Halfway done Halfway to go!

Hello family and friends! Thank you for checking out our blog. If you clicked on the link from my Facebook, you are probably thinking – 2 MORE years in Korea?!?! Yes, that is the truth and please let me take the time to explain why we’ve come to this decision.

Our first week in Korea!

Let’s start at the beginning:

So… exactly 2 years ago, my husband Cory and I anxiously arrived in South Korea. At that time we
were married for 2 months. We decided to come to South Korea for a multiple of reasons.

1. The opportunity to work overseas for a period in our life
2. Make payments towards our student loans
3.  Experience a new culture
4.  Travel!

Since I graduated with an Elementary Education degree and traveled to 4 countries before Korea, I developed a desire to teach in another country. When I was around 16 years old, I remember praying at a church retreat where God gave me a vision of children all over the world coming to thank me for impacting their lives. At that time, I’d never left the United States. It’s amazing to see the faithfulness of God.

Also, Cory felt a calling on his life saying he was, called to the nations. He never truly knew what that meant, but also never forgot it either. We actually never shared our “visions” with one another until we were dating for over a year and a half. That’s when Cory’s friend told us about the opportunity of teaching in South Korea!!! Everything all started to make sense.

We decided to look into South Korea more and everything with our heart’s desires became much clearer. We went through the entire (long) process of applying to teach in Korea (while planning a wedding!), got accepted, and are now living out our callings. It’s an amazing feeling.

The “Plan”

Our initial plan was to come and teach in Korea for 2 years. After Cory and I graduated, we knew we would have a LOT of school loans, but we were pretty SHOCKED when we found out just how much. Here we were…. Newlyweds with a teaching degree and youth ministry degree…and now almost $100,000 in school loan debt! Luckily we didn’t have any other debt… but still that was a big chunk of change!

We realized Korea would give us the opportunity to really make some serious payments towards these loans! In Korea, our housing is free and all other costs are very minimal. Therefore, my entire paycheck and half of Cory’s goes to these loans each month!!! I am happy to say that after 2 years of being here, we’ve been able to pay off $27,000!!!

So with all that being said, we are very happy with the amount we’ve paid off, but we really don’t think we’d be able to live at home comfortably with $73,000 in school loan debt. Not to mention; an apartment payment, car payment, insurance, gas money, electric bills, etc. We imagine that we would both have to get 2 jobs and hardly ever see each other. Now, that doesn’t sound like a very fun life especially because we love spending time together. That’s when we decided a third year would be best. As of today, we are actually in our 3^rd year teaching contract! We are happy and excited to start another year.

So why 4 years?

Another perk to teaching in Korea is when you leave you will receive an accumulated amount of severance and pension pay. After our third year, we really could move back home – but our ENTIRE severance/pension pay would go towards our loans. It would bring us down to about $24,000 in school loans and not a dime in our pockets. OR we have the opportunity to stay a 4^th year and move back with $0 in schools loans and possibly some money in our pockets (fingers crossed!!!) After we figured out our math (and hopefully our math is correct) we really had to ask ourselves what would benefit us more. What would benefit our future family more? Getting $100,000 paid off in 4 YEARS sounds unheard of, yet we have the opportunity. We kept asking ourselves, how can we pass this up?

Homesickness has really taken it’s toll with living on the other side of the world, but luckily both of our families are so understanding and know that this is not an easy decision for us. I really believe that the Lord is teaching us Diligence through this experience. Slowly but surely we will meet our goal and what a happy day that will be!!!

The reason why I am sharing all of this is to simply give you an update on our lives and to ask for prayer. Prayer for homesickness, peace, comfort, diligence, obedience, adventure, travel, safety, and making memories that will hopefully be an inspiration to others!

Thank you to all who’ve supported us and followed our journey. I know we have missed out on so many things back home, but I promise we will be reunited someday!! We are looking forward to seeing you on our next trip home to the USA!!! January 28^th – February 24^th. First 2 weeks in Iowa and second 2 weeks in Illinois, so mark your calendars!!

Love you all and thanks for reading! ~ Cory and Michelle

Some pics we took to celebrate 2 years living abroad

Highlights Throughout the Months - 2012

September

          Well I can say this was one of my favorite yet hardest months in Korea. My baby niece was born!! I really could have dwelled on the fact that I wasn’t there, but overall I was filled with so much joy for my family. Leighann Piper Bedford was born on September 6^th, 2012. She’s absolutely beautiful and it’s been amazing to see my sister and brother in law turn into parents and my parents turn into grandparents! This little girl has captured my heart and I can’t wait until the day we meet face to face. Aunties loves you baby girl!

October

          This month we celebrated Cory’s 25^th birthday! I embarrassed him at school throughout the day. He does not like being the center of attention but I wanted to make the entire day about him. I decorated his chair and desk with balloons and signs that read, “Happy Birthday.” Also, I made him wear a birthday hat during lunch. All the kids loved that! The teachers provided a cake for him. I put 25 candles on the cake which they thought was very strange. In Korea they have different candle sizes. A longer stick can be 10 years while the shorter ones are worth only one. Here I swarmed the cake with 25 candles which was very humorous to them. I guess I ended up teaching them a little American culture while I was at it. I always love Cory’s birthday because we become the same age and he can no longer call me, “old lady.” Haha, I love him to pieces and I will always be so excited to celebrate his life.

