So this is Christmas

 We first sent out a 'Christmas' card four years ago, one that we hoped would sum up our year of travel and change as we moved to North Carolina. We've continued doing this since then, choosing photos that best represent the theme and mood of the year.  Here we are again, navigating more change and experiencing our first Christmas in DC.

2012 was a year of change – both geographic and in what we do day in and out. We began the year with 3 months in Thailand, returned to Durham for Andrea to graduate from Duke with a dual MBA and MPP, and then moved to Washington, DC in August. We journeyed through uncertainty and anxiety about the future but ultimately have felt God guiding and directing us. Details of our last year can be found in previous posts here on this site.

Although the last year has been challenging and at times, lonely, we are grateful for the opportunities that continue to unfold as we journey on an unknown path. We echo a quote from Julian of Norwich as we end this year and begin another: 

              “All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.” 

This is our prayer for you and us during this season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Duncan and Andrea
PS. We're including a few fun photos below of one of our recent visits to the White House. Yes, we have managed to go twice (!) in the past month, thanks to one of Andrea's former Duke classmates - once to walk through the West Wing and then a week or so later to view all the Christmas decorations at the "main house." Also below are a couple photos from Zoo Lights at the DC zoo and a view of our building lobby as we were getting ready for the annual holiday party.

Life now

Much has happened in the past two months since last posting – I spent a few days back in Seattle and checking on our house in Tacoma, Andrea went to Vienna where she attended a conference, we had a good first trip back to Durham and Duke Chapel and then a wonderful visit from my parents – who timed it perfectly to experience Hurricane Sandy, which left DC relatively untouched compared to further up the coast. We continue to navigate and settle into our jobs and discern what our lives might look like in this city.

This week I celebrated a birthday and today is Thanksgiving – so I’m taking some time to look back and reflect on this past year (and a few decades as well). We know we are really blessed and that God has been looking after us and orchestrating things even when we didn't feel like it was quite going according to our timing! From  our jobs to even where we live, we have been provided for and supported well. In our last post, we wrote about some of the people and things we loved and miss in Durham. Here are a few things we like about our space and place here.

Though it took a little consolidation and downsizing and there have been some ongoing maintenance issues we still like our apartment (a portion of our building above). It’s not perfect but there’s lots to like – nice kitchen, eating area, lots of light – but one of the things that sealed the deal and turned out to be absolutely necessary is the sun room – which we have filled with plants... and a chair! (Fun fact about our building...Back when Katie Couric was a reporter in DC, this is where she lived!)

Our neighborhood is full of trees and gardens. We spend a lot of time walking and exploring – the whole area feels like a secret garden! We never know what we might find when we turn the corner or go down an alley. For those of you who know DC, we are two blocks down from Politics and Prose bookstore and two miles north of the zoo.  We also really like being so close to Rock Creek Park. We really like the Nature Center and the Horse Stables in the park. This was also a highlight of my parents when they visited. They liked seeing the monuments and memorials but really enjoyed our “back yard”! Speaking of monuments, soon after we moved here, we did a five mile moonlight hike through all the monuments. We started out in a group of 100 or so, lost the leader somewhere along the way and finished up as a group of five!

We have checked out a few neighborhood churches and may have found one where we will land. Thankful for that. I'm also really thankful for friends and family scattered around the globe. Thankful for much.
Happy Thanksgiving!

Duncan

Missing You

As I said in the last post, friends are wonderful – and we miss our friends and community in Durham and Raleigh. Our last weeks in North Carolina were hectic but we were able to get some good time in with people that matter – our previously mentioned book group (as a group and individuals) and some other dear friends. It is strange now to be in a city surrounded by thousands of people and realize that (other than a few co-workers) nobody knows me and I don’t know anyone. Moving is lonely. And after starting over in a new place three years ago, it takes a little effort to want to be starting over again now. We’re thankful that our NC friends are only four hours away (ok, six if I-95 is jammed up as it often is for no reason!)

 (Photo's top to bottom - the last picture I took as we left Durham of our driveway and the sun peeking through the trees - i loved where we lived these past three years, our book group - I know I already posted this photo but they are worth posting twice!,  Lunch with wonderful and profound Mary Carol - also of the book  group!)

