“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
We are moving to Ukraine this summer!
It should come as no real surprise that we are moving overseas again to teach at an international school, since we have talked about it frequently since we moved back to Colorado in 2010, and never really wanted to leave Turkey in the first place (though we can see now how God protected and guided us through that). We’ve spent the last 7.5 years developing incredible friendships, drawing close to family again, learning all we can about Alex and what kind of support he needs, and giving our kids a firm foundation to launch from. Now that all four kids are in school, we reached out to Quality Schools International (QSI) and interviewed with them again last summer. This was the company we worked for when we first moved to Kyrgyzstan. We had an amazing interview and were excited to see the new schools & countries that QSI had expanded to, as well as their teaching package. Then it was just a time of waiting and praying to see what job positions would be available, and where. Though we were warned they could be posted as late as mid-January 2018, we were surprised and excited to see the webpage start listing them the day after Christmas. After it was clear the list was complete, we focused on more praying and more research, and conducted a family meeting. We tried to be real and honest about what life overseas would be like when we talked about it with the kids, and then we voted. And that night, we accepted teaching positions at Kyiv International School in Ukraine, starting August 2018.
Mike will be teaching 9 year olds (grade 4) and Sarah will be teaching 12 year olds English and Cultural Studies.
We will be working with QSI extensively over the next few months to arrange flights and housing, and will be doing research and language-learning to help prepare our kids as much as possible before we go. When we first moved overseas back in 2007, Alex was 18 months old and had no say in the matter! Now we have four little people with opinions and personalities to take into account, and we want this to be an adventure for them too.
Information about Kyiv International School can be seen here.
If you are wondering if Kyiv, or Ukraine in general, will be safe for us, there are many articles assuring us that it is safe as long as we avoid the Russian-disputed areas. Here’s another article.
We continue to avoid Facebook at all costs, but this family blog of ours is active and (mostly) current. We will work on back-dating it, but this is where our family adventures are recorded and we’d love to share them with you. Our kids also have their own pages here on the blog and will be using those sites to share their experiences as well.
We appreciate your prayers for us as we embark on this incredible global journey that God has called us to. And thank you to everyone who gave us so much support and encouragement and love during our darker days.
