Living Abroad can challenge any marriage. When married cross-culturally those challenges quadruple. Michelle Acker Perez candidly shares about life overseas and experiences of be Guatemala and the joy and difficulties of cross-cultural marriage. We covered a wide range of topics with Michelle including navigating uncomfortable situations within each others home cultures, sorting out family dynamics, and dealing with the tension between her and her husband around opportunities brought on by privilege. Michelle shares eye-opening experiences dealing with immigration around the world as a couple with two different passports. Sure, there are challenges to cross-cultural marriage, but Michelle is convinced with hard-work, communication, grace and understanding that marriage of two cultures can work beautifully.

Stick around for "Favorite Things" segment where we discuss keeping in touch with family. Also, Denise and Alicia get a little loopy. You don't want to miss that.

Like what you heard? Go to www.takingroute.net for more expat conversations and resources. Don't forget to join our Instagram community @takingrouteblog.

Please check out our shownotes for all the resources listed in this episode including links to "Our Favorite Things" www.takingroute.net/podcast.

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It's always good to have a plan. That's the responsible thing to do, after all. Unfortunately, there's never any guarantee things will go according to plan -- and this is when our flexibility as expats is tested. Allie Riddle, a third generation expat, shares her experience from her family's sudden evacuation from her home in South Sudan when the war was just too close. Allie left behind her home and her dream job as a nurse in a mission hospital. Allie shares the emotional and spiritual transformation that happened when she didn't hold on to plans too tight.

Stick around at the end of the show to here for the "Favorite Things" segment where we discuss favorite fall hacks.

Like what you heard? Go to www.takingroute.net for more expat conversations and resources. Don't forget to join our Instagram community @takingrouteblog.

Please check out our shownotes for all the resources listed in this episode including links to "Our Favorite Things" www.takingroute.net/podcast.

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It's time for another segment of "It's Tea Time Somewhere!" This time we're talking home assignments. What does our preparation look like? How bad is the jet lag? (Spoiler alert: real bad.) What does life look like when we're finally back to our home country? These are just a few of the things Denise, Alicia, and Melissa chat about in regards to heading "home." So go ahead and make yourself some tea or coffee and get comfy. You won't want to miss us talk about all that has happened to us while under the influence of jet lag.

Please check out our shownotes for all the resources listed in this episode and for resources for your home assignment at www.takingroute.net/podcast.

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The longer you live overseas, the harder it is to answer the question, "which country do you like best?" While culture shock usually brings all the things you don't love about a country to the surface, longevity ends up showing you things about the culture you wish you could take with you everywhere you go. We covered a wide-range of topics with Elizabeth including making friends, having a bicycle as your main transportation, and giving birth abroad. What do they all have in common? Trade-offs. We think you'll walk away after listening to this interview with a new enthusiasm to embrace your host country with open arms. Sure, there are things we might just have let go of... but there are also new things we can pick up along the way.

Please check out our shownotes for all the resources listed in this episode including links to "Our Favorite Things" www.takingroute.net/podcast.

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Sometimes we don't think we "have the time" to embark on anything new. No time for exercise, no time for writing, no time to start a new hobby (or pick an old one back up). The idea seems dreamy but you're convinced your schedule is simply too packed to add anything else. Sara Beth certainly thought this same thing when considering whether or not she should join her husband in training for a triathlon. She had plenty of good reasons not to: homeschooling five kids, bouncing back and forth between city life and mountain life, the dangerous levels of pollution that tend to happen in China, the fact that she didn't have an athletic bone in her body. Sara Beth was convinced there was no time to start anything new, until she looked at her schedule and realized she could be making better use of the time. Not only has this new adventure (in her case, training for a triathlon) helped her overall well-being as an expat living in Western China, it's changed her whole family for the better too.

Please check out our shownotes for all the resources listed in this episode including links to "Our Favorite Things" www.takingroute.net/podcast.

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Isn't it funny how sometimes we struggle with going the extra few steps to meet our neighbor, even though we've already taken thousands of steps to move overseas in the first place? We've already sold all our possessions, moved away from all that's familiar, and immersed ourselves into a new culture and language. So what makes taking some of those extra steps to reach out to the people around us so difficult? Jana shares her personal experience with this struggle and how she has found ways to push herself, even it means awkwardly offering a loaf of banana bread to get the conversation going.

Please check out our shownotes for all the resources listed in this episode including links to "Our Favorite Things" www.takingroute.net/podcast.

Like what you heard? Go to www.takingroute.net for more expat conversations and resources. Don't forget to join our Instagram community @takingrouteblog.

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Any high schooler would choose boarding school over homeschooling, right? Not necessarily. Robin Talley discusses how as a family they talked through educational choices and how they decided to homeschool through high school, even though they live in a remote area without traditional American opportunities. Robin talks to us about overcoming doubt during hard times, being creative to fulfill the social needs of her teens and how to smoothly transition from making decisions FOR your children to making decisions WITH your children. This episode is packed full of wisdom from a TCK parent even if your kids are just toddlers and homeschool isn't even on your radar.

Please check out our shownotes for all the resources listed in this episode including links to "Our Favorite Things" www.takingroute.net/podcast.

Like what you heard? Go to www.takingroute.net for more expat conversations and resources. Don't forget to join our Instagram community @takingrouteblog.

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What do you do when fear seems like it's paralyzing you? What if the life overseas you envisioned seems to be unraveling? Ruth Ripken touches on these questions as she opens up about sickness and loss in her own life while living abroad. She reminds us that moving forward doesn't have to be a lot of steps all at once. Sometimes it simply means taking one obedient step at a time.

Please check out our shownotes for resources on grief, loss and dealing with death from afar. www.takingroute.net/podcast

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Introducing our new episode series: "It's Tea Time Somewhere!" Every several episodes, we'll take a break from interviewing guests and the podcast team will get together to chat about different topics. This week it's all about LANGUAGE. The thought of that either made you fist pump the air with excitement or made your eye twitch a little. Denise, Alicia and Melissa share about the beginnings of their language journeys. They also share tips for our Instagram Community and chat a little about advance language learning and breaking past plateaus. No matter what your feelings are towards learning a new language or where you are in that language learning journey, we hope you'll find this episode to be helpful.

For full show notes go to www.takingroute.net/podcast

Like what you heard? Go to www.takingroute.net for more expat conversations and resources. Don't forget to join our Instagram community @takingrouteblog.

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A lot of people thought Dacia wouldn't last in Uganda. Pretty clothes and heels filled her closet in Texas before she decided to sell everything, buy her first pair of flat shoes, and move abroad. She was the only overseas worker with a local boss and she knew if they were going to make this work, she was going to have to submit to the culture a little more than most people do. Dacia is a radiant example of someone who went all in, even when rejection was abundant, in order to show her love for the people.

This episode's "Favorite Things" topic is from around the web. We share about one of our favorite websites for overseas women, Velvet Ashes.

For full show notes go to www.takingroute.net/podcast

Like what you heard? Go to www.takingroute.net for more expat conversations and resources. Don't forget to join our Instagram community @takingrouteblog.

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