Well I’m sure many of
you are wondering what is next for the Hanes’? It has been a while since
we updated y’all and I’m sorry for that. Don’t worry, we are still alive
and doing our thing, even though we don’t really know what “our thing” is.
2012 flew by as every
year seems to do. It was full of unknowns, questions and
uncertainty. We had just spent a year travelling around the world serving
others so a natural question arose…now what? How do you top that?
Well, slowly by slowly, as our Kenyan friends like to say, we just fell into
life. We traveled around the states visiting friends and family
that had supported us the year before. We spoke at a few churches who had
sponsored us. We just kind of floated around not really knowing our
place. No matter where we went we would always get the same question.
What is next for the Hanes?
Wow, what a question to
be asked, especially when we’re not sure of the answer! Do
any of us really know what will happen tomorrow? Most of us
have a pretty good guess at what the next day, month and even year may look
like. But for us it’s been a little different. We haven’t found a
“career”, we don’t own a home or have any debt, and although it would
be nice to have some structure and stability in our life, it looks like
now is just not the time. And we are okay with that.
2012 was a transitional
year I guess you could say. We worked off and on as substitute
teachers. (a bit of a reminder of how not ready we are to start a
family and have kids!) We lived in Central America for 3½ months
over the summer serving, vacationing and just living. We tried to live
life as “normal” as we knew how. You know…normal…taking
bucket baths when there’s no hot water, lighting candles when the electricity
goes out, walking everywhere, and trying to communicate via charades. That is
normal, right??
Anyway, with 2013 in
front of us we have decided to do something a little different, yet
again. Justin and I will be teaching English at a University in….wait
for it…..SAUDI ARABIA!! Yep, that’s right, Saudi Arabia.
We know that sounds a little crazy. It will be totally
different than anything we have experienced thus far, but then again, I guess
that is why it appeals to us.
There are still a lot of
unknowns; we have been working on the application for visas for about a
month. We do know that we have been hired and that we will be leaving in
January, but we don’t know exactly when or where in Saudi we will be. We will have a new blog while in Saudi, please visit it here.
So what will you be
doing in 2013? Whatever it is that you are doing, we hope that it is
something that you love, something that challenges you, something that
helps you prioritize your life the way you feel you should be, and something
that allows you to be surrounded by people you love.
