It’s not that we’re unhappy here in Saskatchewan – we’re definitely not.  Life is good – business is good – family and friends and faith….it’s all good.  So why would we want to sell our family home, quit our jobs and businesses, say goodbye to those we love and head south to a country with an uncertain economy and a crummy reputation?  Is it some kind of strange mid life crisis?  Like most ideas that grab the hearts of dreamers, there is really no easy way to explain what’s stirring inside.  But when the same idea grabs hold of both me AND my husband Grant,  I know we have to pay attention, since Grant and I are extreme opposites in most areas.

That’s what happened to us 4 years ago.  After some fantastic vacation times in the Puerto Vallarta area of Mexico, we were both gripped with the desire to pack up and move south for good.  Not to retire – but to continue the adventure of our self-employed lives in a place where we weren’t deprived of Vitamin D for 6 or 7 months a year because of the great snow conspiracy.  As we marinated in the idea and continued to visit the towns on Banderas Bay, we knew this wasn’t just about weather or tacos – this was a God idea and we were being led into a life of service in an area with much need.  Not to fix Mexico, but to love Mexico.  And love always means serving.

So we bought a piece of land up a mountain and started the process of dismantling our lives up north.  I am so grateful we had no idea how hard that would be and how long it would take.  We owned a construction company in a Canadian community in the middle of a building boom.  While I was trying to shut it all down, God was prospering it.  That made for some very strange, and possibly selfish, whining on my part.

But now it is time.  We are finishing up the very last house building project – and this is the one we will sell to finance the new life.  There are still millions of details, but those details will mostly be managed from a plastic table at a beach restaurant with vendors playing their games around me.  We will continue to work because today work doesn’t have to be done face to face – it can be done over an invisible desk that reaches across borders.  Together we will negotiate with our belongings as to what gets to go and what gets left behind.  How do you tell a gravy boat that you received as a wedding gift many years ago that you no longer expect to make much gravy and are replacing it with the guacamole bowl?  Sentimentality will wage the battle of my life with practicality.

I am creating this blog mostly as a way to process my own feelings and thoughts as we start this crazy journey – and I thought some of you might just be interested in following along.  You KNOW there are going to be challenges and I expect some of them will be entertaining.  Or maybe I just need to feel I am staying connected with all of you whom I love and will miss deeply.

Let the adventure begin!