Photo: from our travels to Koper in October 2016
If you couldn’t already tell from the title of the blog post, this is going to be a more serious and personal post rather than a fun, entertaining one. It is also VERY long so I’m giving you fair warning.
About two years ago Rick began thinking about applying for a Fulbright and we discussed whether it was something we wanted to do as a family. After many long conversations, a side trip to Slovenia when Rick was in Italy for a conference, and many prayers, we decided to go for it. He applied in August, 2017 for a Fulbright to Slovenia during the 2018-19 academic year. After an impatient wait of several months we heard on December 11th that he had passed the peer review process and his application was being forwarded to the international reviewers!
Photo: from our travels to Koper in October 2016
After a quick check of the Fulbright timeline, we knew that final responses on awards could come as early as January or as late as June. Since we planned on having our entire family of seven people (5 kids & 2 adults) go for the full term of the Fulbright (~5-6 months) we hoped that we would receive news earlier rather than later so we could make plans. It takes a lot of planning to move 7 people out of the country even if it is just for a few months! In the meantime we tried to make decisions and plan ahead as well as we could knowing that plans could change.
There were so many questions to answer. What would we do with our home? Would the children attend school while there or would we homeschool them? How would our high school age children complete the courses they needed to maintain their graduation requirements here at home? Could they continue any of their extracurricular activities (ballroom dance & violin) while we were gone? What documents would be required to obtain our visas? Did we need to start gathering those ahead of time or wait until later? What about travel insurance? Health insurance? Prescriptions? Do we try and rent a car or use public transit? Could we find a home large enough for our family in our price range? And on and on and on …
After hearing several horror stories from people who had rented their homes during sabbaticals we decided that we would try to figure out if we could financially make it work to not rent our home while we were gone. Also, Rick’s parents were serving a proselyting mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had sold their home before leaving on their mission. They would be returning at almost exactly the same time as we would be leaving so we liked the idea of having them stay in our home while they figured out what their next plans were and we could have someone there to care for it while we were gone.
So, we waited …. And waited …. And waited …. And waited … and FINALLY, on April 25th we were notified that Rick had been selected as an … alternate candidate. Not the news we were hoping to hear. There was still a possibility that someone would decline their Fulbright Award but the chances were very slim. My first reaction was to immediately think about how we could still make this work financially. Maybe we rent our home or maybe Rick could find other funding. We had been planning this for so long and the thought that we shouldn’t go just couldn’t be right. In my prayers I asked God for guidance that we could figure out a way to still continue with the plans we had made. However, as I prayed I realized that perhaps I wasn’t asking the right questions. Before I could ask for God’s help with our plans we needed to know that this was still the path God wanted us to take as a family.
As we continued praying for guidance, Rick and I both felt that we should continue to work towards making this sabbatical work. For him, that meant rethinking parts of his sabbatical - continuing his plans in Slovenia but looking into other research opportunities that would work with his previous plans and other potential grants or other funding. For me, that meant reevaluating our personal finances and whether we should rent our home. At this point we had spoken with a few more people who had done international sabbaticals who had rented their homes and their experiences were much more positive than the previous reports we had heard. But how would we rent our home when we would only be gone for a part of the year? Most people who wanted to rent a home the size of ours were looking for at least 1 year contracts. We wouldn’t be leaving until January but we would need to know that it was rented much earlier so we knew we had that additional income. This left us with the option of renting it for a full year and finding temporary housing for our family for the months before we left the country.
As we continued praying for guidance, Rick and I both felt that we should continue to work towards making this sabbatical work. For him, that meant rethinking parts of his sabbatical - continuing his plans in Slovenia but looking into other research opportunities that would work with his previous plans and other potential grants or other funding. For me, that meant reevaluating our personal finances and whether we should rent our home. At this point we had spoken with a few more people who had done international sabbaticals who had rented their homes and their experiences were much more positive than the previous reports we had heard. But how would we rent our home when we would only be gone for a part of the year? Most people who wanted to rent a home the size of ours were looking for at least 1 year contracts. We wouldn’t be leaving until January but we would need to know that it was rented much earlier so we knew we had that additional income. This left us with the option of renting it for a full year and finding temporary housing for our family for the months before we left the country.
Photo: Our home
I searched through the airbnb rentals in our area and chose several that could be possible homes for us from August to December. The one we liked the best was a 20-30 minute drive from Rick’s work and the kids’ schools but it was well in budget and was a good space for our family (even if it only had two bedrooms - ha ha!). I was even able to get a hold of the owner and Rick and I drove over to look at it before we made the reservation. With our temporary housing taken care of now we just needed to list our home.
We cleaned and took photos and talked with friends who had rented their homes and finally got our home posted for rent. For several weeks we had a few people contact us but several were students who wanted to rent with more people than zoning allowed and some were people with questionable credit reports. By the beginning of June I was getting a little concerned but calmed myself with the thought that we still had several months before the Aug. 1st date we had put as the available move in date and with each prayer I said I continued to receive the comforting answer that renting our home was the right choice.
The other hope that I had was that our home would be a blessing to whomever rented it. We have felt so blessed to live here for the last five years. I remembered the years as college students looking forward to the day when we would live in more than a small two bedroom apartment. We know a lot of young families in exactly that same situation and I continued to evaluate whether we could reduce the rent enough to let one of those young families rent it while we were gone. Unfortunately, I could never figure out a way to reduce the rent enough and still have sufficient funds for our living expenses during Rick’s sabbatical. The best that I could do was to pray that our home would be a blessing to the family that would live there.
