Fun Furlough Fact Nights

Sorry for the months of blog silence on my part.  I guess life has just been really busy, and well, for the most part, nothing really blog-worthy has been happening.  Just lots of trying to get the normal, day-to-day chores done, and attempt to pack up the house for a year at the same time.  Not too exciting.

But we had so much fun around the dinner table this evening that I thought I would share.

Tonight we started what will hopefully be a weekly series around the dinner table.  As we are now less than 5 weeks away from boarding the first of 7 planes that will carry us across the Pacific and back to California, we wanted to start dialoguing with the kids about things they need to be aware of and know about furlough.  So tonight we had a "Furlough True or False Quiz."

Over the past couple of weeks, Matt and I have been compiling a list of things we need to discuss with the kids, or things they need to be aware of as we get ready to spend a year in a country that really is foreign to them.  While Matt and I may feel like we are 'coming home', for the five children who accompany us, everything will be new/weird/strange/foreign.  They will be leaving their home.  Everything they know.  All their friends, and venturing to a strange, foreign land where Matt and I will be their only constants.

So we began our furlough series by a fun quiz which brought up various topics.  Things like wearing shoes.  Here, kids are used to going barefoot.  They take off their shoes to go into their school classrooms.  Kids often don't wear shoes to church.  They can be seen anywhere around the Center (store, roads, etc) barefoot.  So we had to have a discussion about how shoes must be worn pretty much anywhere we go in America.  And, how the strange people there do the unthinkable and 'wear shoes inside the house!' (gasp!  astonishment!!!)

Or take riding in a car.  We don't own a car here.  Riding in a car is a rare and special treat for us.  And when we do, there are no carseats, or seatbelts.  The kids just pile in (sometimes it can be like a clown car-- it's amazing how many people can fit in a vehicle if you don't have to worry about seatbelts!) or even ride sitting or standing in the back.  That will sure be a change for them once we hit American soil and they have to be in their legal car or booster seat, and always strapped in tight.  Just another thing we wanted them to be aware of before we get into that car for the first time.

We have lots more things to discuss with them:  safety, the fact that in the summer it will be light out until bedtime (or beyond!) and that during the winter it will be dark by well before dinner, and countless other things.

It was fun to have this discussion with kids who are finally old enough to understand and participate.  (And a couple who weren't quite there yet.)  Hopefully these sessions will help our kids to calm some fears and be better equipped to handle the upcoming transitions.