Hello, guys. I have been corresponding with Josh since finding this website about 2 Saturdays ago. I have been on here for about 2 hours now, just reading and learning as much as I can about what lies ahead of me thru your experiences. I just had to comment on this particular blog, as it relates so much to how I have arrived at the decision to take such a similar journey. My husband and I are relative youngins (both 26). Both of us are prior military, while my husband got to see the world and I no further than Pensacola, Fl:-( We both have our roots in Atlanta, GA, which is where we still are. We both had big dreams when we married. He was in culinary school to become a personal chef while I was beginning my military career to become a pilot. He got the degree, but I didn’t get the wings, so we set up shop here at home. Over nearly 4 years of marriage, we have acquired a lot of material crap, to say the least, afforded us by jobs we both hate working, lol. Our biggest problem is our house. If you guys keep up with news here, especially anything concerning finance, then you will know that GA has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. I mention that not for my own health, but to preclude the circumstances that have led us to seek the option to go abroad together. After falling victim to despicable predatory lending practices, we are now on a road that may eventually lead to foreclosure. Through a lot of tears, frustration and prayer, we have resigned to let the house go if it does not sell (currently listed). We are young and have the rest of our lives to start over again. Our “kids” consist of a black domestic shorthair and a cream-colored bulldog. We have no obligations, outside of this house. Since our lender is not willing to help, although we have been doing all we need to, we have just said “to hell with it”. Around the end of last year, while I can’t recall now, I began to look into moving abroad. I truly want to see how the rest of the world lives. My main place of interest was and still is New Zealand. The point is, the interest was lit. I would express this interest to friends who thought I was utterly crazy. But my husband, God bless him, is the most open-minded person I know. Because he has seen most of the places I now want to go, he has no objections. So long as there is a game plan in place, he is game to follow his crazy wife. At work last autumn, I met a woman in the process of moving to Jinzhou with her husband to teach English at Liaoning Institute of Technology. We kept in touch, and I had lunch with her and husband right before they left. Since they have arrived, we keep in touch via email, and she recently told me about a job opportunity at Jinzhou Medical University, teaching English as a foreign language. My heart leapt! Most of my problems here in America have been the result of me trying to keep up with the Joneses and have led to nothing but grief that, I regret, my husband must suffer, too, since giving me his surname. However, this was the first opportunity that made absolute sense to me, especially since I’m not doing it for the money! To divulge ourselves of our material possessions here and move abroad to do something that will surely help us to grow, especially as young Black adults! I really have special interest in seeing how race relations work all over the world, you know? It seems utterly senseless NOT to do it right now, while we have no obligations. Said friend wrote me a recommendation to the director of foreign affairs there, I now correspond with Gavin to work out the rest of the process, and hopefully, I will receive a formal invitiation to come teach there within the next two weeks. My husband is still game, even though our friends and family think we are crazy. But I say, what the hell?! If I DON’T do it now, I will regret it forever. I prefer to go there and work thru homesickness and fear of teaching someone I’ve never met than to stay here out of fear and loathe each passing day thereafter. So, Josh and Emily, although I have never met you two, I had to say how remarkable the similarities are in our stories. I’m scared as hell to move into a room 150 sq-ft for a year, lol, but as long as I have my husband with me, I think I will be fine. And I think this will do wonders for us. I only regret that we must leave our animals. I really do. They are like family, and they do enrich our small family unit, even if they aren’t human. If China weren’t the place of chose, I’d consider bringing them along. But I’d never want to put them in danger of being the blue plate special:-( So, finding a home for them will be our biggest challenge. Other than that, I will be selling the car and everything in the house (I like that “eviction sale” idea). I’ve got a library myself, and it will be going into my auntie’s basement, with her blessing:-) Other than that, we are ready to leave for Jinzhou at the end of the summer, and your writings have inspired me to start a blog of my own once we get there. I hope to meet you guys one day, even is just in passing, to tell you how much publishing your experiences has help another Jinzhou-bound soul in cyberland. Take care!