We're moving to the Dominican Republic!

I’ve had (and will likely continue to have) a flood of emotions the past couple weeks and am not sure how to dictate any of it but I will try!  A few weeks ago, Jesus casually told me that he found a competitor company to his with an office in the Dominican Republic that just so happened to be in the town he was born.  He told me he emailed HR about the company and initially I was a little shocked because that’s the first step to applying and we never talked about moving internationally.  They quickly replied that they needed someone to manage the office in the DR and they wanted his resume.  He sent his resume and was asked to interview the next day!  Well the first interview went well and then they asked him to interview with the Vice President of the company the following day!  Then the VP was too busy and had to cancel.  She rescheduled and then had to cancel again.  At this point Jesus was ready to call it quits since he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to move there anyway.  I was still living in oblivion and believed this whole thing wasn’t real.   However for some reason, I told Jesus that he should just continue to interview.  An interview doesn’t mean we’d accept the job but for some reason I wanted him to try.  I knew that this might be something he really wanted and I didn’t want to see him not follow through and be left wondering “what if?”  That was my first red flag!  I could have easily said, yes, let’s not interview because I wasn’t excited about leaving family and friends, not to mention we own a brand new home!  But I didn’t, I said he should interview.  Am I a supportive wife or what?! 

Although for the first couple weeks I didn’t think we would actually move, I still knew that Jesus was going to get the offer.  Two or three interviews later, sure enough the offer came.  So Jesus replied with his demands of salary and moving expenses, etc. and then we went forward with prayer and fasting.  Should we actually go if they meet our “demands?”  Obviously this is a major adventure and you might be thinking, who would pass this up?  Well I sure would simply out of fear...and this is why I married Jesus.  I knew that I was going to have trouble hearing an answer to prayer because in my mind I didn’t want to go.  For as long as I’ve known Jesus, one thing he has been amazing at has been listening to the Spirit.  He has always known that things would work out when I’ve been afraid whether the decision was about marriage, health, or our careers.  He’s also the kind of person that won’t do something if it doesn’t feel right.  So I knew at this time that I would need to trust Jesus because I couldn’t trust myself since fear would over run logic.  Luckily the Lord knew about my internal struggles too and that’s when things started falling into place.  I have to give a shout out to one of my friends, Katy, who reminded me that the spirit doesn’t work through fear so feelings of fear probably weren’t coming from the Lord.  The Lord has other ways of telling me something isn’t right if that were the case.  To my surprise the list of things making this move feel “meant to be” commenced.  

I told a friend, Yvette, from church that we could potentially move and I was telling her all of my fears, one of them being we would need to rent our sell our house in a matter of weeks.  Later that night, I received a text message from her letting me know her family was interested in renting out home as they had been wanting more space!  Then when Jesus quit his job, they could have walked him to the door, but they said he was welcome back anytime.  My Principal too told me the most wonderful thing when she said they will miss me but family comes first.  I don’t think just any boss would say that especially since I quit a week before I was supposed to come back from maternity leave.  In addition to all of this, Joaquin and I were waiting for our passports for an upcoming vacation to the DR before we knew we were moving and then they came in the mail early at the same time of this big decision!  With everything beginning to work out, enough of my fear subsided to know that we couldn’t pass up this opportunity!  It will benefit Jesus’ career path and teach Joaquin and I more about Jesus’s language and culture.  Have I mentioned I won’t be working and can be a stay at home mom with Joaquin while we’re here too?  Things can’t get much more exciting than that!  The other thing that puts me at ease is the fact that Jesus told me we can go to the DR to give back to the community and I like the thought of us taking a mini “mission.”

It’s funny how a flood of emotions can make me even more cheesy than I already am.  We are driving to Chicago now to show Joaquin to the great grandmas on my side and I was finding all this strength for my adventure listening to Moriah Carey sing “Hero” on the radio.  Really?!  I know I have exciting things to look forward to like warm weather, beans and rice and plantains, being less than an hour from the beach, living in a beautiful apartment or maybe a traditional home, hopefully having a pool and two of my friends Melinda and Christina have already started planning their trips to visit me! 

When we return from Chicago, it's back to packing and trying to sell the bigger pieces of furniture and our cars so we have less to store at my mom’s and it would all be much too expensive to ship.  We will be going to the DR with clothes and that’s about it!  Oh and Jesus’s 3-D TV of course!  I am sad to leave my family but we will Skype often.  I will so miss my friends and am hoping to not miss the birth of a few upcoming babies as I don’t know my departure date yet.  Jesus leaves for London in about a week for training and then should be able to come back to help me move.  So if you’re free and want to watch Joaquin while I pack, give me a ring! 

Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far and know that I’ll miss you!  But I have to embrace this the best I can and there’s no doubt you’ll be getting facebook and blog updates and photos!

I will just imagine my life is going to be like this...at least it might be on the weekends!