Packing is a Pain

Ahh...packing. There are so many things to be said of packing.

We will be going with 7 50-pound bags. The original goal was 6- the usual 2, and one extra ,which the school will reimburse us for. After we packed all 6 we still had more to pack so decided to throw in a 7th bag, mostly books. Taylor was not happy about this- he would prefer to live life as a minimalist. I, on the other hand, took it to heart when we were told that Koreans are small and it will be difficult for us to find pants and shoes in our sizes. So I brought plenty of both! I'd rather overpack then not bring the things I want/need and have to have someone ship them or, gasp, go without! Hopefully I can begin to live a more minimalistic lifestyle but right now I am just trying to adjust to moving overseas for 2 years!

We leave tomorrow morning at 7:45 AM. The adventure is about to begin. In the meantime, I'd like to leave you with the following quote from Brennan Manning, something we both want to live our lives by:

"The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity not into some pre-determined, clearly delineated plan for the future...The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered His presence and His promise."

Amen.






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A blessing wrapped in ear wax

As disgusting as the title might seem, the trip to the doctor turned out to be a blessing! Right now Ashley and I do not have insurance and so we were looking for a walk-in clinic that would be inexpensive and also fix my ear. My ear was still stuffed up at around 11 am and so I decided that instead of continuing to take more and more medication I would consult an expert. I honestly believed that I had some kind of infection, but we were praying that God would take care of everything.

After driving around Houston for an hour looking for a clinic that was open (two of them were closed due to doctors going on vacation) and found one inside a Walgreen's. After waiting for an hour the doctor informed us that she was taking her lunch break...and we were the next ones on the list. We waited another 45 minutes and at 3pm we finally got the diagnosis. Ear Wax. And lots of it. I had apparently been shoving the stuff into my ear deeper and deeper each time I cleaned it with a Q-tip. She took out something that sprayed water from a tube into my ear at high pressure until I could hear again! It was accelerating to say the least and I feel as if I now have super power hearing.

I do have a picture of the ear wax monster living inside me, but will not be posting it due to the request of my wife. Thanks for continuing to pray for us as we continue to have adventures even before going to Korea...

P.S. Don't use Q-tips for cleaning your ears.

Ear Infection

While enjoying our time here in Texas we have gone swimming a few times. Due to the lack of swimming I (taylor) have done in the past year my ears are suffering. I can hear out of the right ear, but my left ear seems to be infected. I have taken some pain medication and tried some home remedies to fix it, but nothing seems to be working. I can't hear out of the left ear so I am pretty sure that is not normal. Please be praying that it heals over the next few days especially since we will be flying soon.

It is 3am central time right now and I can't sleep because of it. I did stumble upon a couple of funny videos from a movie Ashley and I are waiting to see. Very short, but made me laugh. The movies comes out on DVD this month and it is called "Babies."

Visa Troubles

Good News or Bad News first?

Okay, let's start with good...

The good news is we get a 2 day paid vacation to Japan once we get to Korea...

the bad news....

This means that our visas did not go through.

Got an email early this morning from the school in Korea which informed us that the criminal background check we went to great lengths to obtain (see Trip to Capital) was invalid. We don't really know where the misinformation happened...it could have been that the person contacting us from the school was American so she was reading a translated version of the Korean Embassy website about visa requirements. Or it could be that Korea is cracking down and getting extra picky on who they allow in. Taylor read an article last night saying how crime taking place in Korea by foreigners has been on the rise. So maybe they are taking extra precautions? Either way...the local background check we got from our police department; signed by the chief of police, notarized by a notary, and sealed with an official state Apostille stamp was not sufficient.

It turns out, we have to have a criminal background check from State or Federal Authorities.

Back to the good news...while we won't have the visas by the time we leave on August 9th, we have the opportunity to go to Japan for free now...but back to the not so good news...we don't qualify for health insurance until after our Japan trip and visas are processed.

Thanks for the prayers...we didn't realize our blog would be so eventful before arriving in South Korea!

Asiana Airlines Flight OZ 201

We officially have a flight booked to get to South Korea! We will be leaving from Houston on Monday, August 9 for Los Angeles and then leaving for Seoul, South Korea later that day. We will be leaving at 7:45am on Monday and arriving in Seoul at 6:10pm on Tuesday. We are losing half a day due to the 14 hour time difference with South Korea, but we wanted to get there at night so we can hopefully re-adjust faster. Let's see who can stay awake the longest during this 20 hour journey!

