. So needless to say, moving them from their home country, home language, great friends, loved grandparents, and many other things was not easy. We allowed our children to be involved in the process of making decisions concerning the move when it was appropriate. We were able to take them to see the city they would live in before we moved. They were able to have input on where we would live in the city. They researched about teen life in the new city and country they would soon call home. Kids need to know they are an important part of the family when decision making is taking place. They did not have veto power over the move but they did have a voice in critical decisions. Giving our children ownership in the decisions and choices proved to be vital for our family.

Each family must decide what is the appropriate amount of input to receive from children in relation to their ages. Our family has seen the benefit of allowing older children to be involved early in the process.  It gave each child the opportunity to come to terms with the family’s transition. Obviously, the older the child the more important it will become for them to have input in decisions because they have much at stake. We wanted our kids to experience the joy of the adventure as much as their parents.  This required the kids’ ownership in the decision-making process.

Serve Together
1 John 3:18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Missional living and giving has been a very important part of our family. But, it went into over-drive when we realized we would be living in a place where we would be the primary representation of Christ to the world. In the US we often relied on the church (institution/organization) to program for us and provide opportunities for our family. We began to look for and ask God to show us avenues to serve in our neighborhood and community where our presence could make a difference for His namesake. Since this would be our full-time responsibility in another country, why not start right while we lived in the US?

We began working in a low income housing network in our community with an after-school program. This type of service allowed our children to be involved with hands-on ministry to kids their own age and younger. We gained a new perspective on what God had called us toward as a family, and it also helped our children to see they were vital in spreading the hope and love of Christ to others. They began to have a vision of mission that was independent of their parents.

Open Your Home
Romans 12:13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
1 Peter 4:9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
We began to have people in our home more often. Hospitality became a focus for our family. Inviting new people into our home became the new outreach for our family. Our family has always enjoyed our home as a private space to relax and retreat. Our experience has been when we invite someone into our home their walls begin to break down and they begin to share who they really are. Learning to show hospitality was a major growth area for me personally and pushed me way outside of my comfort zone.

Home has always been a private and personal space for me as an adult. I enjoyed going home and retreating from my fast-paced, people-oriented job and ministry. As we began to learn about hospitality and observe people who practice this discipline we realized how powerful it is in the lives of believers and nonbelievers. Opening one’s home to another in Christian hospitality reveals an authenticity that demonstrates the love of Christ in tangible expressions. People live fast-paced and impersonal lives today that makes hospitality difficult to practice unless a family makes it a priority.

I had to reorient my thoughts of home, my expectations of privacy, and my rush for retreat. God gave me a home for inviting people into relationship and for meeting the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of people. I am glad we started this training in the US. Walking through the initial discomforts I felt in practicing hospitality in a familiar culture has proven invaluable as we invite people into our home here in our new country.

Downsize Your Living
As soon as we knew we were moving to our new country and the news became public we placed our home of 8 years on the market. While still in our familiar culture, we wanted to move to a smaller living arrangement so as to begin experiencing what it would be like to live in an apartment as a family of five. Our kids had never lived in an apartment, and my wife and I hadn’t since our newlywed days.  Apartment living proved to be one of the best decisions we made before leaving the United States. The move forced many things into and out of our lives – like close living arrangements, garage sales to de clutter and prioritize possessions, a feeling of transition, and close proximity to others for easy outreach. The move was an emotional step in the process of leaving, but it was good to have time to process these feelings before moving to another culture.  Attempting to work through the emotions of selling our family home along with all of the other emotions associated with a major transition of moving overseas would have been more difficult in a foreign culture.

Learn the Language Early
Learning a new language is difficult, stressful, and time consuming.  Our family began taking French classes to familiarize ourselves with the language while we were living in the U.S.  Our church planting team pooled their resources and hired someone to teach our team one night a week. We were far from fluent at the end of six (6) months, but it gave us a taste of what was to come. We rented and watched French movies. We bought a popular computer program to practice language, and we labeled everything in our home with the proper French words.  Again, we were far from fluency.  Correctly practicing the proper pronunciation of words in the context of the language makes for fluency. It is difficult to practice French correctly in Middle Tennessee. But, we were familiar with basic phrases and words. The practice helped our family to not feel completely lost in our new culture. I am still learning language as of this writing, but my brief experiences with a new language in the States has greatly benefited my learning here in the new country.

Make Connections In-Country
Part of learning about the new country involved making connections with people who were living in that country. With the advent and rise of social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) it isn’t difficult to connect with people from other parts of the world. The internet has also made it very easy to research networks of people in your field for information. We have spent time reconnecting with these people since we have been in the new country, and it has proven to be vital. We have experienced some instant connections from our time communicating online while still in the United States. These relationships have eased the cultural transition for our family.

There is so much to learn about the new city, country, and culture you are moving to with your family. We began to research online consistently and discovered new information and new people each day. All of which gave us more confidence in making the move. We utilized children’s history books, women’s club guides, local magazines, scholarly journals, movies, Google alerts about the desired city and country, and social media contact with locals to help us connect to our new country.

Develop the Network in the States
Prov. 27:23-27
James 5:16b The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Take time to develop a network of people who will commit to pray for your family and support your vision financially. This step takes a lot of time but is always well worth the effort. We cannot accomplish all we desire without the faithful prayer support of people who know us best and love us the most. Our family has a spreadsheet we developed that we can view anytime and know who is praying for our family. We are able to quickly communicate our needs, both financial and spiritual, with people who are part of the team for reaching our target city. I cannot stress enough how important it is to have these people on a document you can easily access to allow you to see with certainty the team God has assembled. We also utilize the document to help us remember who we have communicated with personally and what their particular prayer needs are so we can also pray for them. Partnership is a two way street and we want to pray for our team as much as they are remembering our family. We are privileged to have over 200 families on our team. Only a small portion are financial supporters, but all of them are prayer team supporters and each play a vital role in accomplishing the task God has sent us to do in the city.

Gather the Docs
While you are in the waiting mode for relocating it is important to start gathering, compiling and collating the important documents of your family. Most countries want verifications of many kinds for VISA requirements and for entering schools. Some of the documents you might need include passports, marriage license, birth certificates, apostilles verifications from the Secretary of State where the documents originate, shot records, medical records, education records, and many others depending on the country you are moving toward.  This process can take several months if you have to track down documents in other states. After gathering the recommended documents, make an electronic copy for easy access and backup in case of emergency.

Journal the Journey
Deut. 6:5-9 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

We encouraged everyone in our family to begin a spiritual journal about the process we were walking through. This served as a way to process what God was saying to each person through His Word and through the research and circumstances we were facing as a family and as  individuals. These collections of personal thoughts, prayers, and scriptures could be easily accessed to review and remember how God was leading and how He had led us as a family and individually. I am so thankful for these journals that record God’s faithfulness in the journey.

These are some of the important steps our family made in our transition to another country. Each step helped us process and move further down the road in our transition from “Yes, we will go,” to “Wow, we are here.”