Counting Down!

It is officially the last week of school for me (Leslie), and Michael is "officially" done working on roofs before we leave for South Korea.  According to my countdown we will be leaving the country in about 16 days!  It is coming so fast!  Here are our plans for the next few weeks:

I just got back tonight from Las Cruces, New Mexico visiting with my best friends since 3rd/4th grade (Amber & Christina), and Chris's new baby Lily!  She is so precious!  I will post pics probably tomorrow.  

Michael left today to go visit his best friend, Tim, in Nashville.  Tim is moving from NC to Auburn, AL to teach at the U of Auburn and is visiting his family in Nashville this weekend, so Michael went to see him until Tuesday.  

My last day of work is Friday.  Friday night we are going to Riverfest in Little Rock with our friends Lindsay and Brent Wilson to see Huey Lewis & the News (just discovered this and am so excited!!), Merle Haggard and Shooter Jennings (son of Waylon).  Ha ha, also Arrested Development will be there!  "Tennessee.."  This will be our last time to hang out with the Wilsons because they leave Saturday for a 2 week backpacking trip in Europe and we will be gone before they get back.  Sad. :(  They have been good friends to us this year and we will miss them!

We are hoping to schedule our interview with the Korean embassy for Tuesday, May 27th.  Yes, we have to have an interview with the Koreans at the embassy in Houston, TX.  I'm calling tomorrow.  I'm a little nervous about this interview, but of course Michael is not.  I don't think he gets nervous about anything.  It kind of makes me sick. :)

We are planning to drive down to Houston on Monday, May 26th (Memorial Day).  This is also Rachel's due date (Michael's sister who lives in Houston) and we are anticipating little Phoebe to be born on time or shortly thereafter!  We will hopefully get to meet Phoebs while we are in Houston and then head back to Searcy around that Friday the 30th to finish getting ready to go--taking care of last minute things and wrapping everything up.  

We have not booked a flight yet, but we were told to look for a flight that we like and let our recruiters know and the school will book & pay for it.  This is awesome!  It is nice to not stress about the rising cost of airfares!  We are thinking we will fly out of Little Rock on Tuesday, June 3rd, and will arrive in Korea the next day.   

Oh, we also have to get everything moved out of our house and furniture sold and stuff put into storage at my in-laws and stuff, which we are going to try to get done before we leave for Houston, so someone new can move into our house ASAP!  

So, we have a lot to get done in the next 16 days.  Please just say a little prayer for us if you think about it!  I am trying to just stay calm and not stress because I don't need to trigger my colon and so far it's doing pretty good.  God is so good--I have a great pharmacy with wonderful pharmacists who I go to church with, and was able to get my prescription meds filled for the next 3 months so I will have plenty to last me until our health insurance kicks in in Korea!  That is such a blessing!  Also, my nurse practitioner  loaded me up with enough free samples of my birth control so that I won't have to worry with trying to find something that works over the counter and doesn't make me crazy! :)  So, just in case you were wondering, we won't be planning to have any little ones born while we are in Korea.  

Alright, I am going to go to bed.  Michael will probably say that I have posted TMI (too much information) which I probably have, but oh well!  Here's to a great week!

Beth Moore kills me! :)

Go to this website and read the blog post called "You're Killing Me" posted April 26th. 

http://livingproofministries.blogspot.com/

It's Beth Moore's blog site, where she and her daughters post.  Every once in a while I read it and this just made me laugh out loud tonight.  If you've done any of Beth's Bible studies with the videos, you know how hilarious and quirky she is, and I can just totally see her doing this!  Proof that she is human just like the rest of us!  I have just finished the second bible study of hers that I've done in the last 6 months, and I have just been so blessed by being in the Word of God on a (close to) daily basis!  That has always been a struggle for me in my daily walk is really being in the Word and studying it--not just reading it and forgetting what I read a few minutes later, but truly meditating on it and hiding it in my heart.  Up until recently, I don't think in my 16 years as a follower of Christ had I ever truly experienced the power and the confidence that comes from studying God's word regularly!  It has helped me tremendously over the past few months through some very rough times in my life, in ways I would never have imagined.  And what is amazing to me is that the Lord was preparing me to be able to deal with the things that I was thrown, by putting me in the power of His word.  His word is truly sharper than any double-edged sword, and He uses it to prune us and shape us.  

