My Story, Part 2
My Story, Part 1
Even through our dating and engagement, the reality of living overseas one day never really crossed my mind. I had it all planned out. Marc was going to be a youth minister, so he was going to finish seminary while I taught elementary school. Then we would get a job at a church and settle into youth ministry life. It all sounded great except that one day Marc said he had no desire to work on a church staff. He wanted to work with young people, just not on a church staff. Marc was coming up on graduation from seminary (SWBTS) and we had no clue what was next for us. I was teaching 5th grade in Carrollton and enjoyed it for the most part, but was ready for a change. And by change I just meant teaching in a new school. Not moving overseas.
The Spring of 2002 we got an e-mail from Marc's mom telling us about a request for a young couple without children (preferably) to move to a small town in the Eastern Valley of South Wales to work with youth and children. The request was coming from some dear family friend's of theirs that had lived in South Wales for about 15 years. This was also the same family that Marc stayed with on a vacation through Europe when he was in high school and saw the need for youth workers. They got in touch with us and we planned a visit over my Spring Break from school to see where we would be living and meet some of the people we would be working with. I was scared out of my mind, but told God I would at least go and see what this was all about. We spent 4 days in Pontypool. I have to honestly say that I really didn't think it would "work out" for us to move there for 2 years, but I tried to have an open mind. During the course of those few days I began to feel like we should do this. Even though part of me was rebelling and wanted something to happen so that I could say no.
We met some lovely, kind, generous people and even got to see where we would be living if we said we would come. Now this I know was an act of God because after seeing the flat that we would be living in, I still felt like this is what we should do...
A tiny 2 bedroom flat in the attic of a small baptist church, surrounded by an ancient cemetery. They had raised money to renovate- and by renovate I mean add an indoor toilet and a shower. Wait till you see where the shower was...