So here is a list of things I do and will miss from the past three years…

Friends and co workers, Duke Chapel and Congregation, the amazing and wonderful youth of Duke Chapel, our neighbors, our townhouse that was home for the past three years, the cardinals, cat birds and other flying friends who would entertain us taking their baths on our back patio, the lovely blue pool behind our house, NC blue skies and space… the two mile trail I would run through Duke Forest, cheap $5 Duke Performances (where we saw so many amazing performances from Bruce Springsteen to the Carolina Chocolate Drops to Murray Perahia), Duke Gardens – there’s a lot of Duke related things I miss.

I also miss Sam Wells, who left Duke Chapel in May to return to England and take up a post at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London ….quite honestly I cried and was sadder at his departure in May than when we left. (Perhaps in acknowledging the change and loss of this incredible life giving truth speaker, I was also anticipating our potential departure from this community we have found companionship the past three years.) I am excited for the new dean and have high hopes for him but like many at Duke Chapel, I felt Sam’s impact in a significant way and continue to process the gift and the loss of his presence and words even as we anticipate trying to find a church here – something I'm just not looking forward to very much. 

So there's much I miss and this post is about naming some of those people, places and things (even the North Carolina Pine Trees pictured above.)

But Bruce Puckett (who gave me the great opportunity to volunteer with the Duke Chapel youth) and who has done a remarkable job doing the many jobs handed to him in the last couple of years reminded me that in all our searching for and finding community, it is better to have loved and lost…and for this I am thankful. I have been loved and been able to love in return. Our time in NC, though challenging at times (unemployment for a year, difficult school) was a rare gift…which in some ways makes this move to DC more challenging. There is much we look forward to here at this stopping point on our wandering, but I sure miss people and places in NC and look forward to returning often. Here are a couple photos of a few activities we were able to sneak in at the last moment before we left including a paddle down a river and finally (after three years!) a visit to Maple View Farm!

Duncan

A Moving Summary

I never thought I would be living in DC. I certainly didn’t think we would be moving for my job. We always imagined we would move for Andrea and then I would figure something out. But as you read in the previous post, surprises happen! And while we anticipate enjoying DC, to live here, we had to move here and moving is never ever enjoyable – unless you or someone else is paying for someone else to do all the hard work. Unless that is the case, there’s no easy way around it, you just have to get through it. (photo below - the last things to get loaded into the truck...the plants!)

Andrea is a bit of a minimalist. If something hasn’t been used recently, she would prefer to get rid of it. I, on the other hand, tend to hold on to things. But this move made me vow (it made me mutter and curse all sorts of things as well) to take some drastic action to downsize. As I hauled box after box of books out to the truck, I all of a sudden realized the benefit and point of e-readers. (I promised myself that I would never buy another book in my life and that I would get rid of half my books by Christmas! OK, so half is not going to happen but a box or two have already been set aside!) I also became a believer in tatami mats (Thank you Japan!) If Jesus showed up today and told a cripple to pick up his bed and walk, it just wouldn’t happen. Or consider the man who was lowered through the roof on his bed mat by his friends to get to Jesus. It wouldn’t work today with our box springs and mattresses that are so unwieldy and have carrying handles in places where they are the least help!

And so we were soo thankful for our friends Deb, and McKennon and Anna (photos to the right, not during the move!) who stopped by the day we were loading the truck to give us a hand – helping us in a huge way! And thank goodness for Jose and Luis, two guys we hired in DC to help us get everything from the sidewalk up to the 4^th floor of our building. We knew we would need them for some of our bigger furniture, but they helped us with everything – and without their help we would not have been able to move in. The building we live in, stipulates that all moving has to be done by 5PM. Without Jose and Luis, it would not have happened – and even the couple times they had to take the stairs, it was amazing to watch and I was so thankful for them and that it wasn’t me as I would have just left it all on the sidewalk and walked away.

And while we are being thankful – a big shout out needs to go to Joe, our next door neighbor in Durham, who has helped us out many times before and came to our rescue once again – just as we were starting our adventure. Let’s just say we had planned on towing our car behind the 30' rental truck to DC (like we did when we moved to North Carolina three years ago) – but as soon as we pulled into our parking lot things went downhill – we couldn’t turn around, the trailer kept coming off – it was disastrous and not a good start to the day knowing how much work was ahead of us to load everything into the truck. Joe, as he has always done, helped us out with a smile and a big heart. Long story short, we decided after an hour or two of wrestling with the trailer, that the trailer would be staying in Durham – and it did! And perhaps this was God’s kindness to us. If we had that much trouble with a trailer in our empty parking lot in Durham, imagine the havoc we would have caused on busy DC streets. Again, I would have just left the truck and all its contents and walked away!

