Well, it has been a few days since my last post, and a lot has happened.  We decided not to go for the job in Nicaragua.  There were a lot of reasons why, here’s just a few:

- We had no particularly strong attachment to Nicaragua and I felt awkward about raising financial support for something we weren’t sure we were called to do.

- We didn’t want to have the baby so far away from our parents – my parents especially would not likely have been able to see him/her for months, if not a year or more.

- We want our kids to be near their grandparents and have a relationship with them before they get too big.

- I didn’t think I could handle going from one foreign country to another with only a month in Canada to prepare, all while super-pregnant.

- The job in Nicaragua still wouldn’t help A. get a job in Canada…and we don’t want to live overseas forever (though we don’t discount the possibility of doing it again sometime).

- Most importantly, we just didn’t feel God’s peace in our hearts about it.  It was all turmoil and stress and trying to figure out how it could all work – it just seemed like we were forcing it too much and there were too many obstacles.  On the other hand, A.and I both feel that we need to go back to Canada, and we are trusting God in faith that he is going to be accepted to UBC.  

So we are making plans to that end.  A.’s last day of work in Korea will be May 31st, and we plan to fly to Vancouver the first week or two of June.  We are going to see a travel agent tomorrow and may book our tickets then if they have a good deal.  If he has been accepted to the BEd program, wonderful!  He will start in July and we will have had a month to look for an apartment and get a bit settled.  If not, well then he will look for a job, with much better chances of finding something than he has if we stay here!  Besides, I can’t fly internationally any later than July anyways, we would have to go somewhere unless we were to stay here another year…which is not the best thing for our family.  Our three-year-old needs friends who speak English.  I need friends who speak English.  We all miss our families, and need their support especially now that we’re expecting again.

So that’s that.  I feel good about this decision.  It is still stressful, planning the trip home and not knowing how all the details will be worked out, but it’s a confident stress, if that makes any sense.  I am confident that God will look after us in this and be with us every step of the way.  With Nicaragua, I just didn’t have that sense of reassurance.  Am I relying too much on my feelings?  Well…maybe.  But I try to involve my head too.

I have noticed a pattern in my life the last few years, that we have to pick a direction and start acting on it before God really confirms that it’s the right thing to do.  It was the same thing coming here to Korea – A. had given notice at his job and we were trying to give away our cat and start packing up the house, all before he had even accepted a job here.  We just felt it was the right thing for us and that God would provide the job, and he did!  And then He confirmed it was the right decision by so many little “miracles” along the way.  With the end of our time here now in sight, I am trying to discern what the purpose was in bringing us here…but I think that will be another post.  Till next time, then…