Thanks for checking out our blog! This will be the place we
will give updates as we embark on this new journey set before us! We are so
grateful for your thoughts & intercessions along the way!
Many of you might be wondering how we got here. Our plans
have changed several times in the last three and a half years and we have been
H U M B L E D greatly each time. China is where our hearts have been for a
long, long time (since 2002 for Anna, since 2009 for David). It was actually this mutual love for this
great country and people that made us be interested in each other in the first
place! [shout out to D’s Chinese characters tattoo on his arm for that
conversation starter!] Yet after two and a half years of the door being shut,
not once, but twice, we felt a pull to work with the great Chinese population
in Toronto, Canada. We visited Toronto and fell in love.
Through previous connections, we ended up moving from Raleigh, NC to
Knoxville, TN in June 2014 to the Shoreline family there, who we hoped to
partner with long term going to Canada. Yet in our first 6 months in Knoxville,
we still were wrestling this deep desire to go to China. After a conversation one
night with our friends and leader of our Shoreline family, Jason & Carrie Hayes,
we realized our hearts were still in China and we had been in denial because of
the doors shut previously. Basically Toronto we felt was the “next best thing”
to going to China because of their Chinese population. We began seeking wisdom
and through a connection found out about ELIC (English Language Institute of
China). It is a company based out of Colorado that sends couples and families
like us to parts of Asia to teach English and to love the students and families we work with and living very intentionally among them. This is a dream partnership because Anna has been teaching English and life skills to immigrants here in Knoxville for the past year and loves it! This truly is a perfect fit for us in China. Our plan (we laugh at those two words nowadays- Dad seems to have little regard to these!) was to live in Knoxville for two years working with Shoreline. However, ELIC expressed to us the need for teachers to go this July. At first we were much against it, but our hearts changed (wonder who did that?) and we applied for July departure. We applied at the end of February and were accepted by ELIC
in early March for our first two year teaching commitment with them. Now much, MUCH paperwork later….here we are!
Please keep us in your thoughts and petitions as we pursue
this new adventure and embark on this journey. There is still much to be done before leaving at the end of July. We will leave Knoxville on July 26 for Ft. Collins, Colorado for further teacher training with ELIC. We are required to obtain the TESOL Certificate before heading to China. Anna has this certification from NC State but will need to add Chinese Culture credit hours, while David will do the full certificate. We have begun our work in these courses in preparation for the training in July. At the end of August we will leave for Beijing where we will be for a few short weeks, then off to our new home city..which is yet to be determined! We will keep you posted once we have heard the news! Did I mention we are EXCITED?!
We would like to invite you to partner with us, and are so grateful for those of you who have already committed to do so. While we do have an income from our university, it is not enough to cover the costs of training, moving, insurance, etc. so we are required to raise that money. We see this as a wonderful opportunity. An opportunity to partner with brothers and sisters in this work for an eternal impact! We ask for you to consider how you would like to partner with us. More information to come on partnership soon.
We are grateful in advance for you support and encouragement in the days ahead. This calling is humbling and we are so excited to answer it.
