Moving is a change in life. Old things are thrown out that are not needed anymore and boxes are packed and stuffed in the car till no more fit. You are leaving all memories behind to create new ones. Niveen Khoury (9) has started moving from house to house at three years old, and has moved seven times throughout that period of time. She was just sick of moving and wanted to move one last time into her official home. It started when she had to move away when her grandfather passed away and she was having problems with her family.

“Half the reason why I moved so many times is because of family reasons,” Khoury said. “My grandpa had died so I had to move with my aunt and uncle, then a lot of family stuff had happened we don’t talk to them. It wasn’t really my choice.”

Even with all the moving Khoury was able to be happy because she had a home with her everywhere she went.

“Honestly it’s more about the people than the place,” she said. “I think my family is really home to me and they make the house hold so it’s not really the place.”

Khoury was thankful for the opportunities she had in America after living in Palestine.

“I mean I was really excited because going from there to here,” Khoury said. “It’s way better here and I think people take that for granted because everything I have here I would not have it back then. Back home [in Palestine] even when I was driving to school I used to take like an hour to get there because we [would] get rocks thrown at our car from other religions, so it would be really hard to get to school. Even at school you would get bullied for your religion and I was there as a Christian. It was really hard for me to be living there.”

Even with her new home, Khoury would always have her second home in her heart.

“This is my current home now, but there was this one house, the first house I moved to when I came here,” Khoury said. “It was my grandpa’s house. I used to visit there in the summer, and then I would stay there all the time, so that house was kind of like a second home to me.”

Khoury learned a life lesson throughout her moving journey to carry with her.

“I always thought that things would get handed to me, but I realized that my parents really had to work for what they have,” she said. “I will also have to and it’s gonna be hard.”

Even in all the houses she lived in, she still made it feel like home.

“Every Thanksgiving, we have my cousins who live in Chicago come over and we’d do a whole Thanksgiving meal, I like the food,” Khoury said. “It’s also something I am grateful for here because back home we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.”

Sharing a room had no longer been a problem when she had recently moved to the house she’s currently in and finally had space.

“In all of my houses, I’ve had to share a room with my sister and at my grandpa’s house I actually had to share a room with my sister and brother,” Khoury said. “It was really hard because my sister and I don’t really have the same interests. Then I moved last year and I got my own room and then this year when I moved again I got my own again.”

As an older brother Samir Khoury (12) helped her grow as a person throughout each move by making her try new things.

“I made sure that she got into sports and Taekwondo, and she liked that, and she’s gotten her black belt,” he said. “Now I made her try basketball and she keeps up her grades.”

Because of the constant moving, older sister Yasmine Khoury shared that Khoury learned to adapt and figure things out for herself.

“Niveen learned to be independent,” Yasmine said. “She tries to problem solve on her own before running to someone to fix it for her.”