Why We're Here

I don't know if most people know why Josh and I decided to come to South Korea to teach English. See back in December Josh graduated from college with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. He thought that he was going to be able to get a job right away and he wanted me to quit my job because he wanted me to concentrate on our son Gabriel. We knew that we would be OK financially for awhile if we were both out of work, so we did it in hopes Josh would get a job soon. 

Well that was around the time that the American economy just started to take an even deeper turn for the worse. It came to the point that no companies were hiring like they used to. The jobs that were hiring, if they were in Josh's field, were for top notch positions and they kept saying that Josh wasn't qualified enough. The other people that were hiring were the lowering paying jobs like Menards or Target... they said that Josh was over qualified therefore they couldn't hire him. So there we were. I had quit my job to take care of our son and Josh couldn't find one, we were in quite a predicament! 

We kept believing in God that he would provide Josh with a job. We kept praying and praying, trying to have faith while we watched our saving slip away to pay bills. We were praying one night and we felt that God wanted us to give quite a large chunk of money to this family that I knew of that didn't have much and have always struggled to get by. We talked about it and knew that we had to do it and that we wanted to as well... but I have to say that it was rather difficult writing a check for a large sum of money when you are already living on your savings and wondering where your next penny is going to come from. We sent out the check with a card that had a bible verse on it and continued to have faith in God. 

About 3 days later I was taking a shower when a thought came to me. It was one of those "why didn't I think of this before" moments. One of those thoughts that stops you in your tracks and is like a ton of bricks slamming you in the face, one that you just can't keep to yourself... one of those God thoughts. I finished up quickly and I go to tell Josh my thought, that maybe we should think about teaching English overseas. Josh then said that he had recently had the same thought, which totally is not like him. Josh is more of a home body and more logical then moving overseas. We prayed about it and really felt that this is what God wanted us to do. I had always heard that you can't out give God and that he will always provide for you... it's not that I ever doubted that, but to see it first hand... well, it was pretty amazing! Of course that wasn't our whole reason for giving the money away, it actually never crossed our minds, we knew that it was something God wanted us to do so we did it. It wasn't until after we thought about going overseas that I put two and two together.

Anyway, so we started to plan to go overseas. We didn't know where God wanted us to go and we kept asking that he would make it clear to us. I kept saying, I will go anywhere... but I really don't want to go to Asia, especially South Korea. Well I swear that when you tell God that you really don't want to do something... he makes you do it! LOL! See we posted out resume on a website and we got about 50 job offers to come work in Korea. I kept saying "no, no, I really don't want to go there, how about Taiwan, that's in Asia, or how about Japan"... and we kept praying for God to make it clear to us where he wanted us to go. So after we prayed we got even more job offers to come work in Korea, things were not looking up for my plans! We then got a card back from the lady that we had sent money to. In the card she had written a bible verse that made me cry... it said "My thoughts are not your thoughts, declares the Lord". Ok God, I get it. 

It took me a little bit to warm up to the idea of moving to Korea. After I warmed up to the idea and knew that this was truly from God, I couldn't actually give you a reason why I didn't want to come here, I just hadn't and had made my mind up about it. 

We then applied for just one job in Korea, it just seemed like the perfect job and had everything that we needed. We got a phone call from them about 2 days later and Josh was hired that day over the phone and we started the process of moving to Korea! 

It has been an adventure moving. At times we were still not sure if we were going to have enough money to make it or to buy our plane tickets, but God always provided. So here we are, Josh has started to work and he enjoys it, I am still a stay at home mom and I absolutely love it and God is still at work in our lives. We are excited to see what this next year brings!