We're Home Owners!

We bought a small house in Knoxville on Oct. 19, 2007! It is a 3 bedroom with 2 bathrooms. It has 1360 sq. ft. and is on a 1/4 acre lot. We paid $124,000 for our new house. It was below the market in West Knoxville because it needs to be renovated inside. All the flooring has to be ripped out because of water damage, the cabinets & one vanity need to be replaced, it needs new carpet & of course new paint. We are planning to renovate it for a few weeks before moving in. We don't have to be out of our apartment till Nov. 18, 2007.

We also got a dog. It's a 4 year old female Chocolate Lab. We're gonna call her "Cali" which is short for California. :o) She was really a hyper dog at first but is slowly calming down and learning to follow basic commands like "No," "Stay," "Down," and we are working hard to teach her "Sit."

Coralee finished her Red Cross CNA Certification course but would prefer to go back into office work.

Visitors, ESL & CNA

It's been a long few months out here in Tennessee. We've often felt alone and wondered why we were here. Especially since we haven't been able to get full time, permanent jobs. I, Jason, had believed that I'd get a teaching job eventually and that Coralee would get a job as a receptionist in a Hospital.

My grandpa and Uncle Stan came to visit us last month. We were able to take them to the Smokey Mountain National Park the first day and showed them around the Tennessee river water recreation area that is near our home. This was the first time that we have ever had anyone stay with us since we've been married and it was really a lot of fun.

We also celebrated Coralee's Birthday while they were here!

But after their visit, I especially began to feel the pressure as the school year approached and I had only had one teaching interview. I had also been very hopeful that a few weeks before the school districts began Knox county would call because they had 600 open teaching positions. However, even the week that school was going to start I still had no job.

I finally gave up thinking about teaching the day before the schools out here were supposed to start and decided to begin applying to regular business jobs. After spending about 4 hours filling out an Enterprise Rent a Car application I received a call from Jason Vance, the principal of Loudon Elementary School. He said that he would like to offer me a position to teach ELL, English Language Learners. (Also known as ESL, English as a Second Language.) I started the next day. Here's the school website:
http://www.loudoncounty.org/schools/loudon_es.jsp?rn=9612487

I will be working at a school with a large Hispanic population. Loudon is home to a Monterrey Mushroom, a mushroom farm and packing plant that employees hundreds of mostly Mexicans. Many of the kids in these homes only speak Spanish and need to work on their English skills at school. I will be working with 3 other teachers to train and prepare the students in this elementary school to become proficient in English.

In order to secure my position here as and ELL teacher I have to obtain Tennessee Teacher Licensure. My three other co teachers only had to take four classes to meet this requirement but the laws just changed this month and I now need to take about 10 classes to obtain my licence. I also have the option to get an MA in Teaching in ESL by taking an extra 5 classes on top of that. So all together I believe that I will be taking about 15 graduate classes over the next two years while teaching full time. Here's the school link: http://www.cn.edu/cn.htm

Oh, did I mention that I'm still working at Kroger with Sarcom doing the Wireless Network Installations at night. There have been many nights where I only sleep 2-4 hours. So I've been fairly tired lately. But that job will end in September so I only have about one month left...

My dad also came up for a weekend to visit us. It was really fun having him come up and stay with us. He was going to be touring the largest garage sale in the country that runs hundreds of miles north into Tennessee. So since he was right here we invited him to come stay with us. We always eat super good when we're around my dad. I think we gained about 10 lbs!

Coralee is still working at Khols part time. She has decided to go through CNA training in September. As a CNA, Certified Nursing Assistant, she will be able to work full time and get much better pay than she is getting now.

Her sister Michelle & husband Lyle are serving in Paupa New Guiena as missionary associates with New Tribes. He's working at the main office as an accountant and Michelle's working as a nurse. They have just decided to adopt and have returned to Michigan to be here for the birth and to finalize the process.

So over the next few weeks she plans to visit both here sisters in Ohio and Michigan.

