How did I end up here? -- Part 2

If you missed Part 1 go HERE.

Well, just a few months later (June '09), God opened a door (or so we thought).  We get word of a private international school needing an English elementary school teacher.  They would pay a salary, give us a housing stipend AND fly us over.  Well, needless to say Luke applied for the job and within a week, he was accepted with the request to be there by Aug. 20th!  Yes, just two months out.  So, we were completely overwhelmed and excited at the same time.  We had lots to do!

We began by putting our house on the market (hoping and praying that it would sell in two months--we've heard of crazier things!) and selling all of our belongings.  Yes, we sold all of our furniture, most of our dishes, lots of clothes, books, kids stuffs, etc.  Where we were going we couldn't take it with us and we did not know when we were going to come back. During that summer, we also did some fund raising as we still needed a bit to supplement the salary and we had one time costs as well.

August 20th came and went and we were still stateside.  The school had encountered some registration problems and we had to wait.  September came around and the registration problems were fixed but now they stumbled upon the "hiring-a-foreign-worker" problem.  We would have to wait til October to hear word.  Our house had still not sold so we decided to rent it out.  We packed up a few things to store in the grandparents barn (some books we wanted to keep, a few baby items, some bedding, and our expensive cookware and china that we had received as wedding presents) and the rest we could fit into eight trunks and a few suitcases.  

October comes, our house is rented and we move in with some dear friends.  Word comes that the school has been denied to hire a foreign worker but the school is hopeful that by going to the next level of government (federal) that they would get approved.  We would have to wait some more.

November comes: no word.  December comes: no word.  Right before Christmas we talk with our leadership, the school officials and our team members and everyone is in agreement that we should forego trying to shoot for this school year (it was already half over!) and try again for the 2010 school year.  In the meantime, we could keep moving forward by attending a Russian language school.  In South Carolina of all places.

Oh, and remember our crazy amount of debt, we were able to pay it off!  Completely.  We were reminded of our teacher retirement accounts.  Combined they had enough for us to pay off our debt completely, penalty and all.  We were so thankful!

January 7th come along and we pack up our 20 year old Plymouth Acclaim, had a hitch attached (probably not the best idea) and pull a smallish trailer with our stuff inside.

Oh the stories we have to tell of that three day road trip!  God was faithful to get us to SC safely but not without some adventures along the way!

We arrived in SC and were blessed with the generosity of people who didn't even know us!  God granted us much favor and we experienced a wonderful time there.  School was hard but satisfying.  We missed our friends and family greatly but we pushed on knowing that we were moving forward on the path God had laid out for us.  

Strawberry picking in SC.

Our time in SC ended that summer ('10) and we excitedly made the trip back home early August.

Part 3 is up next!