How it started…

My mom lived on Kwajalein when she was a sophomore and junior in high school.  She has been pushing Jerrod and I to apply for a teaching position for awhile, insisting that we needed to go on an adventure while our kids were still young.  We both loved our jobs, so we continuously ignored her requests to look for open positions.  In April, she had found that there were open positions for a principal and math teacher.  Jerrod went ahead and applied, just so he could tell her he had done so…thinking nothing of it.  However, at the end of May, he received an email offering him an interview.  Due to the time change, it was scheduled at 8:30pm CST.  We hauled the kids off to my mom’s, I ushered the dogs outside, and he proceeded with the interview.

We had lots of long discussions following the interview, mostly about how this change would affect the children.  As many of you know, Johnny is a twice exceptional child with both many gifts and struggles.  I prayed that if he would thrive out there that the door would be opened, but if he wouldn’t that it would be slammed shut.  I knew it would be extremely difficult to be halfway around the world from his support system if he couldn’t handle it, but also felt that island life might suit him well.

Several days later, we went to bed unusually early due to exhaustion (from what I can no longer remember).  For some reason Jerrod woke up around 12:30am and realized he had missed a call at 9:30pm offering him the position.  He woke me up and we laughed and cried and listened to Stephen Curtis Chapman’s “The Great Adventure.”