Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Why work?

Ok, so...this post is to help others who wonder why I'm going to work while back in the U.S.

First, we would have loved to come back as a family.  We all really enjoy traveling together.  It is always such an adventure for us!  However, we couldn't.  My brother got engaged last year and we knew the wedding was going to happen this year, and we just couldn't make a trip happen.  In stepped my brother's fiancee. She offered, as a surprise gift to my brother for the wedding(which by the way, is no longer a surprise, it was a bit TOO BIG of surprise to keep secret), to pay for me to fly back for the wedding!!! I was beyond excited!!  And how more perfect could it get that their wedding was going to be in Montana (they both live in Illinois) and just one week after MT family camp!! The timing is perfect!

Initially, i was just going to go back for three weeks.  Just enough time to get adjusted to the time difference, enjoy family camp, and be able to be a help with all the preparations that needed to happen for the wedding. Then head back to Ghana.

But then...Steve and I got to talking.  It has been rather difficult for Steve to find a job here. The current government does not look favorably on foreign workers and there are a lot of hoops one would have to jump through to get work here, and the companies hiring are not all that willing to go through the red tape in order to hire a foreign employee. He's looked into the mining field, the non-profit field, the development field...and nothing. He would have to do one of a couple of things. Go back to school and get a masters for the particular field he'd like to enter, or be willing to do volunteer work for a couple of years and then gradually move his way up the development ladder.  Either of these would take a lot of money and relocating.  Yet, his desire is to provide for us.  So he started looking into stock market trading.  He loves numbers. He gets all excited at these charts that he shows me. Trading like this does not take into consideration his age or past schooling, and he could get started in it right away.  He's been looking into things since last November.  Studying, researching, listening to podcasts and online videos have filled his free time. But now...he is looking at doing some actual trading, and well, honestly, that means some up front money that we don't have.  This is where my working comes into play.

Would Steve prefer to go back to the U.S. and work an extra job to get the money? Yes.  Is he at all delighted with the prospect of his wife working so that he can have the upfront lump sum that he'll need?  No, he isn't.  Let's look at things though.  We won't have to come up with the funds for a ticket. That's been very generously being taken care of by my soon-to-be sister-in-law.  I'm already going to be back there, I might as well take advantage of the opportunity.  Here is how I look at it.  I have an opportunity to show honor and respect to my husband by willingly working and making it possible for him to do the work that he desires to do so that he can provide for us, his family.  He can't just go pick up a side job here. We don't have the funds to send him back and honestly if we all go back to the U.S. the living expenses would eat into the money we'd like to save and it would take longer.

In a nutshell, my working while being back this time is what needs to happen to move our family forward.  This is about teamwork, and what each individual part can do for the advancement of the team.  My individual part will, Lord-willing, be working this fall. So that Steve's individual part can be trading with it this winter.  Both parts working for the team for better for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health till death do us part.  I love and respect my husband for who he is and for what he desires to do.  I'm willing to help him in whatever way I can.  To God be all the glory!

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