simply homemaker

Hello everyone!

It is me here, on my cozy corner of the internet, writing a weekly blog from my bedroom in Switzerland!

Wow, I can’t believe a week has passed since I arrived in St. Gallen. In the last week, I met a lot of people and spent a lot of time exploring the little town I’ll call home for 3 months. Today I was talking to a girl who just got here and she told me I sound like I have lived here a long time. I guess a week of much walking can do some good 🙂

St. Gallen, with the university being the main source of young people, has people coming from all over the world. Truly, everyone I have met here seems to be from a different corner of the world. The only thought I have right now is: man, this would make a great location for a campus ministry.

Today marks my first Friday of being in St. Gallen. I started it out by doing the hard thing, paying my rent with the horrible exchange rate that the banks here have. And then my day got a little better – as I journeyed out to Lake Konstanz, had a glass of sparkling apple juice, and went to a classical music concert (or konzert) at Tonhalle, a beautiful theater only 10 minutes walk from my building, and ended the night by singing some karaoke with some friends I just met here.

Tomorrow, I’m spending the morning getting some work done, and in the afternoon, we’ll go swimming! There are three artificial ponds that are up the hill/mountain from St. Gallen, and I want to swim before it gets too cold. Thankfully, tomorrow is the warmest day we will get for a long while, and then it will start raining for a week straight. I am SO thankful I brought my umbrella, my rain jacket, and my rainboots. Heavy? Yes. Worth it? 100%.

St. Gallen is a quaint and small town, but with the university students all arriving this week, it has been sort of wild with young people on every corner of the street. In college, I never really did any partying, so this is new to me. I do know that next week as school begins on Tuesday and the rainy season descends on us, things will be different, and this won’t last very long. But I’ll enjoy this phase when it lasts, karaoke nights and fondue nights and hang outs in the kitchen drinking tea with new friends.

This week also marks saying goodbye to a dream I nurtured and poured into all summer. Deep down, I know this is a good choice, but it still feels a little bit sad. Crazy how you can be pursuing things for months and then when the time comes, you end up deciding to wait for it. Waiting is NOT my cup of tea, but in this season, I’m learning to hold on to what is right in front of me and offered to me.

I’m super super excited, because this Sunday I’ll get to visit a church in St. Gallen! I wrote them about a month back, and they told me that aside from church service they also have a young adults group. Very pumped about this. We’ll see how it goes next week! Church is a 15 bus ride away which is not bad!

Following the theme I was writing about before I left Texas, I feel like the moment I turned 25 suddenly people demand that I have things figured out. It’s been comforting and good to hear from real people I admire that they still don’t have things figured out 🙂 It seems like with what I was able to accomplish in the past (coming from just a crazy busy schedule) and the fact that I am about to finish my graduate degree, the questions are now validified. “What’s next?” “Have you thought about dating or have you seen someone recently?” “When are you gonna have a job and be responsible again?”

The truth is, these questions come from people who love me and care a lot about me. And the thing is, I know these questions in their core come from a really good place. I value a career and a family too. I think it’s just different when people who care about you decide to invest intentionally in you rather than questioning and demanding you.

Instead of checking with me if I’m dating or thinking about marriage, you can ask me what kind of marriage I want and what kind of person I want to be with.

Instead of demanding I get a job, ask me what kind of job I’m looking to apply for and if I already have had things I’m potentially interested in.

Take one more step of intentionality. Ask the question. Be curious. I learned this the hard way this summer, when my best friend was struggling hard with something, and instead of being curious and caring, I questioned and demanded things from her. It was not kind of me, and I had to really learn from this experience, but it also taught me a lot of what right thing to expect in my current season of waiting.

The truth is, as soon as Switzerland ends and my trip home to Vietnam is over, reality will hit really really hard and the questions I get will probably triple. You’re done with your “eat pray love” phase, now what?

I don’t think I will be traveling every single weekend again. In fact, I don’t even think that I will want to.

Settling down and beginning to plan even deeper roots sounds really, really good to me right now as a next step. And I can say that because I know that every single day living either in Texas, Europe, or Vietnam, I am intentional to do things my life of settling down will not likely entail, but will greatly inform this next chapter.

For example, I will not be signing up randomly for classical music concerts, but I can start listening to classical music on my student Spotify account.

Or I will not be jetting away or taking the train to a beautiful town on the weekend, but I can go on a scenic walk.

I won’t be making tons of new friends or acquaintances every day, but I will treat people in my local town as who they are: interesting people with a story. I am such a firm believer in stories. Everyone has one. You just gotta ask.

Yes, I will be working. But I love work.

Maybe I’ll trade the walking tours and the baby holding for a desk and chair again, but I will forever be grateful for the countless hours of listening to The Hiding Place when driving to pick up some little boys from school, or dressing up baby Ellie when she wakes up and learning how to feed her, or actually feeling somewhat more connected to my graduate school because I have to give a tour about it every single week.

Every single thing is held with such precious memory. Thank you, Jesus.

Yes, I will start out this next chapter of life virtually broke. But I learned to make oatmeal and how to eat apples with peanut butter and what kind of meal prepping would work for me and how dresses do not actually make me a happier person (still love them, though, but no longer buying 2 dresses a month), because I had to adopt a more frugal lifestyle. I will start out this next chapter of life doing “boring things,” but I will have stories to tell of how I brought 100 lbs of things to live in Switzerland for 3 months and have to go to 3 different stores to figure out how to buy trash bags. I will start out this next chapter potentially building a new community again, if my job takes me somewhere not Virginia or Texas. But I have never been more relationally rich, with many standing in my corner and being a family to me.

Being here reminds me daily that so many people made this happen. My parents who make the financial worries about this trip go away. My friends from church in Virginia who prays for me. The Millers who hosted me all summer. The Ruffins who will drive my car back. The Mosleys who are “hosting” it. Friends who drove with me to Texas and to the airport and visited me for my birthday. Even my professors who would sit and chat with me about my future career. Friends who would proofread my writings. A friend from the MBA program who pretty much made me apply for this trip. It’s a whole village. It’s not a Tram show.

In fact, it is a beautifully woven canvas God has created so I am able to go and be a disciple in a land where many people, especially young ones, do not love Jesus.

I don’t forget that. Thankful for my tribe who loves the Lord and loves me.

Just where I am at right now- thank you for following along this far! Please pray that the swimming trip tomorrow is safe and enjoyable. I’ll update you on it next time.

Love,

Tram