We have unpacked everything from the Uhaul and put it in the upstairs guest room of my parents house. Ashley helped carry all of the furniture upstairs (she is stronger than I remembered). One thing I love about moving overseas is that you don't take as much stuff with you. I am still dumbfounded by the amount of stuff (junk) we have after being married just one year. Most of it was stuff we brought with us to Tulsa and never used.

We are still waiting on Visa paperwork to be finished, so continue to pray for a speedy process next week. If we are unable to acquire our visas this week then we will have to make a trip to Japan during the school year and it could make things more complicated. As much as we would love to take a weekend trip to Japan, we would much rather get the visas now and not have to think about it anymore!

If you live in the Houston area and want to hang out let us know we will be here for only one more week! We own a super nintendo with Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers so hopefully that will entice you to come and see us.

Final Day At Work

It looks like the final day of work has come and gone. I was going to call it the reckoning day, but that is a little too intense. Here at LinkAmerica they threw a going away party for Joshua (who got engaged) and myself with a cookie cake and chick-fil-a. Both were incredible, but the cake was by far the best because it included some great quotes from the past year. The trucking industry is difficult and hilarious all at the same time. Not sure if there was a party for Ashley, but here was what my party looked like...

Inspired by Beautiful Feet Inc

We will be in Korea next month! This antique map of Korea was inspired by our friends at Beautiful Feet Inc

A Trip to the Capital

The documents needed for our work visas have finally been sent to Korea! I (Taylor) would love to say that the process was a simple one, but it was far from it. After mailing the wrong information to the Oklahoma Secretary of State last week, I decided to make the 90 mile trip to OKC and send the documents from there. We just sold the 2002 Lexus on Sunday so I did not want to add more miles to the car before handing over the keys on Wednesday. I decided to drive Ashley's 1994 Lexus to the capital and back. This ended up being more of a hassle then I thought it would be...

As I neared my final exit for the capital building the check engine light came on and the engine died! I quickly got into the right lane and parked the car on the shoulder of I-44. After calling Ashley to tell her what happened I called AAA. Our membership actually expired three days earlier and were hoping we would not need to renew. After I gave them my number they asked me to renew in order to get service. After about 5 transfers a tow truck was sent to get me. 2 hours later the tow truck guys (yes there were two of them and I got to sit in between both of them while trying not to straddle the gear shifter). At around 1pm we finally made it to the only AAA approved repair shop in Edmond, OK and asked if they could look at my car, fix it and get me out that day. They said there was a long line ahead of me and that I would be waiting for at least an hour for them to diagnose the problem (and it would cost $90). The day just kept getting worse and worse...when suddenly everything changed.

I texted a guy from our young married couples group and just told him to pray because I was stuck in OKC. After that I called good ol Blayze (he lives about 30 minutes from Edmond) and asked if he could come and get me to the Secretary of State and then to the post office after that. He arrived at around 1:45pm and we went to the capital. Very cool building, too bad I did not care at all due to circumstances with the car. We went inside and 15 minutes later it was ready to be mailed off. The mission of sending the documents to Korea was complete and God was faithful. About 2 hours later we returned to the car place to find that the car had not been looked at! Just then I received a call from Billy (young married couples leader) who told me a guy from the group had a goose neck trailer and said he could be there in a few hours to pick me up!

So Blayze and I waited for a few hours and then he showed up at around 8:30pm. Mark (the guy with the trailer) opened the hood and said that the timing belt was gone and that he could fix it! We pushed the car on the trailer and left for Tulsa. The car is now parked at Mark's house and he is going to get the parts tonight to start working on the car. He believes it is fixable and we will be trusting God that it will be working again in the next couple of days.

I felt that yesterday was one wild ride that seemed horrible, but God turned it all around for His Glory. If I had taken my car to OKC then we would have had timing belt issues when we drove it to Houston. But, since it happened yesterday we have a friend that can fix it during our final week here in Tulsa. Our friend Mark told me last night he has been trying to sell that Goose Neck trailer for a little while now. Looks like God had other plans for it before it sold! Praise be to God and the people that he puts in our lives!

Thank you Blayze for helping us get our visas and thank you Mark for getting me home to my wife.