Happy Halloween

November

          This was also a very exciting month in our lives. Cory and I were going through our regular routine with school and home life. Until one day, I was walking to an academy I teach at once a week. On my way there, I ran into one of my students. To my surprise, she was holding a little kitten. My student said she found her in a pile of garbage and simply placed her in my hands. I could tell this little kitten was helpless and her mom was not around. I didn’t know what to do since I needed to be teaching my class in 5-10 minutes. I thought I’d put her near a bush and only hope she’d be there when I came back out. That didn’t work. As soon as I put her down, she was on the move. I remember looking at her eyes and they were infected pretty badly. I knew she would most likely not survive if I didn’t think of something.

I did have help from my two 5^th grade students and we tried a few more things, but she kept scurrying off. I almost called it quits. I walked into the academy building and to my utmost SURPRISE, I walked passed a closet filled with banana boxes! The supervisor was trying to organize the boxes and I asked if I could have one. He had nooooo idea why I would need one, but he confusingly handed one over. I remember SPRINTING out of the academy building to save this kitten. One of my students was watching her thankfully and we put her in the box. When I walked back into the building the supervisor asked why I needed the box. Now, remembering there is a language barrier here… he could not understand the word, “cat.” So, I had to mimic a cat… haha. He understood, I went to class, and before you know it the supervisor came up to my class and told me he found a better box for the kitten and brought her inside the building so she wouldn’t get away. I was so relieved!!

After class, I ran home to show Cory and he could not believe how small this little kitten was. She clearly needed her mom still. Not knowing what to do, we smashed up some crackers and warmed up milk (later we found out that’s not a good idea) but she didn’t eat anything. We decided to take her to the vet the next day and realllllllllly tried not to get attached to this little one. We didn’t know how infected she was or if she’d survive. The vet took one look and mentioned how sick she was. Bacteria infections, eye infections…almost everything you can think of. We decided to go through with the shots to see if we could save this kitten’s life. The vet was very moved and could see our hearts towards this little animal. A few days passed and we took our kitten back to the vet. He could NOT believe her progress! He gave us good news and told us we ended up saving her life. After that, Cory and I have been attached to this little kitten. We were NEVER cat people before this incident. But, I can say now, we love her to pieces. We decided to give her a name; Miso. It means “smile” in Korean. She always puts a smile on our face. She is our fighter and we are blessed to have her apart of our little family.

Miso the kitten

 

 Decmeber

          The highlight of December was celebrating Christmas. Cory and I had a very special Christmas last year. It was our first one as a married couple. We wrote 10 favorite memories/attributes about each other and put them in a box.

However, this Christmas was a little different. Christmas Eve was so fun. We decided to go to a coffee shop and have a little date night. I was so excited for Christmas morning. It is by far my favorite holiday! I wish I could say we woke up to happy joyful times, but it was the exact opposite. I indeed woke up Christmas morning with food poisoning. Something I’ve never had before. I guess this really isn’t a “highlight.” We still opened presents from our families back home. That was a lot of fun. After that, it was back to bed – the entire day. Hoping for a better Christmas next year! Thanks again to our families for sending us gifts from many miles away!

Miso's first Christmas

471 days

My my my, I sure am behind on this blog. Of course, we’ve been doing great! So many things have happened since I last updated. I hardly know where to begin. Since my last post we’ve been to Singapore and Australia (amongst other places). Both were amazing trips. I will talk more about our time there in another post.

Cory and I have been enjoying our time in Korea. We did re-sign to stay in Korea for yet another year! That will make it a total of 3 years! Crazy. We have 471 days left until we leave Korea; November 2014. That sounds like a lot of days, but the last 1 year and 7 months has flown by!

A lot of things have changed in Korea for us. First, we really have an understanding of our life here. At first, when you arrive in Korea you can’t understand anything. At least that’s how it was for us. You can’t read anything or talk to a lot of people. It’s pretty hectic, but... you’ll eventually figure it out. I like to believe that Cory and I now have a true/better understanding of Korea. It’s a pretty cool feeling when you can understand someone speaking Korean to you. I’m not talking conversations by any means, but just phrases here and there. It sure helps a ton! Korea truly feels like another home to us.

Also, Cory and I have met some friends over here that I believe we will keep in contact with no matter where life takes us. It makes a huuuuge difference having friends over here. It truly is an answer to our prayers. We are planning trips almost every weekend to hang out. It’s been a blast! We talk about how it’s so crazy how we all come from different paths yet we are here in Korea together. Some of us aren’t even from the same country! If you actually stop and think about that, it’s pretty cool.  God has been full of surprises our entire time in Korea. Only 471 days left, but we are so excited to see what else is to come!