We are Assistant English Teachers (AET's) in Mito, Japan as of April 15, 2013. No, we are not highly experienced teachers. Nor have we ever lived in another country. (Well, I [Carmon] did but I was a toddler). Nonetheless, you can imagine the surreal experiences we are bound to go through.
How We Met:
We met in August of 2008 during freshman orientation of college at Oklahoma Christian University. The acronym is OC. NOT OCU, which stands for Oklahoma City University. And not UCO, which is University of Central Oklahoma and not OCCC which is Oklahoma City Community College. But, OC, Oklahoma Christian. Yeah, a lot of people get them confused.
Anyway, after much goofing off in class and volunteer time spent together I asked Mason out. That's right, I asked Mason. Why? Well I had done a pretty good job of making it clear to Mason that I was tired of all the freshman boys & girls going goo-goo for college boys & girls. He was a little afraid of pursuing me and scaring me off. At the same time, he did his best to stay outside of the "friend zone."
Smart move.
Three and a half years later, Mason proposed in the same spot of which we met. On May 20th of 2012, the two of us entered into a covenant for life.
The Details:
While in college, Mason studied Bible and International Studies. I studied Psychology and Vocational Ministry. Neither of us originally intended to pursue the second degrees, but it worked out for what we are about to pursue.
Mission work was not something that was always on my horizon. I am the classic Type A personality and had my life fully planned out. For Mason, however, missions was a hope and dream of his. He wanted something more than a typical American life, and he preferably wanted to experience it in Australia. (He is the classic Type B personality. So a life full of nomadic activity doesn't seem as intimidating to him as it does to me.)
In 2010, he experienced some of the best 3 months of his life (and some the worse 3 months of mine). He went on PAC Rim. This is a study abroad tour in which the students spend time in China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Through this experience, Mason also realized that there are other countries that he would be happy to serve at. Thus, he approached me with the idea of being AET's in Japan. My response? Heck-to-the-NO!!!
Remember, I'm a psychology major?! I thoroughly enjoy connecting with people and their hearts. Their is no way that I can connect with someone's heart when I can't speak their "heart-language." At least in Australia I'll understand everything but the slang phrases. But Japanese?? psh!
Then, something happened.. We got married, went on our honeymoon, and while we were away my beautiful Avalon was totaled by a hail storm. I did not yet have a job, so I was LITERALLY stuck inside for what felt like months. Now, most folks would think this sounds very pleasant. However, I'm here to tell you that being stuck inside by choice and being stuck inside because you don't have a car are two very different things.
During this time I did a lot of evaluating and thinking. I realized that my "plans" for my life were based on expectations I felt family and society had for me. I wasn't ready to pursue grad-school quite yet and began to panic a little. A few years before this, God had changed my heart in regards to missions and gave me an excitement and passion for it. I realized we were in the perfect transition period to give this missions thing a try. When I approached Mason about Japan (2 years after he had asked me about it and I so firmly rejected the idea) you can only imagine his glee. We dropped everything we had and pursued this full on. We passed up great job opportunities and Mason gave up a business minor that was being offered to him for free. We felt that it couldn't be anything but God's will to change my heart and knew we had to look past everything here and put our sites past the Pacific.
Why Japan?
We've been asked this a lot. It does seem random, and a lot of people seem to have the idea that Mason is dragging me off to some place he picked by closing his eyes and touching his finger to a spinning globe. However, I was the one to approach him and Japan actually makes a lot of sense.
We were married only 10 months ago (May of 2012). I graduated from college April of 2012, and Mason graduated in December of 2012. Thus, we have been given a lot of monetary gifting between wedding gifts and graduation gifts to help us get on our feet. By choosing to be Assistant English Teachers in Japan, we can fulfill our desires to travel abroad and we don't have to ask the same people who have helped us transition into graduate/married life to also help us raise funds for mission support. Instead, we will be "tentmakers."
The job is completely disconnected to our mission effort. It pays for our flights to Japan and our flights home. They set us up with an apartment and stipend to help furnish it if necessary. (Ours will be mostly furnished thanks to couple that lived there before us). The teaching contract is for a year at a time.
