Auf Wiedersehen Deutschland

When I left for Germany 3.5 years ago multiple people told me I would meet the love of my life there.  

SPOILER ALERT: Didn’t happen. 

But, I did fall deeper in love with my life.  

These past three years have reminded me how many things I haven’t seen or done, and how much more there is to discover!  I’ve done so many delightfully unexpected things: start and finish grad school, learn to swim and drive a manual, take a road trip from Germany through Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia, and another through Austria, Italy and Switzerland, travel to 12 new countries including Russia and Israel, and visit 10 countries a year for 3 years!  I have also learned how to be a MUCH better leader and teammate.

These 2 pictures were taken 9 years and 2 different continents apart, but both capture the same thing: an ambitious single woman cleaning up a USO center after another day of doing what she can to make our troops lives a little easier and loving *almost* every minute of it.

Through my time in Afghanistan I found a desert family that are still my rock to this day.  Randy, Erin, Blair and Megan never stop helping and loving and supporting and visiting me and each other.  It was a love like I had never known and a bond deeper than I could imagine through shared incredible joys and unimaginable pains.

In Germany I experienced a different kind of love -  the kind that cares for a stranger as you would your best friend.  I had never lived in a military community before.  I didn’t know what it was like to have people you don’t know want to help you and care for you.  I felt like my hometown priest with how many invites I received to people’s houses for Christmas this year!  My heart swells with indescribable pride when someone I don’t know says, “oh yeah you’re the USO girl.”  (Although of course I would prefer they say USO woman or person or bossbitch). 

I shared with my volunteers in an email this morning that I felt love:

When I got heat stroke at Sun and Fun and I was surrounded by staff, volunteers, and strangers giving me bags of ice and making sure I was okay.  When I was busy at work and forget to pick up my car from the autocare center before they closed and my house keys were on my car key ring, multiple people offered to let me stay at their place.  When the electricity went out base-wide on Thanksgiving eve when I was about to cook 30 turkeys, volunteers and staff spitballed ideas and then stayed late into the night to help me cook the turkeys once it came back on.  

While to others this list may sound like awful debacles to me they are cherished memories where I felt like my family wasn't an ocean away, but right here.

I have grown so much in the past three years.  I moved and lived in Europe all by my grown ass self!  I can’t get over that.  I accomplished what I dreamed of when I was sitting in my parents' living room unemployed bingeing House Hunters International.  There have been MAJOR hiccups along the way, but I did it.  Thank you to every single teammate, friend, volunteer, garrison contact, community member, neighbor, and stranger who has helped me make my dreams come true.

New change, can’t wait!

Home.

As with most homes, the heart of our house is the kitchen.  On the single most high traffic area of the house, the fridge, smack dab in the middle, my mom has placed this quote, 

When I speak of home, I speak of the place where – in default of a better – those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it but the same good name notwithstanding. – Charles Dickens

I am currently 7,180 miles, 1 ocean, a couple continents, and 8 ½ hours of time zones away from home.  Most days I don’t dwell on that fact or even give it more than a moment’s reflection, but during the holidays that distance because a nagging throb in the forefront of my head that chants, “You’re missing out on everything. You miss home.  Your family misses you.  What are you doing?”

Last Christmas I considered trying to forget it was an event all together.  I thought if I skipped Christmas I could skip the homesickness.  Well, life doesn’t work like that.  (You can read the full story of how that worked out here.) As I tried to conjure up ways to make myself feel better it finally hit me that the other 25,000 people on this base are feeling the exact same way.  There’s no excuse of ‘no one understands me,’ because get this, every one does.  We are all missing our family traditions: Midnight Mass, getting to search through our stockings but nothing else until our parents wake up on Christmas morning, Dad always joking that we have to eat breakfast first before present opening and us kids begging him no, Christmas day gift exchange with the cousins, watching White Christmas and singing the ‘Sisters, Sisters’ song with my sister, and the sight, smell, and silence of a perfect winter snow.

The thought that got me through it all was simple, my family supports me so I can support them.  From the outpouring of love in e-mails, cards, care packages, phone calls, Skype dates and more I have my spirit renewed and my hope strengthened. 

Last year we asked friends, families, churches, community organizations and anyone else we could think of to send care package items to us so we could make gifts for our troops.  We received enough to give a present to every Soldier, Sailor, Marine and Airman that walked through our center doors on Christmas Day.

My own parish sent numerous boxes of items including a homemade fruit cake!  My aunt sent packages with a note that said she always donates to a charity instead of giving her adult daughters Christmas presents, and this year she was sending care packages to our troops.  I couldn’t help but swell with pride knowing that my family and friends made Christmas happen out here.

No experience can match the feeling I had after handing a troop a bag and watching their face light up and, “For reals?  This is for me?!” come out of their mouth.  It meant so much to them to receive the gift not just from USO Kandahar, but from the American people.  It might have been just a small gesture, but it sent a huge comforting message to the troops that they weren’t forgotten.  People still care.  Just like school children at lunch, most of them sat down and immediately began trading Slim Jims for candy canes and hand sanitizer for razors.

This year we want to do the same, only better!  This is where we need help.  We need gifts from people back home to fill the bags.  I have posted the flyer below with our mailing address and wish list.

This Christmas I will again be thousands of miles from the place I call home.  I will be in a large tent, in the middle of a desert, surrounding by dirt, dust and the constant threat of violence.  But it is there that people will be gathered, they might not be my loved ones, but they are somebody's.  So here we will gather in our home away from home, “Until Every One Comes Home.”

The Kandahar Kid

This is a story I helped write!  (and I took the picture).  It is on USO's homepage.  It is about a soldier who got to witness his first child being born in the states via Skype.  So far it's been my proudest moment of working for the USO.  :)

Here is the link: The Kandahar Kid

Operation Christmas for Our Troops

We are so excited to make Christmas presents for our troops that come into our center!  Please help us make it happen by donating any of the above supplies!  I also have a flyer that can be used for churches or groups if you would like me to e-mail it to you, please don't hesitate to contact me: skemp@uso.org.

We need all donated items to be shipped on Monday, December 6th, to ensure they get here in time for us to give them out on Christmas Day. The cheapest shipping method is to use Priority Mail APO/FPO Flat Rate Boxes from the US Postal Service that ship regardless of weight for $12.50 each. Please send boxes to the following address (note there is no street address, and Kandahar and Afghanistan are NOT included anywhere in the address):



Sarah Kemp
USO
APO AE 09355

Our troops sacrifice so much and we look forward to giving them a sense of “Home Away from Home” as they open their Christmas present from all the men and women back home in the states who are thinking about them.

Thank you for being a part of Operation Christmas for Our Troops!