For those who are unfamiliar with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on the first Sunday of each month we have a special sabbath where we fast food and water for 24 hours. Fasting is not just a physical restriction but an opportunity to sacrifice in a way that our hearts and thoughts can be turned to God more intently for a higher and holier purpose. Fasting is accompanied by prayer usually for a specific purpose or need. In addition to fasting two meals, the money we would normally spend on those two meals (and hopefully more) is donated to help meet the temporal needs of someone else in our congregation who has a great financial need.
On the first Sunday in June I was fasting and praying that we could find a good family to rent our home, someone we could trust to care for our home as we would, and that our home would be a blessing for them as well. About an hour after praying that Sunday morning, we received a call from a family in our ward (congregation) that lived just around the corner from us. They had learned a few days earlier that the home they were renting was going to be sold and that they had until the end of June to find another home. They had spent the weekend searching for a home with limited options and all of them required a move-in date of July 1st - Aug. 1st. This would mean moving their belongings twice - first to a storage unit and then into the home - and all of the homes were further away requiring commuting to work and changing wards (congregations). They had called our bishop that morning to let him know that they would be moving and during that call the bishop told them that we were renting our home for a year and they might consider calling us.
Later that day we had them over to look at the house and to talk. They were needing to be out of their home by June 30th and we weren’t planning on renting until Aug. 1st at the earliest. They had a little dog and we had decided not to allow animals. After they left Rick and I talked some more. He and our oldest daughter, Danika, were going to be leaving on June 27th for him to teach in China for 6 weeks. During that time I was going to be staying with the other 4 kids and preparing the house to rent. Could we make it work to move up our move out date to June 26th? Where would I stay with the kids while he was gone if we did that? Although we were averse to having animals, we knew that they only had a small dog and we had seen the care they took with the home they were living in right now. I felt a lot more comfortable letting our renters have a dog knowing they would take good care of our home.
After some more conversations and a little research on airbnbs, we decided to offer the home to our neighbors. Instead of just having Rick & Danika leave on June 27th, we would all move out that day. Rick & Danika would head to China and the rest of us would spend the summer with family, friends and in airbnbs. This would give our neighbors a few days to move their things and clean their old home before their deadline. They would be able to stay in the neighborhood and ward and we would have a family we know and trust live in our home while we are gone. I know that their call that morning was the answer to my prayers and I believe that our home was the answer to their prayers that day as well.
While I was working to figure out how we would handle renting our home for the next year, Rick was working hard to explore various options of additional research opportunities that would align with his plans in Slovenia (hopefully paid or with some funding). During this time he discovered that the Netherlands were making huge strides in his area of research (open badges/digital credentials). In fact, in 2018-2019 they would be starting their pilot year of using open badges in 11 different universities - an even better research opportunity than what he had planned to do in Slovenia. This was an opportunity he would have completely missed if he had received the Fulbright award he applied for. Now the main focus of his sabbatical will be spent in the Netherlands but he will also be combining it with some of his original plans in Slovenia. Although we were praying that Rick would receive the Fulbright he had applied for, God had a better path in mind for him.
As I look back on those months of May and June, I remember the stresses we felt as we tried to figure out where we should be going and what we should be doing. So many questions and not a lot of answers. Each day felt like we were stepping a little further into the dark and having just enough light to illuminate the next step. But with each answer we received to our prayers we could feel our Savior’s love and guidance - the peace that even if we didn’t know the path ahead He did. Sometimes the answers didn’t come for months (or years in the case of knowing where he should be doing his sabbatical) but sometimes the answers to our prayers came quite quickly.
Photo: Our couches we were selling/giving away
In our last few days in our home as we packed all of our belongings into our unfinished basement, we learned that the couches in our living room were too large to move downstairs. This was crunch time! We had to be out in two days. What could we do with our couches? First we tried selling them, figuring that if we got a little money for them we could put that towards getting new couches when we got back. But we didn’t get any calls on our couches even though we were only asking $100 for them. Two days passed and we had completely moved out of our house except for the two couches in the living room. Rick and I talked and I knew he hated the thought of just giving away the couches and having nothing to put towards new ones when we got back. As I drove in the car that morning I prayed to find a solution that would make it possible to move the couches out of the house and that it would be in a way that Rick could feel comfortable with the outcome. As I prayed the name of some of our close friends came to mind. They had recently moved to a larger home and I wondered whether they might be able to use the couches. I knew that Rick wouldn’t mind giving our couches to these friends so I called them. Although I assured them that we were giving the couches to them, they said they would be happy to keep the couches while we were gone and then return them when we returned. I had received the answer to my prayers.
Photo: Rick & Danika in China (July, 2018)
The next day Rick and Danika were to fly to China. They arrived at the airport on time and went to check their luggage only to find out that the intermediary company his employer in China had used to book his ticket had input his name incorrectly for his ticket. They couldn’t board the plane until the name on his ticket was corrected. After calling his employer in China, Rick called me to let me know that he and Danika might be returning if they couldn’t get the tickets worked out soon because they would miss their flights. We were all praying that they could get the tickets corrected and that they would be able to leave on time. After a couple of tense hours talking to the airline, his employer and the intermediary company, they finally reissued the tickets with the correct name. Thankfully, Rick and I had gotten Global Entry the year before which meant that he and Danika were able to go through the TSA Precheck security lines making it possible for them to get to the gate in time to board their plane.
This has not been an easy year but it has been made easier by the peace that has come as we have sought for God’s guidance and help. I am grateful for answered prayers even when the answers don’t come as we expect or as quickly as we would like.
