Well, this is it. I've been keeping this under wraps for a while now, but it's come out in bits and pieces over the past few weeks, so I figured it was time to go ahead and flesh things out.
John and I are planning to move to Ecuador in February of 2015. To that end, we're taking a 2-week trip in November to hopefully find an area we like and a home to settle into.
Now, to the most important part : WHY?
The easy answer: BECAUSE WE CAN.
The longer answer: As time goes on, we find it harder and harder to balance our work/life situation. Neither of us enjoy spending 8-10 hours of our day at jobs that, while enjoyable, do very little to enrich our lives. At the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that we're working to make money so we can live a certain lifestyle in our little corner of the world. There's nothing wrong with that, but we've decided that we want more.
We want more than nine to five, we want more than what our culture says we should want. We want to spend more time together without having to worry about bills. We want to labor together at any time of the day for the kingdom of God. We want to learn to work with our hands, to create something and see the fruit of our labor that isn't necessarily money.
Can we do all of this in our cozy little corner? Well sure. Do we sound a little bit like spoiled brats who want to have fun without any hard work? Well I hope not.
We want something different, like a lot of people. We just happen to be picking up and moving south of the Equator to make it happen.
On to the next important question : WHAT WILL WE DO THERE? WHAT KIND OF JOBS WILL WE HAVE?
See the previous answer.
I kid, I kid. That is actually the case, but I'll go ahead an fill you in on a little bit more. John left his job in September due to a lot of factors, but mainly due to the whole work/life balance I mentioned. It was impacting us in not-a-very-good way. He was the main bread-winner and bill-payer so it was a bit scary, but we have been saving HARD for the past two years for a longer term trip so money wasn't an immediate concern.
Since leaving his job, the Lord has been incredibly faithful to provide for all our needs. I'm still working and my job covers most of our bills. John does work for friends and family and makes enough to cover the rest of the bills and our living expenses. It's different, but it's also fun! Yes, we've had to tighten a few belts and we'll probably tighten a few more, but it has truly been a blessing to see how the Lord provides for us in this time.
Which brings me to the actual answer of the question I posed - what kind of jobs will we have? Well, the cost of living is much lower in Ecuador, so we're anticipating being able to live off what we've saved for a good period of time. We're also anticipating renting our home out while we're gone, so that would supplement our living expenses as well.
I have picked up a little side job doing legal proofreading, which is basically paying for my groceries right now (score!). It's strictly a remote job, so I anticipate being able to bring that along with me to Ecuador, thus further supplementing our savings and rental income. John plans to make himself available much as he is now - for handy-man services and just generally helping people out. We're going to Ecuador for two weeks in November and we anticipate getting a better idea of specific jobs he could be on the lookout for when we get there full-time.
We do also hope to partner with a local ministry there and volunteer our time. This is probably one of the biggest things we're looking forward to - being able to minister to people around us without having the huge pressure of having to take care of our own lives.
Lastly : WHY ECUADOR?
Honestly, there's not one huge reason why. We had talked about travelling in Europe for a while, so when the idea of actually moving came up, that was the first place we looked. We realized very quickly that Europe is extremely expensive and we actually shelved the idea for a while. John had mentioned South America before, but I was adamant that I never wanted to go there, much less LIVE there. Thankfully, I've changed my mind.
Neither of us could quit thinking about moving abroad, so South America necessarily came up again. When we looked further into it, we realized that neither of us knew anything at all about Ecuador. Commence my favorite thing : research.
Basically, Ecuador is a developing third-world country. They're still very much an agrarian and traditional society, although business in the three largest cities (Quito, Cuenca, Guayaquil) is very quickly growing.
There are four predominant regions in Ecuador : the Andean Highlands, the Coastal region, the Amazonian Basin and the Galapagos Islands (who remembered their geography and knew that the Galapagos' were in Ecuador?!). We will primarily be considering the Andean Highland area to live.
Best of all, Ecuador still has a very low cost of living. Their currency is the US dollar, and it still goes a significant way there. So at the end of the day, we get to experience a beautiful place with a very laid back culture for a fraction of what it would cost elsewhere.
This is the longest post in the world. Seriously. If you have any burning questions there are a myriad of ways you can contact me - email, comments, FB, phone...whatever works for you. I wanted to put it all out there at once so everyone has the same information.
We do plan on keeping up with this blog during our two-week trip and while we live over there, so this will be the best way to keep up with our goings-on once we leave the US. Hopefully we'll figure out this technology thing and there will be pictures!
Finally finished,
V
