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After three months of stressful job seeking, we finally have a job! Well, Kristy does anyway. We haven’t ended up in Chicago as we had hoped, but have in fact landed in Rockland County, New York (about 20 minutes north of Mahnattan). Allow me to tell you the story. It’s only mildly interesting to anybody other than us so I’ll make it short.

Kristy has been looking for a Japanese teaching position, which is difficult to find given it is such a niche career. A couple came up around Indiana (in Indianapolis and Chicago), but the Indy one didn’t work out and while we were offered the Chicago job, it turned out to be in a school district with the lowest safety rating in the whole city and one of the highest rates of violent crime. We may have braved that two years ago, but after witnessing a murder in our first apartment block in the UK we decided it probably wasn’t a good mental health decision to take the job, despite no other position being on offer at that late stage in the school hiring year.

From a Christian perspective, I think we have matured from looking at single open options as God’s will (analogous to praying for an open door) and leaping off the cliff of opportunity trusting that God has put a trampoline at the bottom, not to mention a chest stuffed full of temporal rewards for our reckless faith. We are now much more aware of the importance of rationally considering multiple options and relying on our own strengths and skills for stability and wellbeing as well as God’s. If God wanted to make all the decisions, we would have been pot plants. So now we pray for help in making good decisions between options rather than just a mindless opening of single options.

It was in turning down the Chicago offer without an alternative that we first had to exercise this new perspective, knowing that even if God wanted us to turn it down, it wasn’t necessarily going to be the case that another job offer would be waiting in the wings. Perhaps a strong faith isn’t jumping when you think God wants you to jump in the belief that he will catch you, but rather with the knowledge that he might not.

However, catch us he did, and we are all the more thankful for it, so after three torturous 15-hour drives from Indiana to New York and back (and back) for interviews, and being selected from more than 1000 applicants to just 25 open teaching positions in the district, Kristy will now be teaching Japanese in one of the best school districts in the country. There is huge pressure to perform, but she is a great teacher (I am aware of my bias, but if you doubt me then I’ll have to ask you to join me in fisticuffs) and I know she will really excel in the position. It will be a great opportunity for her after years in teaching jobs with no progressive opportunities. Please pray for her or wish her luck or act otherwise according to your theological preference.

We also have found a cool apartment in a converted red barn and should be able to move in by the end of next week. In the meantime we are staying with a wonderfully kind teacher from the school and some equally wonderful family in Philadelphia, home of cheesesteaks and Tastykakes.

Then it’s up to me to make up my contribution to the family income, so I’ll be looking for refugee or other related non-profit work in the city and suburbs. It should be a great area to find that kind of work since New York is the centre for some amazing organizations like the UN, the International Rescue Committee, Human Rights Watch, and AFS etc. Hopefully I’ll be able to find something in line with my jagged career path before too long. If it’s anything like my last income, I’ll have enough money to pay for a luxurious cornflake and milk breakfast almost every day.

Come and visit us okay!