"For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. " Hebrews 4:12

Praise the Lord for His word!  Praise the Lord for godly teachers like Beth who encourage us in our faith!

Update on Korea

Well, we signed our official contracts for Korea and faxed them back a little over a week ago!  I talked to my principal last Friday and let him know that I was moving, gave my letter of resignation on Monday, and my job was posted on Tuesday!!  They are not wasting any time replacing me!! :)  That's okay though, someone else is VERY welcome to take over my job teaching 1st grade.  Every time I see/hear this years' kindergarten group in the hallways, I am increasingly thankful that I will not be there to have them in class next year.  I know that sounds horrible, but seriously, it is a very rambunctious group, to put it mildly.  

We have a few new updates on our trip to Korea.  First, it turns out that we are not going to be expected to arrive there until June 4th, which means we will have about more days than we thought we would before leaving.  That makes things a *tiny* bit less stressful!  We will have a week of training and then are supposed to start teaching on the 11th or 12th.  When we signed our contracts, they were both for elementary school positions, so we would be at the same school and have the same schedule (working from 3-10 pm--the kids go to traditional Korean school during the day and then go to English school in the evenings).  However, I got an email from our recruiter yesterday saying that the school's Nokjiwon campus has an opening and wants to hire me for that position if I will take it instead.  It will be just down the street from Michael's school and if I take it I will be teaching 13-16 year olds in an "elite" program which is basically preparing them to take the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) and pass it so that they can get accepted to a good university.  They like to hire people who have actual teaching experience to teach at those campuses, although I think Michael would be well suited to it as well.  It's kind of funny, I was reading the handbook about it and it said something to the effect of, "this course is to teach the test."  What an polar opposite from here in the US where there is such controversy of "teaching to the test," and as a professional teacher, we are taught that it is taboo to do so!!  If I take that position, my work schedule will be from 4-11 pm, and I will spend less hours actually in the classroom and more hours in the office grading work and doing paperwork.  It seems to be a very intense program, something completely different than I have ever done, so I am giving it a few days to think about it before I decide to accept it.  All of the foreign teachers teach speaking and writing, so that should be interesting.  I was hoping I'd get to teach reading!  :)

We also found out that we are going to be living and working in an area called Suji, or Suji-gu, which is a district of the city of Yongin.  Here is the wiki site about Yongin.  This is about 45 minutes south of Seoul, and pretty close to another large city called Suwon, which is actually the capital of the province, and the only remaining completely walled city in South Korea.  Cool!  Okay, here is how it works (I've been reading on wikipedia to figure it out!).  South Korea is divided into 8 provinces, and provinces are divided into cities & counties, and then districts.  We will be in the province called Gyeonggi-do (the same province that Seoul is located in), the city of Yongin-si, and the district of Suji-gu.  I'm not sure which county.  If the name has "do" after it, it is a province, "si" is a city, and "gu" is a district.  Not that any of you care about this, but some of you do know my fascination with maps so I am just sitting here loving it!!  Oh, also, Yongin is home to a theme park called Everland (operated by Samsung), which is ranked sixth in the world for amusement park attendance!  If you come visit, we might go!!

Alright, I'm sure there is something I am leaving out but I will think of it later.  I need to go review my lesson for teaching the 4th/5th grade class at church tomorrow morning.  And since I have decided that blogs are more fun to read when there are photos involved, I will post a couple of photos from a Korean meal that Michael and I made a few weeks ago.  He had the great idea to start finding Korean recipes online and making Korean meals on Saturday nights.  We've done it twice now, and we have also found a good Korean restaurant in Cabot, of all places!  It is called Kopan, and I found this online review of the restaurant.  I think they've ironed out their mistakes, though, because we went 2 nights in a row and were very pleased!

