In 19 hours I'll be on an airplane beginning the journey to move to South Korea. I'm so excited because I feel like this has been planned for so long and now it's REAL. Over the past few months, I've been answering people's questions and helping friends and family around me understand what life might possibly look like in another country. However, recently it hit me that answering questions felt like I was telling a story and now this is real life! No more story telling...I'm so excited and ready to start this adventure.
FRIENDS!!
I was able to visit Minneapolis for the past week and catch up with college friends. We have quite a strong and quality group of people that have miraculously bonded and grown over the past few years. Somehow we have morphed into the people we call family even though there's no blood relation and the only ones who can match our own personal levels of crazy. I realized this week that we have all put in our work to make these individual friendships unique, strong and genuinely "worth it". We arguably know each other better than most people in this world and will be friends for years to come because we saw the value in having quality people around us years ago. We used to reminisce about old times, funny stories, and memories that more or less have defined the culture of our interactions with each other. Lately, we've talked more about dreams, futures, how we'll make it to each other's weddings, ways to stay connected and how our families will be friends as we grow older and move from life transition to settling down. Growing up is a weird concept, but I think more than ever, I appreciate these strangely motivated people. We're going places and with that, our bond of friendship is growing and getting deeper. To be honest, I'm not sure how many people can say that. Surely, the depth and consistency of communication will ebb and flow with time and life events, but I can't help but believe that the roots and foundations that we've worked hard to build and maintain will stand the test of time. It makes me proud to know such people and confident to follow my dreams and plans the Lord's laid out. Similarly I feel compelled to be each of their biggest support system and the loudest one in the peanut gallery. Thank God for these friends because without them my life would be a little more bleak, I would be a little less quality, and the world would be done a great disservice.
So the last week has been a busy week of airports, planes, friends, family, and inevitably the goodbyes. I spent three days in Huntington Beach with my friend Lauren.
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| Lauren and I |
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| Huntington Beach |
I continued on to spend three days in Tulsa with my Dad and grandparents. It was good to see everyone before I take off for Korea.
For the next two-ish weeks I'll be spending time in Minneapolis with family and friends here. It's ironic that I was able to make it to the city just in time for Battle of the Floors. If you know anything about my friends or 3West in general, you know just how funny that is. I'm looking forward to catching up with my best friends and i couldn't be more ecstatic about meeting my new baby cousin!
If for some reason you haven't heard yet, I'm leaving February 28th to teach English in Gumi, South Korea. I've signed a one year contract, but if given an option, I'll probably renew. This is a great opportunity to represent the Lord in another place as well as pay off student loan debt. I'll be teaching elementary-aged kids and I'm going with friends that i met at North Central so this experience although challenging, should be a good one! I'm ready for this adventure and after hearing so much about Korea and Gumi from other people, I'm very ready to go and live it up for myself.
(Click the Link)
Lastly, I am very proud to say that i packed and ended up with only TWO suitcases...for MOVING to another country! Packing was the only thing I have been stressed about in this whole trip! I went through clothes probably five times and got rid of stuff...stuff that I like to wear, but just don't have room for! :/ It was a good lesson in realizing what i actually NEED. When I was leaving the Oklahoma airport, my suitcases were 1 pound over and the lady at the desk started to tell me that they needed to be lighter..so, naturally I casually mentioned that I was moving to another country and as we were talking, she just moved my bags one by one to the conveyor belt! Thank you Jesus! The hardest parts are done!
My life has proven to never be dull so hopefully i'll be able to entertain with stories from time to time...
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