Hello All! The time has finally arrived and not too soon in my mind. I will share the secret in a series of posts, but the main bulk of what is happening will be contained in this post. Kelly has accepted a position with the U.S. Department of State as a Regional Medical Officer (RMO). In a nutshell, he will be providing medical care for US Embassy employees and their eligible family members living abroad. Kelly is entering the Foreign Service. We are in the process of becoming expatriates or expats. You may ask, "I have heard that term before, what is an expat?"
EXPATRIATE
One who lives outside one’s own or home country.
In September, Kelly will go to orientation in Washington DC. He will be at orientation for about six weeks. After that time he will be assigned to a post. The children and I will follow along at that point as he reports for duty. We have no idea where we are going as of this blog post. It could be almost any location in the world. A few examples being, Bogota, Cairo, Lima, Frankfurt, Nairobi, Dhaka, Accra, Kuwait City or Washington DC. Our first assignment will be for a two year duration. This transition will be more difficult as we still are unsure of what country we will spend the next two years living in. In the future we will know in advance through the State Department bidding process.
Kelly applied for this position in April of 2008. In August of 2008 he flew to DC to interview. It has taken so much patience to go through this process. As we have gotten closer to being offered the position we have had EXTENSIVE medical clearances, a comprehensive security clearance and poured over as much information as we can to ascertain what our new life will look like. This is truly Kelly's dream job and he is beside himself with excitement! Kelly loves international travel and has done much of it while going on short term mission trips over the past 20 years. I am not near as well traveled as my husband, but I love travel equally as much and I am always ready for adventure!
We are both excited for our children to have this experience. We know this life will have it's unique challenges, but we have always wanted our children to see what the world is and how blessed they are to be Americans. We are thrilled for them to have friends from all over our great country and this wonderful world. They most likely will attend school in one of these "international schools". We will live in housing provided by the Department of State. I am excited to see the world through my children''s eyes and perspective. They are all so excited!! They have the normal concerns of starting a new school and making new friends, but overall they are ready to "try all the new food" and see "Disney world in Europe".
We are excited to see what God has in store as far as this next chapter. For now we are getting rid of piles of junk that we haven't really ever needed and deciding what we need to have in our new location. We have had our home listed for sale since March. Michigan is really hurting right now. For those of you who aren't living in Michigan, our statewide unemployment is 15.1 %. Needless to say we have no offers on our home, please if you would remember that in your prayers we would appreciate it. I am excited to share with you all the thoughts that go through my mind on a daily basis about this move. But, I have taken up enough of your time tonight. Thanks for sharing in our secret and being patient with me!!!!! Have a blessed weekend~