Okay, so here are a couple photos from when we made bulgogi--that means "fire meat."  We got the recipe from this website.  It was excellent, and we made it into lettuce-wraps with sticky jasmine rice.  YUM!!  I can't wait for Korean food!!  Oh, and notice the authentic Korean coasters on the table?  My school counselor, Kay, who is originally from Seoul, gave them to me last year for Christmas when she was my secret sister!  How cool is that?  Also, Kay is going to be in SK this summer for a month visiting her family, so we are excited to get to meet up with her over there also!

Okay, goodnight!!

~Leslie

We're Moving to Asia!

So we've decided to really get into the world of blogging.  No, we don't have any kids yet, and our lives have been incredibly boring as of late (ha, not really, but a lot of what's gone on you really wouldn't care to read about), but we do finally have some exciting news and are hoping that this will be a good avenue for family and friends to keep up with us.  

We are moving to Seoul, South Korea in June to teach English!

We have honestly been thinking about, praying about, and pursuing this idea since back in November or December.  I (Leslie) have become increasingly frustrated with teaching in American public schools (or maybe just the one I'm at) for quite a while now and have been wanting a change.  Michael has been trying to figure out where his next step will be, after taking a needed break/rest from Youth Ministry and trying his hand at sales (not his cup of unsweet tea) and now he's roofing houses until we leave.  We have just been seek ing the Lord's guidance in this for so long and He has just continually opened doors in this direction, while closing doors in other directions that we thought might be a possibility.  We think this is going to be such an awesome opportunity--to live in and experience another culture, while getting to work, get paid well, have an apartment provided, not many expenses, and TONS of cool places to travel to and food to eat!!

We've been working with a recruiting agency that I stumbled across online, and we have been very pleased with them thus far.  They have been so helpful and personable, and have tried to be very accommodating.  We are supposed to be signing our contract on Monday, with plans to begin teaching for Avalon English School June 2nd!  That means we will most likely fly out of the U.S. on Friday, May 30th--exactly one week after my school gets out!  Aaah!  I know we can do it, it sounds like a lot but we will make it.  One good thing about going over earlier is that we will be able to take some of our vacation days in September to fly to Denver for my brother Karl's wedding to Amy.   One little anxious tidbit is that we also have our first niece (Michael's sister Rachel is pregnant), Phoebe, on the way, who is due to arrive on May 26th in Houston, so we are praying that she makes her appearance on time or earlier so that we won't miss getting to meet her before we leave!  

So, basically we have 7 weeks to finish out a school year, get packed, moved, and sell a bunch of our stuff and hopefully see family before we leave to move to Asia!  I found out in January that I have a pretty serious colon disease called ulcerative colitis--basically my colon gets inflamed and full of ulcers, and stress definitely triggers it, so I am praying that I will be able to make it through the next 7 weeks without a major flare-up.  I am on some good meds to control it, but please put me on your prayer list if you think about it.  

Here are a few pictures of Seoul, from the internet.

  

We'll keep you updated as things progress!

Which Office Character Are You?

Which Office Character Are You?
	You are Pam. You are sweet and likable, but your shyness makes it hard for you to express yourself sometimes. Regardless, you are always there for your friends and will usually come out of your shell to help anyone.
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Our First Blog Post!

Michael and I had our first annual Thanksgiving dinner, just the two of us, Wednesday evening.  I know this is our 4th Thanksgiving together, but for some reason I have never felt like cooking a big meal on Wednesday night!  Oh, I just realized it's because we were usually at church on Wednesday nights, but the church we go to now does not have Wednesday night services!!    That makes sense.  haha  So here is a photo of us at the table, and here are a few more of our scrumptious meal!  I was pretty proud of myself (don't take any notice of the fact that the Cornish hens were upside down--I cooked them breast-side down accidentally...oops, but they looked so pretty and did taste really good!! :)  for cooking out of my comfort zone. 

The spread...
The beautiful hens stuffed with a wild-rice concoction...
Us looking happy and hungry (and tired!)
Of course, it helped that my wonderful husband cleaned the kitchen both before AND after I cooked.  I could get used to that! :)  We ate a big meal at Michael's grandparents' house yesterday with his extended family, and tomorrow we will have another big meal at his parents' house with his sisters and brother-in-law.  What a lot of eating!  We have lots to be thankful for.  The Lord has blessed us greatly, and He is so good!  We are excited about the continuing journey He has planned for our lives!