This week's interview is with Melinda Howe, Disney Character Brand Manager, ministry leader, amazing baker, and mom of four.  In 2010, Melinda and her family went to Beijing, China where her husband Ralph was offered a job in the golf industry.  They saw this as an opportunity for their whole family to live in their adopted daughters’ birth country.  Although they faced challenges like not being able to transport their whole family in one vehicle and homeschooling for the first time, they found an unexpected extended family in their international church and friends for their children from around the world right in their neighborhood. See photos of our guests and sign up for our email list at ⁠⁠roundtripstories.com⁠⁠. Follow @roundtripstoriespodcast on ⁠⁠facebook⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠instagram⁠⁠ to hear about upcoming customs episodes and share your stories with us!

Today's episode is a collection of stories about how nature reminded us of home or our time abroad. Our world is replete with natural beauty and landscapes vary wildly, but sometimes they are so similar that it reminds us of another beloved place. What encounters with nature brought us comfort while abroad? Did a particular landform, park, climate, or creature remind us of home? Or when we returned home, did something in nature remind us of our place living abroad? Let’s hear some Customs Stories about Nature’s reminders. Mentioned in this episode: Zhangjiajie National Forest Park Cotopaxi - A Most Dangerous Volcano Popocatépetl in the news May 2023 Join our podcast email list to receive updates about new episodes and to hear about opportunities to share YOUR stories!

This is Part 2 of our interview with Kat Borba, a teacher, supporter of overseas missionaries, and mother of three. She and her husband were missionaries in Sapporo, Japan for three years. They had hoped to stay for much longer, but after diagnosing their daughter with Moebius syndrome, they knew they needed to return back to the U.S. for a time and season. Reentry was harder than she was given permission to feel, but a week of debriefing and renewal helped her focus on giving herself permission to feel both the hard and the joys and to re-enter slowly. Kat’s stories show us that transition back can be overwhelming, but as the chaos subsides, we can find our place and passions again. Mentioned in episode: Moebius Syndrome Foundation ⁠Debriefing & Renewal (DAR) at MTI⁠ What's in a Screen Name? by Kat Borba See photos of our guests and sign up for our email list at ⁠roundtripstories.com⁠. Follow @roundtripstoriespodcast on ⁠facebook⁠ and ⁠instagram⁠ to hear about upcoming customs episodes and share your stories with us!

This is Part 1 of our interview with Kat Borba, a teacher, supporter of overseas missions, and mother of three. In her mid twenties, she and her husband became missionaries to Sapporo, Japan, landing five weeks before the 9.1 earthquake and tsunami hit Japan many miles south of them. This event sparked a great need for humanitarian service, and she and her husband were able to give support through their Japanese church. Throughout the years, Kat and her husband worked in their local Japanese church college ministry, English teaching, and mothering groups. Kat first struggled with feeling incompetent without basic literacy in Japan, but she relished the bond and support from other foreign missionaries. She was surprised that in Japan she was not as extroverted as she thought, and she found new ways to feel refreshed and reenergized. Mentioned in episode: Mission Training International (MTI) "Nastukashii" See photos of our guests and sign up for our email list at ⁠roundtripstories.com⁠. Follow @roundtripstoriespodcast on ⁠facebook⁠ and ⁠instagram⁠ to hear about upcoming customs episodes and share your stories with us!

Today's Customs Episode is about ART.  Beauty and creativity are an indispensable and unique part of every culture. What caught our eye and hearts as we lived and worked in other countries? What did we learn? Art is an expression of not only aesthetics but also culture, history, and creative communication.  In this episode, we hear stories about how art teaches, heals, and allows us to remember.  We do not need oral language to create it, all can participate in it, and community helps inspire it.  We hope that you are inspired by this customs episode about art! Mentioned in episode: Garry L. Prieb's art on facebook Take a tour of the 3 km mosaic wall around the university in Trujillo, Peru! See more photos and sign up for our email list at roundtripstories.com. Follow @roundtripstoriespodcast on facebook and instagram to hear about upcoming customs episodes and share your stories with us!

This is Part 2 of our interview with Aileen Hendratna, an Indonesian-American agriculture scientist who feels most at home in international communities.  She studied her masters in water resource management in Sweden for over two years.  There, she relished the time in nature, in the fika culture of building relationships, and in the diversity of her international community. Financial challenges had her return to California, and her transition back home to the Bay Area and Central Valley was a lonely experience.  Aileen couldn't find the international community she so loved, but with God’s help and guidance, she recognized that being in her new place, too, was a gift which was entrusted to her.  See photos of our guests and sign up for our email list at roundtripstories.com. Follow @roundtripstoriespodcast on facebook and instagram to hear about upcoming customs episodes and share your stories with us!

Our guest for this episode is Aileen Hendratna, an Indonesian-American agriculture scientist who feels most at home in international communities.  After college in California she was inspired to study her masters in water resource management in Sweden for over two years.  She found the initial transition to be smooth because she knew how to adjust to a new country after her previous challenging adjustment to the U.S. during her teen years. However, she was surprised at having to explain her identity as both an American and an Indonesian in Sweden.  She loved her international church community, Sweden’s fika culture and closeness to nature. See photos of our guests and sign up for our email list at roundtripstories.com. Follow @roundtripstoriespodcast on facebook and instagram to hear about upcoming customs episodes and share your stories with us!

