Round Trip Stories

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 h...

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 ad...

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...

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...

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 an...

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 fligh...

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 no...

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 ch...

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 ne...

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 colleag...

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...