Jason & Coralee's Jobs

We both have temporary jobs. Jason got a job with an IT company called Sarcom. He is installing new Wireless Network Equipment to run the hand held scanner guns at the 40 Kroger Stores in East Tennessee & South East Kentucky. Kroger actually owns Ralph's in California. It's been a fun job and it pays well but it ends in August. Hopefully right around the time he will be getting a teaching job. He's hoping to teach History in Marryville, TN just south of Knoxville where Coralee's sister lives. Please pray that God provides a good long term job.



Coralee is now working part time at Kohl's. It's a fun job that she's had before working on the floor in the Misses Department. She has about 3 years of prior experience working at Kohl's while in College. She also loves her scenic Tennessee River park drive to work. Coralee is praying to get a job at the University of Tennessee Medical Center working as a Receptionist/Administrative Assistant in a Medical Ward. This job pays fairly well and has great hours. She would only have to work 3 days a week to be full time because they work 12 hour shifts.

It has been a little discouraging lately because we were hoping to have better full time permanently jobs right away. Insurance is super expensive out here so the need for permanently jobs with insurance is beginning to mount. We can continue to carry our California Blue Shield Insurance Policy for six months. But then Coralee's insurance will go up to $400/month and mine to $100/month.

It has also been a little lonely out here not knowing anyone. Also Coralee's long time best friend, Grace Herlugson, in South Carolina just had a hemorrhage in her brain, has temporarly loss of some motor skills and will possibly undergo a fairly risky form of Brain Surgery in the next few weeks. Please join us as we pray for God's healing & provision.

Smoky Mountains: Tennessee

We are enjoying the beauty of TN. There are some awesome thunderstorms here. On Saturday we went hiking and saw some beautiful views. Just wanted to share the view with all of you.

Atlanta, Georgia: Coralee's New Car

Coralee got a new car! We found her a 95 Honda Accord with 135,000 miles in Atlanta fully loaded all power for $2800 Cash! It's a really nice running and looking car and we are both really excited about it.

Our New Apartment

Our apartment is the 2 windows on the bottom left of the building. The window on the far left is our living room and the window in the middle is our bedroom.

We love our living room thanks to Jason's Aunt Debbie who gave us the dark brown sectional the day we left. It was such a blessing. Our first dinner in our new home. Yeah! The laundry room.
Thanks to Martel's neighbors we have the beige recliner and thanks to my brother-in-laws grandma who gave us the dresser set. God is good.
And thanks to Coralee's mom who made this awesome beautiful quilt for our wedding.
We are so Thankful to have a home again!

Tenessee

We made it safely to Tenessee on Fri., May 18th @ 7pm! It was a long 4 day drive. Thanks for your prayers!

California

We had a great month visiting friends and family in California. We will really miss everyone. We love you all so much!

Tennessee

We spent one week visiting Coralee's sister Yvonne & Craig. They have four really cool kids too. They just moved to Tennessee from California a year ago and have been persuading us to come move near them.

After being there a week we decided to move there for a number of reasons. Both of us would be closer to family. Besides Coralee's sister in Knoxville, her other sisters are based in Ohio and Michigan. Jason's parents live in Alabama about 4-5 hours away. And Coralee's parents live in Florida near Orlando about 10 hours away. Coralee loves the mountains and would love to live back there. We're also hoping to start a family and would love to be close to our family and be able to afford a home if God blesses us with kids.

This brings us to the other reason we decided to leave: economics. We can rent a one bedroom apartment for $425/month while in California the average rent is about $1000-$1200 for something comparable. We saw houses that cost a lot less and we could buy a 3 bedroom house for $130,000 on 2 acres in a beautiful area on the edge of town. We can't touch that in California right now.

Finally, it seems that we would be earning about the same money or more out there. Jason is hoping to teach History. There are about 600 openings this coming year in Knox County School District due to retirement. He could obtain his credential in two years while teaching as well.
Coralee is hoping to start at Kohls and look into working at an affiliated Apartment Complex as a Leasing Agent.

Please pray for us as this is a big change and we are going to be leaving family and friends. Jason has aunts, uncles and cousins in Apple Valley & Victorville. Also all Jason's friends from High School, College & CCV and teaching are in Southern California. Even though we are venturing into an exciting future it is emotionally hard for him to leave.