Once a month Melissa and Tracy pull a random topic out of a virtual hat and discuss what global stories come to mind, and today's topic is about SHOES. Do we take them off or keep them on when entering the home? If we see twenty shoes strewn outside a doorway, does that make us want to join the party or run the other way? We can't wait to share SHOE stories from our global listeners! Sign up here for our email list and share your stories with us for future episodes!

This is part two of our interview with family guy and Mexican entrepreneur Jaime Aparicio.  In part one, Jaime shared about how moving away from Mexico to the U.S. during the later part of high school and through university helped to define who he was, know his inner voice, and value the U.S. university experience and beyond.  In this episode, come listen to Jaime’s Round Trip Stories of returning to Mexico and how his adaptability and openness to change helped him navigate and put roots down in Mexico as an adult. Visit the Round Trip Stories website to sign up for our email list and see photos from our guests. ⁠Round Trip Stories Episode 7 ⁠Jaime's website

This week's guest is Jaime Aparicio, Mexican entrepreneur, family guy, and lover of all things international.  Jaime spent eight years of his late teens and early 20’s in the U.S. before returning to Mexico to reconnect with his family, roots, and start his own business and young family.  He had a sprinkling of time in Germany and Argentina as well!  Jaime shares about how he reinvented himself and deepened his awareness of who he was while in the U.S. as a young man. Visit the Round Trip Stories website to sign up for our email list and see photos from our guests. Round Trip Stories Episode 6 Jaime's website

Once a month Melissa and Tracy pull a random topic out of a virtual hat and discuss what global stories come to mind, and today's topic is about CUSTOMS. Customs and immigration stations can hold long lines and are the gatekeepers to let us into our destinations. Can we go in the fast lane, or do we still have to stand in the lines even though our toddler is having a meltdown after a 12 hour flight? Maybe you have had an unexpected reception to your host or home country? We can't wait to share CUSTOMS stories from our global listeners! Sign up here for our email list to share your stories!

This is part two of our interview with co-host Melissa Ens, mother of three, bilingual teacher, and passionate learner, leader, and lover of people.  She and her young family became church capacity builders in Peru, and in our last episode she shared stories about what she loved and what was hard while living there.  In this episode, Melissa describes seeing signposts of everyone and everything not thriving as it should, so she and her husband made the excruciating decision to return to the U.S. before their assignment was supposed to be up.  This made their transition back a painful one.  What helped was a conference to process their return with others, Melissa recognizing her own grief cycle, going to therapy, and building new friendships.  Melissa compassionately shares her stories so that others know that “jumping into a new culture or jumping back into an old culture is going to take your breath away.” Resource mentioned in episode:  Missionary Training International Debriefing and Renewal Join our podcast email list to receive updates about new episodes and opportunities to share your stories! ⁠⁠ Learn more about Melissa at melissaens.com. All music is royalty free, from the Youtube Audio Library!

This is part one of our interview with Round Trip Stories host Melissa Ens, bilingual teacher, mother of three and passionate learner, leader, and lover of people.  When she and her third culture kid husband got married, their deal breaker was that they would one day go overseas to do mission work.  Melissa shares about God’s timing to take them to Peru as they became capacity builders in local churches there.  She cherished the new perspectives that shopping, helping her family become part of a new community, and exploring new places gave her. Join our email list to receive updates about new episodes and opportunities to share your stories! ⁠

This is Part 2 of Tracy’s Round Trip Stories interview. Tracy is an international educator, mom of three boys, and one of our podcast hosts. She encourages listeners to take time to unpack their own stories, which often come with baggage after their return from living overseas. Each of our experiences are gifts; we should air them out, hang them up somewhere, and see where they fit again in our new place.  We don’t want to hide these gifts of global understanding and beauty.  They, and you, make the world a better place. Resource mentioned: Returning Well: Your Guide to Thriving Back "Home" After Serving Cross-Culturally by Melissa Chaplin⁠ Join our email list to receive updates about new episodes and opportunities to share your stories!

This is part 1 of our interview with one of our hosts, Tracy Vilanova. She is an international educator, mom of three boys, and global history buff who lived and worked in China for eight years. In 2009, Tracy and her young family moved from California to Beijing and then to Wuhan to work in international schools.  They loved learning about the world through their Chinese and international colleagues and friends there, even through the culture shocks which came from surprising places. Join our email list to receive updates about new episodes and opportunities to share your stories!

Welcome to the Round Trip Stories Podcast! Through weekly guest interviews, hosts Melissa Ens and Tracy Vilanova offer gifts of understanding for those who have recently returned from living abroad, reflection for those who have been back for years, and insight for those who have never left their home country. These stories help us all understand the world and ourselves just a little better. Sign up for our podcast email list at roundtripstories.com so you can share your stories with us and our listeners. We hope you’ll join us!