Introductory Notes: Alex Braszko is a retired Military Intelligence and Space Operations Officer with over 22 years of service in the U.S. Army. He is currently a Military Analyst at the Center for Army Lessons Learned. He is in the process of writing a book focused on prepping from a Christian perspective entitled, “Preparing for the Day; an Orthodox Christian Perspective on Prepping”. In this article, he provides a glimpse into the decision-making process he and his wife went through in selecting a final home. Given their experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, he reviews the soundness of that decision.
The opinions expressed in this article are his own and in no way represent those of the United States Army or the Center for Army Lessons Learned.
—
The world is a big, exciting place! There are so many different countries, cultures, and climates you can choose to live in, if you can afford the move and if you are granted access to live in those places. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to choose where they will live, however. When you are young, looking to start a career or if you are older, being told you must move to keep your job, or if you are simply looking for promotion opportunities, staying fixed in place may not be an option. Occasionally you end up in places you hate and swear you will never visit again. But sometimes you find yourself living in a part of the world that is as close to perfect as you can imagine. The experiences you gain living in a foreign country can be life-altering, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but will almost always influence where you eventually do decide to settle down.
Maybe you’ve never left your local county. Maybe you come from generations of a family that lived and owned land on the same piece of earth for decades, if not centuries. Maybe you live in the perfect place from a prepper’s perspective. Congratulations, this article is definitely not for you. But if you are unsure, if you are considering moving and trying to figure out where, then maybe you will find this article helpful.
I never thought I would live in Korea, Germany, or Iraq, but in its wisdom, the Army decided those were exactly some of the places I needed to be. I didn’t get too much say in where the Army did finally send me, but considering whether or not you want to move from a prepping perspective can be a fun and exhilarating process. It can also be very uncomfortable or expensive or even dangerous if you end up moving to the wrong place for the wrong reasons. Regardless, planning the move well will certainly require a bit of time and energy, which can be exhausting.
Moving itself is recognized as one of the most stressful events people will face in life. As Christian preppers, we need to pray if we are thinking about moving to a new location in order to better set ourselves up from a self-sufficiency or survival perspective. If we want to be successful, ultimately we need to be receptive to God’s Will. If God intends for you to move somewhere, you will find yourself there (think Jonah or Moses or Abraham). As with all major decisions in life, moving should be preceded with much prayer and scripture reading and contemplation. And research.
It is important to note that events that transpired during the pandemic of the past two years highlight drastic differences between living in the United States versus living in foreign countries. You need to take those differences into consideration if you are contemplating a move. While it was definitely a traumatic experience for most of us, and is still for so many people around the world, depending on your personal experiences, you may have developed a whole new opinion of the place you are currently living based upon how things transpired during the pandemic. Perhaps you are reconsidering your options as a result.
The next few pages summarize my own and my wife’s decision-making process in choosing where we would finally call “Home” after retiring from the U.S. Army. What we experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic only confirms, to us now, that we did indeed make the right decision, by God’s Grace. May your journey prove to be as satisfying!
—
I provide the following considerations to assist you in the process and, hopefully, make your planning/preparations less difficult:
Home Sweet Home; Should I Stay or Should I Go?
From a prepper’s perspective, selecting where you will live is a very important decision that will impact your ability to adequately provide for your family and yourself should you face a crisis. It will also determine how difficult it will be to protect your family, yourself and your home. But let’s be honest, you won’t always be facing a crisis, so you might want to consider quality of life from day to day; specifically the people, their local customs, traditions, holidays, and of course, foods! In selecting a country to live in, if your option is totally new and foreign to you, you will have to dedicate some time to discover where your energies should be focused from a prepping perspective.
What languages do the locals speak and is English the lingua franca there? Beyond being willing to learn a language, are you actually capable of learning it? Is the government in the country you are considering moving to facing a possible military coup? Has it in the past? What would that mean to foreigners? What is crime or terrorism like in the prospective country? How hard will it be for you to fit in? What are the chances you could accidentally commit a crime and what happens if you are thrown in jail? What are the requirements for owning a weapon? How difficult is it to get your hands on money, and if you have money, are you a target for extortion? If people find out you’re a prepper, will that draw unnecessary attention to yourself?
Again, once you select a novel place to live, if you haven’t lived there before, it behooves you to do your homework, research and get yourself up to speed on what threats exist there, both natural and manmade. Talk to people that are from there or have lived there for some time. What sort of freedoms are citizens guaranteed or what limitations do their laws have? Can you worship as you choose? Once you do a little bit of research, you will have a better idea on whether staying in the good ole USA is the right choice, or not.
COVID-19: The Perfect Test
Most Americans are quite surprised when they find out how intrusive law enforcement can be in a foreign country, and how restrictive governments are in the lives of their citizens. You may be jumping out of a fire into a frying pan by moving away from the U.S., but then again, maybe not. Recent lockdowns and draconian measures in several countries around the world over the past year have highlighted just how blessed we are with freedoms we have in the United States, especially in a few specific states… but who ever thought we would have vaccine passports in our nation’s capital? There is no guarantee our country will stay this way forever, especially if people are not willing to fight for our hard-earned rights and liberties. Some states in the United States certainly are a better alternative than many other countries today, but if you value your freedoms, find out how the citizens in the country you are considering moving to value theirs. Ask yourself, how did San Francisco compare to Budapest, Hungary during the pandemic? Or how did New York City compare to Belgrade, Serbia? You might be surprised at the answers.
As technologies and sensor capabilities improve in their ability to monitor citizens, many countries like China, Korea, the UK, are using those technologies to more closely monitor the health and movements of their citizens. How do you feel about submitting to that level of control? Some countries do have laws in place to limit government intrusion into citizens’ private lives, but not all.
Finally, how did your own local, county, and state government respond during the pandemic? Was everyone locked down? For how long? Did the government institute vaccine passports to access businesses and/or services? Did they only consider it with a promise to institute it in the next pandemic? COVID-19 responses provide a perfect way to assess whether the city, state or country you want to move to makes sense or not from a prepping perspective.
Conveniences & Getting What You Need
If you’ve lived overseas, you quickly realize that most of the U.S. is pretty homogenous, especially when it comes to major metropolitan areas. Meaning, if you visit San Jose, California, you’ll likely find many of the same laws, stores and conveniences you do in Princeton, New Jersey: speed limits, Wal-Mart, and 24 hour gas stations. That makes traveling in our country pretty easy. You have access to excellent Wi-Fi and cell phone reception in most cities in our country. You are also likely to be able to select from multiple churches in your denomination or something very close to it, depending where you live. In your more isolated parts of the country, however, you may have to drive a bit to get to the nearest Wal-Mart, Church or county seat of government and you may not necessarily have access to conveniences 24/7.
Other countries, on the other hand, can be very different from what we know and experience in the United States, even in Western Europe. While it’s difficult to comprehend just how stressful those differences can be, they are significant. It is something you can get over, but if you spent most of your life in the United States, it will definitely take some time getting used to.
And depending on which country you lived in during the pandemic, driving, flying or crossing into another adjacent country may have proved difficult, if not impossible. Think Australia or New Zealand and their lockdowns, even for the vaccinated.
(To be concluded tomorrow, in Part 2.)