Three days before leaving America, we enjoyed a perfect fall day at the Denver Botanic Garden’s Corn Maze. As the cousins wound their way through the maze, I relished in the blue sky and sunshine.

Clean air. Endless blue skies. Cousin time. Just a few of the things we would miss in China.

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Are we crazy? What are we even doing? Our kids (A, three years old and T, eight weeks old) are going to miss out on so much. We are hauling them across the globe where the closest extended family member is a 14 hour plane ride away. We are moving them to a country where nobody else looks like them. We are raising them in a place where they can’t always play outside because of the pollution or heat or mosquitoes.

And what am I doing? How do I help my kids thrive in this culture when I can’t even identify all of the vegetables in the produce aisle? I don’t want to live in an American bubble (which is possible in this area), but boy is it tempting.

We are sacrificing a lot for this career. But the cool thing about life is that there are almost always two ways to look at every experience. We can dwell on we are missing (friends, easy transportation, mac ‘n cheese), or we can step back and realize what we are gaining through it all.

No, my kids will not grow up in one home the way I did, but they will learn to adapt to all sorts of circumstances. They will rarely (if ever) live where people look, talk, act, or think like them, but they will learn how much we all have in common in the ways that matter most. We will have to say countless goodbyes, but that will help us to value our relationships, focus on making the most of the present, and learn to sacrifice to maintain friendships across time and distance.

Moving every few years will teach our little family to rely on each other. Right after Jarek and I were married, we moved to China for a year-long language intensive program and it was the best thing we could have done for our marriage. No matter what happened, we had to work through challenges together because other family and close friends were thousands of miles away. Friends will come and go, but our family will be constant. Whether the kids like it or not, they are stuck with us!

In the past year, we have already seen some of the benefits of this career choice. First, A is developing quite the food palate. His favorite food is jiaozi (Chinese dumplings) and he is willing to try almost anything we ask – dragon fruit, passion fruit, spicy noodles, lamb, and pigeon. And he loves all of those things! A few days ago, he wouldn’t eat the onions in his dinner so we asked him just to try them and teach his little brother how to try lots of foods. He did and quickly shouted, “I love onions! Onions are soooo nummy!” Of course, maybe that is just A’s personality rather than a benefit of this lifestyle.. T could really throw us for a loop!

This job has also taught us to be grateful for what we have. We are reminded to live in gratitude not only because we have to pack up all our belongings every few years, but also because we see and will continue to see others who live with so much less. We are products of America’s consumer culture (don’t ask how much money I spent at Target this summer), but it’s amazing how little actually we need to be happy.

I took heart leaving America this time around as A anxiously awaited returning to what he calls our “new home” in China. Nearly every day this summer he asked me when we were getting on the airplane to go back to our new home. And when we got back he exclaimed, “I love our new home! Our new home is my favorite!”