Blog: Living Abroad since 2014
Shortly after Jasmin flowers second birthday, we made our move out of the States, so here we are, living abroad. We officially became expats November 2014!
The journey has been quite the experience!
My husband is a teacher so the search began in early 2014 to find a teaching position outside of the US. But why? I wrote another post about the specifics. The gist of it, besides Spiritual reasons, we were about to buy a house and settle down in Miami, Florida. Both our families live there and we had the opportunity to purchase our first home together.
After much prayer, we realized what we really wanted was to travel, live a life of sojourners, moving from place to place, teaching our children through cultural exposure and many other crazy ideas!
Through joy jobs we found the position in Panama!
At first we wanted to be in the Middle East, the pay and benefits made the move very worth while! Only, we realized we really wanted to be in nature, in a culture familiar to us, not too far a flight to Miami. So Panama happened…oh how I cherish our memories of life there! More about our experience in a post I wrote, click here.
Then, I became pregnant!
Cravings, nausea, home sick, did not make being away easy! We made it through to finish my husbands contract. Thank our Heavenly Father another job lined up before we even knew what was happening!
I really wanted to be in Miami to birth our second baby at home, with our midwife Sheila Simms Watson. Everything was just so jumbled we didn’t know what was going to happen until I reached 36 weeks and could no longer fly. So it was meant to be, another home birth! Again I wrote about this in detail, click here.
Teaching in the Middle East
If you’re looking to sacrifice some years away from family and everything you know, highly recommend teaching in the UAE. The benefits and pay are a great incentive! The summer is not that great to spend out here. The people are sweet and bring me sanity when I’m feeling home sick, bored, and sick and tired of my kiddos! Haha
Teaching, according to my husband, is different and a unique experience. So come committed to learning new ways to survive as a teacher, flexibility and growth! To say the least 😉 oh and yes my husband did write a little blurb on his experience out here, click here!
Living abroad since 2014, sooo….???
Jasmin is 4, Noah is 15 months, I’m working on being a doula and growing my health business with essential oils. Same thing I’d be doing in the States. But really, being immersed in diverse cultures, languages, people, has such amazing life lessons. Going back to the States is not even tempting in the least bit…
Family….that we do miss! We miss our parents and siblings! All our family, church family, friends! For you we do consider going back at least to visit sometime soon!
We shall see what the Most High has in store for us. For now, we are planning to do more exploring of this side of the world. Love you Americas, but living abroad and these parts are quite enticing!!!
May The Most High bless you!
Jenny Pena
Latest posts by Jenny Pena (see all)
- A Ruby is born, our expat home birth - October 22, 2019
- Unschooling glimpse - May 1, 2019
- Sugar scrubs, get children involved! - April 22, 2019