Many other English-teaching-opportunities would require we raise money, find our own apartment once we arrive in the country, and sign a contract for 2-5 years minimum. Japan is a much better option.
How you can help us:
Prayer.
We don't know the language and we're both very much individualistic western white thinkers. Our only hope in making any difference in such a contrasting culture is for God's Spirit to work through us.
We also ask that you would pray for:
our faith
our relationship/marriage
our health
and our families and friends back in the States
Smart move.
Three and a half years later, Mason proposed in the same spot of which we met. On May 20th of 2012, the two of us entered into a covenant for life.
The Details:
While in college, Mason studied Bible and International Studies. I studied Psychology and Vocational Ministry. Neither of us originally intended to pursue the second degrees, but it worked out for what we are about to pursue.
Mission work was not something that was always on my horizon. I am the classic Type A personality and had my life fully planned out. For Mason, however, missions was a hope and dream of his. He wanted something more than a typical American life, and he preferably wanted to experience it in Australia. (He is the classic Type B personality. So a life full of nomadic activity doesn't seem as intimidating to him as it does to me.)
In 2010, he experienced some of the best 3 months of his life (and some the worse 3 months of mine). He went on PAC Rim. This is a study abroad tour in which the students spend time in China, Japan, New Zealand, and Australia. Through this experience, Mason also realized that there are other countries that he would be happy to serve at. Thus, he approached me with the idea of being AET's in Japan. My response? Heck-to-the-NO!!!
Remember, I'm a psychology major?! I thoroughly enjoy connecting with people and their hearts. Their is no way that I can connect with someone's heart when I can't speak their "heart-language." At least in Australia I'll understand everything but the slang phrases. But Japanese?? psh!
Then, something happened.. We got married, went on our honeymoon, and while we were away my beautiful Avalon was totaled by a hail storm. I did not yet have a job, so I was LITERALLY stuck inside for what felt like months. Now, most folks would think this sounds very pleasant. However, I'm here to tell you that being stuck inside by choice and being stuck inside because you don't have a car are two very different things.
During this time I did a lot of evaluating and thinking. I realized that my "plans" for my life were based on expectations I felt family and society had for me. I wasn't ready to pursue grad-school quite yet and began to panic a little. A few years before this, God had changed my heart in regards to missions and gave me an excitement and passion for it. I realized we were in the perfect transition period to give this missions thing a try. When I approached Mason about Japan (2 years after he had asked me about it and I so firmly rejected the idea) you can only imagine his glee. We dropped everything we had and pursued this full on. We passed up great job opportunities and Mason gave up a business minor that was being offered to him for free. We felt that it couldn't be anything but God's will to change my heart and knew we had to look past everything here and put our sites past the Pacific.
Why Japan?
We've been asked this a lot. It does seem random, and a lot of people seem to have the idea that Mason is dragging me off to some place he picked by closing his eyes and touching his finger to a spinning globe. However, I was the one to approach him and Japan actually makes a lot of sense.
We were married only 10 months ago (May of 2012). I graduated from college April of 2012, and Mason graduated in December of 2012. Thus, we have been given a lot of monetary gifting between wedding gifts and graduation gifts to help us get on our feet. By choosing to be Assistant English Teachers in Japan, we can fulfill our desires to travel abroad and we don't have to ask the same people who have helped us transition into graduate/married life to also help us raise funds for mission support. Instead, we will be "tentmakers."
The job is completely disconnected to our mission effort. It pays for our flights to Japan and our flights home. They set us up with an apartment and stipend to help furnish it if necessary. (Ours will be mostly furnished thanks to couple that lived there before us). The teaching contract is for a year at a time.
Many other English-teaching-opportunities would require we raise money, find our own apartment once we arrive in the country, and sign a contract for 2-5 years minimum. Japan is a much better option.
How you can help us:
Prayer.
We don't know the language and we're both very much individualistic western white thinkers. Our only hope in making any difference in such a contrasting culture is for God's Spirit to work through us.
We also ask that you would pray for:
our faith
our relationship/marriage
our health
and our families and friends back in the States
Excellent! It's 08-17-2013 - why am I just now seeing this??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletePrayers, loves and hugs are showered over you both every day!