Thank You NICS!

Let me just say again how amazingly blessed we are to be having this overseas experience with such an awesome organization and such wonderful people. We have built some awesome relationships in the last two weeks and we are so excited to be a part of something so much bigger than us! We had a banquet tonight where we got an opportunity to see all of the people that donated their time, cars, money, and houses to PFO, and it was amazing to see how supportive this community really is! We have taken over the Lively's house the last two weeks, someone had loaned us their car for the last two weeks, and we have had every meal as well as two snacks a day provided for us for the last two weeks. Not to mention the people that volunteered to take care of our children taking them to the zoo, to the movies, and to the pool nearly every day. We have had an awesome couple of weeks building relationships and learning and preparing for our future, and we couldn't have done it without NICS and their amazing support!

Strangers in Our Own Land

It is really amazing how much information we have gained in the past week. Granted, it is exhausting and overwhelming, but it is all very reliable and practical information. The strangest thing we are experiencing is that feeling of being a stranger...already. We're prepared to feel that way in Korea (well, not really, but as well as we can be at this point), but it's weird feeling like a stranger in our own country. And I'm not even referring to the fact that the South is a different culture in and of itself. No, we are strangers in that we have never taught in Christian schools, been missionaries, or traveled outside the US (Mexico and Canada do NOT count with this group of TCKs (third culture kids). We feel like we are the only ones who are not well-traveled or who did not grow up traveling. Many, if not most, of the teachers here grew up as missionary kids (MKs) and so are very familiar with the international schools and the Christian international schools. Having not attended or taught in either, we are feeling overwhelmed by the all of the new information about how this world works. But I will say, that we are very excited to join this community! It's going to be an amazing experience regardless of it's struggles. Clearly, they feel this way, too, as they are excited to join it once again!

PFO Week One

Our first week at PFO has been quite an experience! We have to get up early and we go to bed late, but we’re learning a lot! We have to wake the kids up and get them dressed while they’re still mostly asleep (which is saying a lot for my kids!), and then leave our host home to get breakfast before we drop the kids off for their class and we go to our first session. We usually have about four two-hour sessions per day. We have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the Southern Baptist Education Center, and then most evenings there is some type of event going on. We’ve had dinner and lunches with our school group, so we’re getting to know the other new staff well which has been great! We’re even more excited for Korea now!
The kids have been having an awesome time! They are both with the same two teachers, and they are staying very busy. They go swimming almost every day, to the park, out to lunch, and tomorrow they’re going to the zoo! They are having the time of their lives!
We are enjoying some great Southern food, too! We haven’t had time to explore anything around us, but we’re headed to a Memphis Redbirds game tomorrow. Tonight our wonderful host family had a crawfish cookout for us, complete with loads of crawfish, potatoes, corn, mushrooms, onions, and fried alligator and catfish appetizers. We are learning the meaning of "Southern hospitality"!
We are really looking forward to having Sunday off!

Goodnight and Goodbye



Grandpa with a sleeping Kennedy

We have had a very busy and very fun last week! Last weekend, Eric's mom threw a nice party in our honor in Tacoma for the Carlson side of the family. Then we spent some quality time with family (and packing again!) throughout the week. This weekend, I had dinner with a group of women from work to say goodbye and last night we had a great party for my aunt's birthday where we were able to say goodbye to several others we won't see in July. Tonight we leave for Mississippi for PFO. The flights alone will be an experience, but we're looking forward to being in one place for almost two whole weeks!

Eric with the birthday girl!



Good news, bad news

I’ll start with the good news…I got so much done in the last two days I can’t even decide which list to start crossing things off of first! I worked for six hours both days (that’s a lot for me lately!). Yesterday I picked up the kids, and then we picked up many of the basic necessities that we need to pack for Seoul. We stocked up on deodorant, ibuprofen, socks, underwear, pajamas, and many others! We got gifts for Kennedy’s teachers (I can’t believe tomorrow is her last day of preschool! L), wrapped them, and then I cut about 200 apple slices and celery sticks for Kennedy’s snack day today (why can’t I be the mom who just brings Handi Snacks?). Today I went home before I picked up the kids and loaded the Durango with some of the big toys that we’re giving to Juli (our childcare provider) to “store” for the next couple of years. After getting home, I finished all of the laundry and was pleased to discover that everything else on my list for today, I accomplished last weekend…woohoo!

Only two pieces of bad news this week…1^st) I had just finished the last book of our required reading for PFO when I decided I should check the CD and pen drives that NICS had sent us. I found 12 documents that are all about 75 pages long that we also have to read in the next month…just when I thought I was caught up! 2^nd) I had been in communication with several different women about taking care of the kids in Korea. When the time came to set up interviews, I was only able to confirm two of them. The first one we interviewed and that was fine, and the second scheduled a time, but no-showed on Skype and hasn’t responded to my email. Very bad news…

Pre-Field Orientation

Today I booked our first set of flights! We'll spend 2 weeks in Mississippi at the end of June for PFO as our preparation for entering the world of a missionary and expatriate. We have a narrow window for arrival and departure in Mississippi because we are staying with a host family while we are there, so we fly out of Seattle at 6 am in order to fly into Memphis by 3 pm. It will be the kids' first flights, so we are a bit nervous about how that will go, but we're glad that we have to do this "trial run" before we take the 12 hour flight to Seoul a couple of weeks later. I feel very blessed that we ended up having this experience with an organization like NICS to back us up. It is comforting to know that while there will be many surprises and stresses when learning to live in this new culture, at least we will have resources fall back on, in addition to all that we will have learned about the third culture kids (TCKs) that we will be teaching.

Losing Time

So, it's the 27th of April, and I just realized that two months from today we'll be at our Pre-Field Orientation (PFO) for the Network of International Christian Schools (NICS) in Mississippi. That means that in less than two months, I have to have the garage cleaned out, the wall and shelving built, the furniture moved out of the house, and all of the rest of our belongings packed!! Somewhere in the back of my mind I know that in less than three months, we will be in Seoul, South Korea, but I didn't realize until yesterday that even though we don't have to be in Seoul until the middle of July, we still have to be moved out of the house by the third week of June. I feel like I just lost an entire month in the course of a couple of hours!! The panic is starting to set in. Lord, please give me peace!