What happened to 2016??

 I'm not going to apologize for not keeping up with this blog...for the entire year of 2016. Life happened, people. The Krohns were on the battlefield and nearly lost the battle. We only commuted 7 miles each way to school in Lima, but it took approximately 30-90 minutes each way. I was teaching full-time with all new classes, some of which didn't even have lesson plans or developed units. And then we moved continents for goodness sakes!

I'd love to tell you the ways I rocked 2016, but I was actually a hot mess. Like for the whole year. Previous posts might have alluded to the ways I was failing, or at least the ways I was falling...I'm not going to lie, it was something I hope to never repeat. I was exhausted, not momming or wifing very well, and really not even surviving very well.

 So many variables converged at the same time, variables that have no business converging...ever! Between teaching all new classes, our commute, various issues at the Seminary for Jeff, his PhD writing, kids becoming teenagers, hormones, and the unexpected things that inevitably happen when you live overseas (like our washer and dryer spontaneously combusting into flames, and how we had to evacuate our house and our neighbors had to call the fire department one night at 10pm!!!!!)...we knew something had to change in our family.

A couple years ago, when we were feeling strapped financially and being stretched emotionally, we began throwing around ideas of serving in other locations. Lima is expensive, you might think that because it's a developing country it would be cheap to live daily. Not so much. Along with the normal costs of housing, groceries (for a family of 6), gas, utilities, extra-curricular stuff to do as a family, there are also educational costs. I didn't get paid to work at the school, we got some tuition deductions, but not nearly enough to make it work for us financially. Especially not considering how much work I did and the hours I put in.

So...added to Jeff's frustrations with some ministry things and our ever growing tiredness of the commute and crazy city life, we began looking into other locations within the SIM world. We looked for places we could engage more in our gifts/passions, where there was a good school for our kids, but someplace that we could also financially afford.

This actually took place over a period of a couple years, but we didn't really share with anyone that we were looking for a new location, because we weren't even sure it was the wisest choice for us as a family. Who up and moves their family to a new continent after 14 years in one place? Who tells their 15 year old that he has to leave his friends and move to a new place? Was it a mid-life crisis, or was it a prompting from God that grew from very specific circumstances in our lives?