My kids are doing great! This move has gone so well for them and I'd like to share a few reasons why I think they are transitioning so well.
1. We have laid a foundation in our family that we follow and obey God. It's something we've stressed with them from the beginning. We talk about what it means to follow God and we have taught them that God is worthy of our trust.
2. We included them in our decision to move. When we told our kids about the way God was leading us they were surprisingly cool with it. We were honest with them about the positive and negative impact this move would have on our family. We allowed them to talk about their feelings, fears, excitements, etc. There was never a sense of, "We've decided to move and you guys are coming with us whether you like it or not!" We had a very open form of communication with them about everything (and continue to since we've gotten here).
3. We prayed about this church plant with them from the beginning. They are only 7 and 9, but they talked very openly to God about it. It's awesome to see their vision for Verve and our family's presence in this city. They shared their hearts with God.
4. We waited about a week before they started school so they could hang out with us and begin to feel comfortable in their new surroundings. Another thing that helped was that Vince completely focused on us and the house for the first two weeks we got here. He had some meetings, but he was with us for the most part.
5. The night before school, we drove to the school parking lot and prayed with them. After we prayed we took them to an ice cream shop to celebrate. After their first day we went to McDonald's and asked them tons of questions about their first day. They were our main focus that day.
6. We got them into their favorite extra curricular activities right away. Baseball tryouts were the second weekend we were here and practices started shortly thereafter. I got Marissa back into hip hop dance lessons, which she loves. We wanted their lives here to be somewhat similar to life in Virginia Beach. Getting them involved in the activities they did in Virginia Beach was one way to do that.
I'm sure we've also made some mistakes with this transition, but I feel like we've done a good job overall. Please share some of your tips for transitioning your kids into a new environment. We could all use a little help in this area. Be sure to leave some comments!
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