Feb 4, 2016 (I forgot to publish it when I wrote it!)

On Monday I bought plane tickets.  I have knots in my stomach.  Or butterflies, or something.  I can’t believe it!  We are really doing this – we leave for Spain on Monday, March 28th, the day after Easter.

Why and How?

When I posted this news on Facebook, several people asked “what is sending you to Spain”?  And I’ve already written about why we want to go to Spain.  But some other people want to know, “how?” No, Ryan didn’t get a job in Spain.  But he works in IT, so his work can be done remotely.  He will be keeping his US job!

It was pretty cool timing, because right as we were finding out this was possible, our pastor was preaching on resurrected dreams, and talking about how sometimes God closes the door on things we want, but other times, the dream can be resurrected at a later date.  We have tried several different times over the past 5 years to get a job for Ryan in Europe.  First Belgium fell through.  Then Zurich.  And the funny thing was that neither of those were our first choice, anyway.  We always wanted it to be Spain.  So when Pastor Dave was preaching on Resurrected Dreams, we couldn’t help but recognize this opportunity as our own personal dream being given another chance, and give the glory to God.  We feel excited and humbled!  Why would God allow us to see this dream realized?  We had almost given up, and just settled into our comfortable lives.  We are sure He plans to teach us through this, and we will be looking for His hand at work in it, and sharing what we learn with you!

Where will you live?  Do you have a house there?

No, we don’t have a place lined up yet.  We are planning to get a temporary place in Almuñécar for a week or two while we make our final decisions about where to live.  We really liked Almuñécar and also La Cala del Moral on our scoping trip, but we didn’t get to visit a school in La Cala, so I hope we’ll get to do that before we decide.   Either way, we plan to settle on the Mediterranean coast east of Malaga.

How long will you be gone?

The plan is to stay for two full school years, so that’s about 2 1/2 years total.  We will be putting our kids in public school there (BIG change for us!), so the twins will finish 7th grade there, Ella will finish 4th, Peter will finish 2nd, and Cora gets to hang out with Mommy at home.  That said, there are so many unknowns for us!  If we find this adventure really isn’t our thing, we could come home after 1 year, or if we really love it, we might stay a little longer.  It is nice to have the flexibility, but we are committed to a minimum of one year to achieve our goals.