So thank goodness for friends (and people you can pay to be your friendsJ) because moving leaves you beaten up and sore (and I’m not even talking about the emotional part of moving and leaving.) Friends are wonderful.

Duncan

(photo to the left - boxes and stuff piled up inside our new home)

The Wilson’s Wander to Washington DC.

It has been pretty quiet on the blog  since returning from Thailand and since the last post about Andrea’s graduation. Life however has been quite busy with changes a plenty which have resulted in this, our first post from the ‘Cap’ (as I call it) where we moved four weeks ago. It really is quite an amazing story and to do it justice would take far too long a post. The easiest way to sum up the past five months is perhaps give a timeline of our experiences.

March 29 – I return from three months in Thailand, though the last two weeks were in Singapore where I was given the opportunity to help set up Workplace Options new office. Andrea had already been back two weeks for her final classes at Duke

April 4 – I returned to work in Raleigh and soon discussed a job opening in DC that had become available. Andrea meanwhile (as she had been for months) continued applying for positions that would somehow connect and put her skills to work combatting human trafficking and forced labor issues.

May 11-12 – Andrea graduates!

May 22 – I interviewed in DC to join the USAID Staff Care Center and began the wait to hear back. That same week, Andrea was invited to interview for a job which was soon offered to her. We wrestled back and forth about it as it really wasn't where she wanted to focus (Do we make a decision out of fear? Wisdom? Faith?) and she eventually said no to it as it wasn’t a good fit.

This is where it starts to get exciting! Five minutes after making the decision, she sent an email to a contact in DC who she had tried to contact numerous times over the previous week but each time the email came back. This time though, it went through and within 5 minutes the contact responded AND let Andrea know that she had forwarded her resume on to three people at different government agencies that work on human trafficking issues – one of which was an office that Andrea had been trying to get in contact for more than a year. Within another five or ten minutes, two people in that office had responded positively and also alerted her to a job that had just opened up that day. Andrea was beyond excited!

Meanwhile we had been told that we could not extend our lease for our house in Durham past the end of May (we had hoped to go month to month) as the owner wanted a commitment from someone for the school year. Eventually we were allowed to stay through the end of July. But we were now in limbo and waiting not knowing if either of us would get the jobs we had applied for, but knowing that we would have to move somewhere at the end of July. We were both at times frustrated and overwhelmed as the waiting continued and continued for what seemed like a very long time.

We were so grateful for our Duke Chapel Congregation book group (that had met once a month for the school year - photo to the right) and other friends at church who were so supportive in our time of not knowing what was going to happen - which caused a fair bit of angst!

At some point in June, I had agreed to go up to DC to fill in at the Staff Care Center for the third week in July…but I still didn’t know if I was going to get the position. I thought that this might be awkward if I was going to be filling in but didn't get the job! For various reasons the decision was delayed and so the wait and uncertainty and anxiety continued as we got closer to July.

July 5 – I received the offer that so many at my work said would happen and accepted. I’m still employed by Workplace Options in Raleigh but basically secunded to the USAID Staff Care Center. Now that we knew we were moving, we knew we only had about THREE WEEKS to find a place to live, pack and move! Thankfully we had the week scheduled in DC already and work was great in giving me/us a few extra days to go early and look for a place to live. By this point we realized (or perhaps remembered again) that God really is looking after us. We were able to take the company car for the week which had a GPS which totally saved us as we did our own version of House Hunters! AND we found a great place to live (more on that in another post!)

July 12 – While we were in DC for the week, Andrea heard back from the HR department about the job she had tried so hard not to get her hopes up, and was told that would not be having an interview. This was really difficult news as everything seemed to be working out so well. Keep in mind, Andrea returned to school as she felt very called to human trafficking work and she had applied to so many jobs and it seemed like every door was being closed to something she/we had sacrificed the past three years for.

July 24-25 – Final work days for me in Raleigh. WPO again was great in giving me the rest of the month off to pack and move.  My counselor coworkers threw a great potluck for me, even though at this point they thought I had used up all my potlucks. When we left in December to go to Thailand they had a potluck and when I returned in April, another one. My counseling co-workers have certainly been the highlight of the past two years working in Raleigh.

