Cool, bizarre and beautiful.
2024 is going to be a year I will never forget. It’s the year I became an auntie to my brother Spencer and sister-in-law Jane’s baby boy, the year I move to Dubai, UAE (February 20th!) and most exciting…it’s the year I get to marry my best friend and the love of my life, Asad Akhtar.
I’m currently writing this blog from Detroit, MI, where I’m surrounded by family and love. I was able to help get Spencer and Jane’s kitchen organized today for all things “baby,” while dad built baby furniture and mom cuddled with little baby Beck. As I was working on the kitchen, I was thinking about how crazy it is that over 10 years has passed since we all lived together, let alone in the same country. How has time flown by so quickly?
Every time I look at baby Beck I am filled up with an overflowing kind of love that I have never experienced before. I can’t stop thinking about how incredibly thankful I am that we are somehow all here together right now (in Michigan of all places) for one of the most special times in our lives, with the most perfect baby in the whole world (I’m biased, but he 100% IS!!). Spencer and Jane have become parents, mom and dad have become grandparents and I’ve become an auntie! Our family has grown and we are all here together to experience it.
Another HUGE life-changing moment happening this month is that I will be moving from Canada to Dubai! My parents will be coming to help me finish packing, cleaning out the house, patching holes in walls and then will drop me off at the airport to start this next big chapter. These might seem like little things, but the fact my parents who live across the world will be there for such a big and important moment in my life means the world to me. ♥️
When we started this epic journey of working across Africa and then moving to Eswatini, I think we all wondered along the way how this “international family” dynamic would work. As Spencer and I went to university, on to our first jobs and started to build our adult lives I started to wonder what would happen when we had kids and families – how would we make sure we were all together for the big moments? But here we are, all together for two super big life changing moments in Spencer and I’s lives. There was no use in worrying about being there for the big moments because we are family – that’s what you do for family, no matter how far away they are.
Another thing I started to think about as I puttered away in the kitchen was how much our family has grown (quite literally). We hopped on a quick call with our little brothers and sisters at Project Canaan today so they could meet Beck and they were over the moon with excitement. Buthi Spencer (buthi means brother in siSwati) has a BABY?! It was so sweet to see their faces light up when they saw baby Beck and Spencer’s face light up when he saw their reaction – a proud dad. I realized in that moment that I wasn’t the only one who became an aunt this week! Over 400 children in a tiny country in Africa ALSO just became aunts and uncles to a baby boy who lives on the other side of the world! How cool, bizarre and beautiful is that?
Our family has grown so significantly over the past 12 years and will continue to grow in Detroit, Dubai and Eswatini in the years to come. I can’t imagine life without my family – from my parents and 405 little brothers and sisters in Eswatini to my brother, sister-in-law and new nephew in Detroit, and now the beautiful family that I am marrying into in Dubai. We may live thousands of miles away from each other, but we are are family, all of us, and I am incredibly thankful for this beautiful ever-growing family that God has placed me in.
Chloe Maxwell
P.S. Would you like to join our village? Our tribe? Our family? We would love to have you. Click the button below to learn more.
