Next Stop....Japan

As some of you may know Jesse and I were planning on heading back to the States so Jesse could attend seminary this January. That idea was brought on by the potential scholarship available to Jesse through his dad's work. To make a long story short, Jesse is no longer eligible for the scholarship. This was disappointing news but it seems God has a different plan for us.
Shortly after the door closed (temporarily) on Seminary, Jesse received a random email from a lady at his parent's church in Japan. She was asking if we knew anyone who could go be missionaries at a Church in Japan, who was in desperate need of English teachers. (English lessons is a great tool for the church to build relationships with others in the community) It didn't take long before we started seriously considering ourselves for this position.
There were so many things for us to consider in the decision. Here is a glimpse of our process.

• The pastor of the church only speaks Japanese, so the teacher/s would have to know Japanese. This isn't that common and Jesse is fluent.
• We kind of want to have some clue about where we might "settle down" before we have kids. Japan is an option so I would like to see what it's like to live there before we test it out with a family.
  
• We feel that we're only serving ourselves here in Korea. Serving God and people is very important to us and we don't feel like we are doing either here. Both Jesse and I studied "helping" fields (Psychology and Human Services) at university because we knew that our professions had to be that which served others. I admire people that can serve others and God regardless of where they work or what their job is. For us it needs to be obvious or week after week goes by and we realize we are living solely for ourselves.
  
• The position primarily involves teaching English classes but we are given a lot of freedom to build community using our gifts and interests. Jesse is thinking of maybe teaching music or voice or developing himself personally as a musician. I can teach art classes or start an art club. One suggestion was a cooking class, neither of us really cook but we could learn along with them.
• We will be close to Jesse's family (around an hour away), which for Jesse has been 6 1/2 years since he lived in on the same side of the globe.
  

At this point we are planning on starting in December. We still have to figure out the visa situation but we are confident this is where we are supposed to go so something will work out.