The Question of Stuff

It's funny what questions people have about our move.

Most ask the same types of things I think I would if I were in their shoes:

"Wait... where is Guatemala?"

"You're driving there!?

"How long will you be gone?"

But, there are also some questions we've gotten (from a surprisingly high percentage of people) that kind of make us wonder. And giggle. Just a little.

For example, I can't tell you how many times people have looked at us and said, "Are you taking your kids?"

Mind you, this is after they know we're planning more than just a brief trip - we're going to be moving there! And, while I understand that their kinda-goofy external expression is merely an indication of some serious internal reflection and processing, it's still hard for me not to quip back, "No, we thought we'd just put them into storage until we returned..."

The question of storage (for stuff - not kids) does come up a lot, though, and I think it's a great question. People are curious (just like I would be) about what we're taking with us, and what we're putting into storage here.

Many of our decisions about our 'stuff' have been based, out of necesity, on the space we have avaialable. But, I guess that's true for everyone. If you have a mansion, you have a mansion's worth of stuff. If you have a tin shack (like many in Xela do), you have a tin shack's worth of stuff. We have a Jeep Liberty (which is not very big), so very soon we will have only a Jeep Liberty's worth of stuff.

Plus a little in storage.

I'm sure there will be more blogs to come in the future about exactly what we're taking with us. For now, I thought I might share about what we're putting into storage, and why.

We decided early on not to put furniture or other big stuff into storage, because we don't really own anything of tremendous value (monetary, historical, sentimental, or otherwise) when it comes to furniture. We've usually purchased things second-hand, which was easy to do once, and will be easy to do again.

Ditto kitchen items. Ditto bedding. Ditto, well, almost everything else.

So, this is it. This is what 5 people's worth of stored stuff looks like for us:

We kept old home movies and family photos. (There were a LOT of those!) We kept our two old computer towers for practical purposes, in case we end up needing something off of them that we somehow didn't get transfered to our new external hard drive. We kept yearbooks, newspaper clippings, baby books, and a few other things to prove to our kids that they did have a life before we moved. We kept a couple of sentimental items each, that had come from family or friends and evoked warm memories. The girls each kept a small tub or two of their favorite toys, and we kept many of our family's favorite books.

I can already tell that the next time we come back for a visit we will ask ourselves why on earth we kept so much. Moving to Xela, I guess you could say, is a little like practicing up for moving to Heaven. Now, we can't take much with us, which helps us recognize that 'stuff' just isn't all that important. After all, we're not going to get to taking anything with us when our time on earth is done. And, since our citizenship is really in heaven, and not on earth (Phil. 3:20), I'm pretty happy that we're learning to pack accordingly..

What about you - what would YOU put into storage if you were in our shoes???