It’s been a long time coming, but my family is finally moving! Not back to the States and not even off our Asian island—but we are finally leaving our village for the Big City.

Discontent with “Here”

By “village” I mean a network of dirt roads with 200 houses across the tracks from a city of about 700,000. Our trouble has been less the location and more a lack of social networks for the kids. No one in our area schools at home, meaning our kids rarely meet other students, and when they do, interactions are impossibly brief. When local students return from school in the evening, they either continue with tutoring or homework—or they veg at home on their phones.

City life won’t resolve this issue with local kids, but in connecting with a much larger network of expats, we’ll meet more homeschoolers like us. The after-school options of the Big City won’t hurt either!

Longing for “There”

I share all of this, because for 18 months now, both our kids (ages 13 and 14) have struggled to adjust back to life in Asia—the 14yo boy more than the girl. Although they both grew up here in Asia, COVID took us back to the States for nearly 5, incredibly formative years.

The result has been a daily reminder—often voiced as a joke, but nonetheless deep-seated and real—that they both just want to leave. They want to move back to America, to their friends, to a real school, to a church that has more than just the 4 of us in it.

What’s a Father to Do?

I have shared with family, close friends, and a few churches what this incessant cry of my kids’ hearts has stirred up in me as a dad—fear. Fear that by sticking with the Lord’s leading in our ministry, we’ll somehow ruin our kids—or worse, that they’ll blame God, not just us, for their misery. Someday maybe I’ll share more of that message with a broader audience, but for now I’ll just say that I’ve found great comfort in Psalm 23 and Psalm 46.

As I was doing some other personal reading this week, I came across this wonderful passage in another context that speaks so much to our current needs. Over lunch yesterday, I read this to my wife and kids, and I think it deserves a share. In the context of pastors craving a more “successful” ministry elsewhere, author Jared C. Wilson writes:

There is no promised land until the Promised Land of the real heaven. We always think things will finally be…well, final when we get “there,” wherever “there” is for us. But there is no there. There’s only here. Because once you get there, there becomes here, and there’s a new there. On and on it will go until our discontentment with ourselves is shaped by the contentment found in Christ and our yearning for this-worldly “theres” is conquered by the vision of the everlasting “there.” (Jared C. Wilson, The Pastor’s Justification, 38)

You should probably read that paragraph a second time. I know I had to.

Content with Christ and the Everlasting “There”

We’re treating this move as a trial-run. If the kids enjoy it, make friends, adapt to city life and the expat church—and if they can reasonably foresee four more years here as relatively agreeable and not torture—then we’ll extend our lease beyond the 6 months we’ve signed for now.

But in our review of this paragraph over lunch, I had to remind the kids—and my wife and myself—that moving “there” will not actually satisfy any of us. Moving to the City, moving back to the States, or even moving back to one of the houses where we lived during COVID will not scratch the itch for “home” we all have.

There’s third-culture stuff at play for us, sure, but this is a truth for every believer. Instead of seeking satisfaction in a place, a town, a house, a school, a church, or a person, we need to refocus. We need to renew our minds and return to the right perspective that nothing in this life satisfies but Christ. Nowhere will ever feel like a true home compared to the eternal place He’s preparing for us now.

The longings we feel are real. The discontent is understandable and even sometimes reasonable. But the solution we’ve conjured up—”If only we could move there!”—isn’t the answer.

Instead of dreaming of “there,” we need to get our focus back on “here.”

• Why did God allow us to move back? He has his reasons, and we know some of them.
  
• Why did we have to bring our kids to this “miserable” place? We can foresee the future benefits in both character and life experience these tough years will reap in them, even if they can’t see it now.
  
• How can we change our kids’ thinking from discontent with life’s lemons to contentment in following Jesus? We’re still trying to figure that one out.

Conclusion

We’re moving to our temporary lease tomorrow, and the fact is, I’m leery. We’re taking just one car-load of belongings, and I foresee huge complaints of boredom and discontent—yet I also see an opportunity to readjust everyone’s thinking about why we’re here as a family, how we can find our contentment in Jesus, and what bigger part the kids might play in the work God has for us here.

So, leery but cautiously excited. 

Pray for us—and if you know someone who’s longing for the wrong “there,” feel free give this a share.

©2025 E.T.