Not many people know about what we have been working on for the last 7 months. This was on purpose since we weren't sure for a very long time if it would even work out. So here it is.... Our life and our journey.
It all started last April, David and I were engaged, planning our wedding day and in turn our future together. As we discussed our wants and desires we came to the conclusion that neither of us wanted to stay in Tucson. Neither of us were attached to our jobs, in fact I threatened on a daily basis to quit my job and told God, I didn't think I could handle much more. So we began to look at our options but with a lot of work and thought, non of the options we had could work out the way we wanted them to. Then in May, we were in the car and again discussing our future and I half heartily said 'well we could move to South Korea.' To my surprise, since David, who has never wanted to travel outside of the US, he said 'why didn't you tell me about this earlier?' For the next few weeks we looked into the program through Korea Nazarene University, who brings American teachers over to teacher English in the public schools in Cheonen City, SK. We ran the numbers to see if it would even be financially feasible. Then out of a page from our pastor and his wife here in Tucson, who gives them selves a month before making a big purchase to make sure they are getting something they really want. We decided that since moving to South Korea was such a big deal we would pray about it for a month before making a decision and then apply to the program. We wanted to make sure that this was not an impulsive decision. As the days and weeks went, our excitement and desire to go to South Korea did not fade. At the end of June we applied to the program. We got emails here and there to make sure that we were still interested but nothing to make us feel secure about whether or not we had been accepted.
During this first waiting period and yes I call it the first because there were many more to come, I was laid off from my job (which was a huge blessing). Then on September 4, 2010, we were married. After the honeymoon, we came back to our normal lives and I adjusted to being a house wife and continued to look for a new job. At the end of September we got our official notice that we had been accepted by KNU to be English teacher. The next step was a whirlwind of questions, since I was married but hadn't gotten our marriage license back to change my name, and we needed FBI background checks that took 3 months to complete. After some stress on our side we were able to send off our FBI checks the first week in October.
Then came our second waiting period. During this time, I got my name changed, a new passport and we worked on some of our paper work that we could email. I think David called every week to see where our FBI checks were in the process. During this time, North Korea bombed a South Korean Island. We weren't and still aren't sure if the relationship with North Korea will end preventing us from going or will cause us to come home early. Then to our pleasant surprise our background checks came the second week of December. We sent off our final pieces of paper to the government, in hopes that they would accept our work visas.
The third waiting period is a bunch combined into one. The government accepted our work contracts, so we could get our visas, 5 days later. We then found out that we had to do an interview with a Korea Consulate here in the States. But the only problem was that we will be in Kansas from Christmas on and we thought we could just go to Chicago. It turns out that since we are Arizona residences we have to go to LA. Thankfully David call 5 times on Monday and found out that we could mail our information to the consulate and then get the visa stamps in our passports.
So that brings us to our fourth and hopefully final waiting period. We need to wait for our passports to be returned and then we can buy our plane tickets. We leave Arizona on Dec. 24th and head to Lovington, NM, where my sister is. Then on Dec. 27th we head to Kansas and will be there until Jan. 22 ish because as of today we haven't bought our plane tickets yet. We will be there for 13 months and will have the opportunity to resign our contracts to stay another yet. However we will wait to decided if we want to stay another year once we know if we like living over there.
The decision to move to the other side of the world was not a easy decision nor one taken lightly. I can't wait to share all of our stories and adventures as we embark on this Escapade to the East.
Lisa and David
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