dinner with the stillwells

yes... my head is really that much larger than everyone else's.


tonight we had dinner with the stillwells. i coach the "mighty snowflakes"... a club basketball team... with david and his two sons also play on the team. we have been trying for a while to get together and finally met up saturday night. really good, kind people. they have been living in central asia for 18 years... first in uzbekistan and now in kyrgyzstan. their three boys (mike who is 16, alex who is 15 and caleb who is 10) are all "americans" but have never lived in the states. david refers to them as "third culture" kids. they aren't native (to central asia) kids so they don't fit in that way but they can't really be considered american either. he went on to say that "third culture" kids... according to studies he has read... are able to fit in anywhere with anyone but at the same time they don't have feel like one place is "home". we talked alot about the pros and cons (in their opinion) about raising kids overseas. obviously they lean towards the "pro" side since that is what they have done with their family. they talked about the downside of the american pop/commercial culture and being able to raise strong, independent thinking kids outside of those pressures. the downside of being an expat, they went on, was the fluidity of the community. for the most part expats tend to gravitate towards other expats (because of the shared common experience) and because of the nature most overseas jobs... family move on after two years to another posting, etc. so it is hard to develop long term community with folks. it was a good conversation and good stuff for jen and i to think about as we consider heading down that road ourselves of staying overseas and having a family.

they have had some pretty amazing experiences while over here and you can tell as all three of the kids are super nice, respectful, thoughtful and funny. micheal, the oldest boy, spent three weeks in afghanistan this summer volunteering at a local school there. the whole family has tons of work like that. it is pretty inspiring.

of course on the other side of the coin, david and his family are moving back to the states this summer because he wants to prepare his kids for college by giving them some time to get use to the american culture. there is even a summer "re-education camp" for expat kids to help them adjust to the american lifestyle. i know this sounds crazy... but jen and i struggled with this a little bit over christmas and we had only been gone for three months. can't imagine what it is going to be like for his kids.

so jen and i decided to help them by giving them some advice to being teenagers in the states and almost all of our advise was counter to how things are here in central asia. we will save that list for another post.