Waiting and Packing

My Korean Adventure is coming up very soon! I could be leaving my life in Indiana and moving to Korea as early as two weeks. In fact, I am hoping and praying that I can leave around January 19th. The nice thing is I don't have a set start date for my teaching job there, it's one of those..."get here as fast as you can and you'll start teaching when you get here." The reason I really really really want to arrive in Incheon, Korea by January 21st is because January 21st-January 29th is a week of holiday in Korea! I think it would be so wonderful to arrive during a vacation week so that I can get settled in and hang out with my best friend Beth before I start teaching. Beth also has some friends from China visiting that week and they are already planning on doing touristy things, which would be nice for me to do in the beginning of my time there! So here's to hoping all my paperwork comes in so I can be in Korea that week!

If you didn't know, accepting a job overseas requires you to wait A LOT. I accepted the teaching job in Korea on October 25. It is January 7 and I'm still waiting on paperwork for my visa. The document I had to wait the longest for was my FBI criminal background check. I waited 8 weeks for them to send me a paper that said I have no record! Now I'm still waiting on my FBI background check. After I received the background check, I had to send it back to Washington to get an "apostille certificate". It is some seal of authentication. So I'm waiting and waiting for that to come back from Washington. I check the mail everyday to see if it has come. It should be soon! I'm hoping today! It is hard to wait, but I know everything will work out in the end, so no worries :)

Since I know I'm likely leaving soon I have already started packing. I can take two 50 lb. suitcases, a carry-on, and a personal item, such as a purse. Last week I went through my entire closet, separating my clothes into multiple piles: clothes to take to Korea and ready to pack, clothes to take to Korea but not ready to pack (the clothes I'll wear the next couple of weeks), clothes to donate, clothes to keep at home, and clothes that are not mine! (sorry sister and brother!) Yesterday I packed a suitcase full of clothes that were ready to pack. I weighed the suitcase on my parents' scale, hoping that the weight would not be over 50 lbs, the limit. The suitcase weighed a total of 46.7 pounds! Hooray for being under the limit! Now my next task is to go through all the stuff in my room and put it into boxes because...well, my room is being taken over. All my stuff is going into the attic, which is sad but understandable.

I won't be doing much work on my room today, however. Today I am actually going to help a friend of mine paint her new room. It is incredibly ironic to me because if I were not going to Korea, it would actually be me having my friends come over and help me paint this very room, for I was going to move into this room before I had plans for Korea. Before Korea, my plan was to move out of my parents house at the beginning of February and move in with two friends from church, taking the room of a girl who is getting married. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I were staying here in Indiana and moving in with these wonderful girls. But then I remember: I have a grand adventure ahead of me, an opportunity to go and teach oversees, to grow in faith and as a person, to experience a new culture, and be with my best friend again. So, here I am, stepping out in faith and opening myself up to adventure.

 I'm getting so excited!!!