Going Abroad! Or so we thought.

Goodbye America! Hello World!

Around January 2015, Josie and I decided that it was time to start getting serious about making our travel dreams a reality. Little did we know the obstacles that awaited our future.

In January of that year, we begin applying for teaching jobs in England. London had always been a dream destination for me as noted before in the earlier post. We spent countless days researching, applying for jobs, and sending out resumes. We explored public schools, private schools, international schools, and even working with the DOD. Most of our responses went unanswered leaving us defeated and clueless about what to do next.

This brings us to April of that year. Josie and I decided that we were going abroad by all means necessary. We decided to become TEFL certified (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) . This would be a our back up plan as a way to move abroad and explore the world. Thankfully we chose to do this option, and soon you’ll see why. We embarked on the nine weeks course while finishing out the school year teaching in our respective schools.

We were just a couple of weeks into the course when finally we got a lead for on job in England. A Canadian company responded to our request for support in finding a teaching job in England. While they did not typically work with Americans because we do not hold the same working rights in the UK as the Commonwealth counties, they still were determined to help us find a job.

Welcome to May of that year. We had both not only landed an interview with a school, but we landed an interview in the same school. A dream that we could not even have imagined. Josie was interviewing for a Year 3 (second grade) position, and I was interviewing for a Year 5 (fourth grade) position. We took time out of our work day, and met with the principal and our future colleagues via Skype. The interviews went better than we could have hoped for and within minutes of finishing our interviews, we received word that they were interested in hiring the both of us. Finally, we could close out our school year with no worries about future job security.

At the end of the school, Josie was granted a leave of absence, and as my school district did not allow this, I resigned. It was a bitter sweet moment. We were leaving behind a second family that we both worked extremely hard to create. We spent three years building relationships in our schools and communities, and we were leaving it all behind. However, we both knew that was the best thing for us to do at that point in our life.

Now join us in the summer of 2015. Let’s just say that summer was not we expected. We knew that we were moving abroad. The only thing we did not know was how to prepare for financial stability and moving expenses that come with moving across the world. Reluctantly, we both took summer jobs. While we would have rather enjoyed our typical “teacher summer” with adventure as well as spending time with family and friends, we buckled down and took jobs that we thought we would never find ourselves doing.

I returned to a job that I told myself that I would never have to endure again. It was my motivation to go to college in the first place and to find a career that made my life more enjoyable. However, that summer I was back at the DMV completing routine tasks and being cussed at daily. Josie on the other hand found jobs that really made her feel every dollar earned. One of her jobs was cleaning buses and when work was slow, she would be out in the summer sun chopping down the weeds in the parking lot. Her other glorious job was assisting on a chicken farm where she would feed and remove dead chickens on the daily.

Alright, now back to the topic about our job in England. We were both still extremely stoked to be moving to England. We meet with our future students via Skype and wrote them all individual letters and mailed them all the way across the Atlantic. As I am sure you can imagine, there were many hoops to jump through and paperwork that was never ending. Josie and I did our parts to prepare. We completed all of our documents. I got my passport for the first time, and we patiently awaited the next step in the process. In order for us to get our visa for England the school needed to sponsor us. In order to sponsor us they had to prove that they tried to hire British people for the position first and then gain their sponsor status. We received our first backslide in July. The school was denied sponsorship, and they had to wait another month in order to apply again. We were reassured by both the school and the Canadian company that they were going to do whatever it took to hire us, and we were reminded that the process could be tedious as many companies apply for sponsorship in the summer and only a certain number were granted each month. In August, we crossed our fingers, and awaited the verdict. It just so happened that they were denied again. Not only did our faith start to falter, but we noticed the same feelings from the school. As we approached September and the start of their school year, we received the news that they would not be able to hire us as they needed teachers in the classrooms as soon as possible.

This brings us to the end of the 2015 summer. We had both quit our careers. We no longer had a job abroad. We were working jobs that we despised without insurance or other benefits. We were left stuck in North Carolina taking time off our retirement and no prospects for the future.