Normal Life

One of my favorite movies is Tombstone, and there are many lines that I really like in the movie. But my favorite and one that has stuck in my head since I first saw the film is a line that Doc Holliday says to Wyatt before he dies in the sanitarium at the end of the movie. After listening to Wyatt whine about his life he says, "There is no normal life, Wyatt. There's just life." Most people think that we live some adventurous, exotic life overseas, but to us it seems pretty normal, and hence the title of this blog. Our lives are a lot different than the average American family - speaking a different language, eating different foods, never driving a vehicle, traveling to other countries a lot... but this is the normal expat life. The life of a home owner, a commuter, an aristocrat, a public figure, a cancer patient, etc.... these are the kind of lives that to me would seem foreign and exotic. But I guess that everyone's life seems pretty normal to themselves when they are wrapped up in it. This is why the questions that people ask us about living overseas are sometimes so hard to answer, though. Because they address what to us is normal as if it were exotic. It would be like asking the average American why they drive to work everyday. As if there might be any other way that one could get to work...

And you probably thought that I got the title from Watchman Nee...