Teaching Overseas and the Will of God

I’ve decided I’m going to teach in East Asia for at least a year.  I’d like to go within the year, actually by September, but I do have some affairs to put in order, mostly financial affairs.  What an irony that I need to have money saved to go to a job where I will make money. 

Still, I’ve had mixed responses to my decision, and not all good ones. 

I know my mom doesn’t think I should go overseas. 

Something to do with the risks of being bi-polar.  I get that there’s risk, but there’s risk anywhere in the world that I could go.  I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in Clemmons out of fear. 

I actually haven’t talked a lot in detail about this yet.  But the girls I have breakfast with on Sunday mornings had a definite shock to my revelation. 

And, it wasn’t a good shock, it was a this could be a really bad idea shock. 

Sylvia did have a good point that it would be a huge risk because this past time I had to go to the hospital, I was at home with support systems in place.  What if I had to go to the hospital overseas, with no support?

Well, I guess I’d get to write about the hospitals in China… or Japan… or Indonesia… either way I have a feeling it’d make for an intriguing book.  Although not having visitors in a hospital really sucks, I’m not going to lie. 

Lora was like, you need to make sure you have enough saved up, what if you needed an emergency plane ticket back to the U.S.?  This I would probably have neglected if I had just completely impulsively left in the next month.  Seriously would have said whatever!  Sheesh. 

You know, I could just immediately, if I really wanted to. Would just have to wait for passport and visa, but I could negotiate a plane ticket over if I wanted a job bad enough.  That’s how much they really want native English speaking teachers.  That is very good for me.

There’s this verse in Acts I’ve been meditating on, well, a couple of verses… but they say,”For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God.” Acts 5:38-39

So… this Pharisee here, Gamaliel, is speaking to the Pharisees to leave the apostles alone and see whether their teachings will remain or simply run out of steam and perish.  The apostles were on fire, literal tongues of fire at Pentecost had come and given them supernatural abilities to preach the gospel in all different languages and do miracles in Christ’s name, it was pretty awesome… and the Pharisees were not happy about it.  Well, they were being blamed for crucifying Jesus, but they did, so… anyhow, the legacy of the apostles is penned in the New Testament for us to see the power of the Gospel today, so I’d say their teachings were legit. 

Anyhow, I think there’s a good understanding here of… well, I think it’s another way of trusting God’s providence.  I mean, I really do want to go overseas to live, and I’m not trying to limit this to a certain timeline and say if I’m not overseas by this time it must not be the will of God.  It’s more just… if things do not work out immediately, I guess that will be my answer.

But, I don’t think that means stop trying if you really want to do something, sometimes you really have to be persistent and go after what you want.  Plenty of people have to apply to college more than once, to grad school multiple times, to jobs they really want… you don’t give up. 

So… if a big reason I would be at risk overseas is because of my bi-polar, I better start researching now to find some good international psychiatrists.  I’m sure there are plenty in the bigger cities of Asia, it’s a matter of finding the right one for me, and then that would direct my job search big time.  Right now, I’m casting the nets to see what the catch has.  I’ll let you know the fruits of my labor.