July 26-August 1 – Pack our house up and start loading the Budget truck again.

August 2 – Drive to DC (There will be another post coming on the lessons learned from this moving experience!)

August 2 – Here’s the kicker…As we were driving up to DC, Andrea got a voice mail from the human trafficking office in DC where just a couple weeks earlier she had not been invited to interview. “Would you like to come work as a contractor with us? Please call!”

August 3 – Andrea calls. We are exhausted, surrounded by chaos and boxes and they ask if she could come down to interview with them today. No need to get dressed up as they knew we had just arrived. Well, when opportunity knocks…

August 9 – One week after arriving in DC, Andrea is offered the job she had her heart set on – the same job that she had previously been denied a few weeks earlier - which she began this past Thursday, exactly 4 weeks from when we arrived here! I’ll let you draw your own conclusions, but for us, we can never again say that God’s timing isn’t perfect – even when it doesn’t seem so from our perspective!


Duncan

1000 Days

1000 days ago on a hot (100+ degrees) and humid Saturday afternoon, Andrea and I (along with her dad who graciously helped us drive our rental truck across the country) pulled into the parking spot in front of the town house in Durham that has been our home for almost three years now.

In some ways it seemed like just one more stop and a continuation of the 9 month trip we had been on the previous year where we slept in 60+ beds as we wandered the world. We were excited and a little apprehensive not knowing what lay in store for us.

 For Andrea it has been a busy, non-stop three years, with summer internships in Geneva (2010 working for the ILO) and Boston (2011 working for Fidelity) as well as our most recent time in Bangkok. Each of these excursions which have been recounted in various forms on this blog have their own stories of God’s provision, of reconnecting with old friends and making new friends.

Though at times it has been challenging and exhausting, Andrea has persevered and done well - her thesis is turned in and next Saturday and Sunday she will graduate with her MBA and a Master in Public Policy.

I have included a few photos from the past three years of the impending graduate!

Duncan

Singapore Highlights - March 14-28

Without a doubt, the highlight of my two weeks in Singapore was spending time with the staff that I was there to help train. The team of Vanessa, Wynne and Dilip (see photo above, along with Lorene from the US enjoying fishhead curry) are delightful, engaging, much fun and very generous and gracious hosts. Much of our time together was spent training and troubleshooting, ensuring that they were ready to go when the office officially opened on April 1. But much time was also spent eating as they were quite determined to have me try as many local dishes as we could possibly squeeze in (with no complaints from me!) So from Roti Prata to delectable seafood, fish head curry, chicken rice, noodles, clay pot, Indian, Chinese, Malay, the list was delicious and endless and I feel I barely scratched the surface. Though I have been to Singapore several times before, this was the longest I had spent which gave me a little more time to get to know the city/country.

I really appreciated the insights and answers to my many questions from Dilip, Wynne and Vanessa. Dilip also invited me to hang out with his wife, Maureen, and Liz (another friend) several times which also gave me a view into a little more of their lives. So, people, food and the final highlight…animals and birds. I was able to go to the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari and the Bird Park – all of which are quite amazing. Liz, Maureen and Dilip (photo below) joined me at the night safari.

(Above photos: cascading orchids at the Bird Park entrance, quiet scene in the bird park)

Two other "people" highlights included having two days with Lorene (see photo above), one of my US supervisors who had begun the training. Lorene is great and I was thankful to have the two days overlap with her before she returned to NC. The other highlight was spending an evening with Fi, a childhood friend who I started first grade with at Chefoo continuing all the way through highschool together. We had seen each other one time since high school three years ago when we were in Cambodia. Fi is actually Anne/Nini’s sister mentioned previously in this trip. It was really encouraging to just talk and talk and talk. I am so thankful for true life long friends.

Though Singapore is a major cosmopolitan city, there is so much lush greenery throughout. I’ve always been a fan! Still am. I was able to do alot of walking taking in the sights ranging from older traditional buildings to the modern and outrageous - like the new Marina Bay Sands Casino/Resort. (see photos below)

Then it was back to Bangkok this past Wednesday to gather up and pack everything for my return. After final goodbyes to Pi Fai at Union Tower, Bonita and Roy and Fern and Fink, I was soon catching my 2AM taxi to the airport for my 10,000 mile journey back to Durham.
Duncan