How it all began...

A lot of people have been asking us lately why we are moving to Korea. What possessed us to do this? What made us want to move to Korea? So I thought I’d answer those questions for those of you who don’t know…

First of all, teaching overseas is something that Eric and I have been talking about since before we were married. It’s something that we’ve both always wanted to do. Of course, when we were in college and newly married, we only wanted to teach in Australia. A country that speaks English and has warm weather. We didn’t want to have to get too uncomfortable in a new culture! But then, Kennedy came along…and that was the end of that dream…or so we thought! We decided that we would wait until the kids were in college or we were near retirement to fulfill our dream. After all, it seemed impractical to bring our kids around the world with us! In the last year or two, though, we discovered that a lot of people travel around the world to teach. And they bring their kids with them. What a novel idea! So, in January we started talking about the possibility of teaching overseas. Was it feasible with two young kids? What would we do with the house? Would it be profitable? Is this a good time for us? For our kids? After a lot of prayer, we decided that we would put in the effort and let God handle the rest! If God intended for us to do this right now, then He would make it happen. Our eyes were opened to the world of international schools and we started looking into placement agencies. We settled on a small investment in Educators Overseas which gave us a place to collect our letters of recommendation, guidance for our resumes, and the coveted Directory of International Schools. Thankfully, we didn’t pay them much because the directory was the only resource we received, but we wouldn’t have jobs without it! From that, we were able to start emailing our resumes and cover letters to HR directors and principals, and then we waited impatiently for their reply. We interviewed with a bi-lingual school in Kuwait first. God did not want us there (Kennedy does not speak Arabic, so we would have had to pay her tuition at another international school), so we turned down the job. We interviewed with a school in Kenya which is where we thought we were supposed to go, but we were not offered the positions. We were beginning to feel that this was not the year for us to go overseas. We were nearing the deadline that we had imposed so that we would have the time to get everything done. That’s when we got the email from YISS. After about a week’s worth of interviews, we accepted the positions, and we have been on the run ever since!!