Background

Sometime last summer (2012) everything seemed to fall into place.  I received a great job offer in Kentucky (starting in Fall of 2013) and Chelsey was in a flexible place with her career.  We were both looking to leave the "rat race," wanted to learn a language and, as a newly married couple, were still looking for an adventure before we settle down and do all those things that grown-ups do.

In our free time we started looking for opportunities to volunteer overseas.  I always wanted to learn Spanish so that limited out search a bit.  After months of reviewing and evaluating programs we figured out what we were looking for-- an organization with strong ties to the community it served.  This limited the options greatly and focused our attention specifically on religously-affiliated volunteer programs.

For those that do not know, Chelsey is a Baptist and I am a Catholic.  This has never been a big deal - we share values and the formalities of our church affiliation have just never really mattered.  We have always tried to go to church but we have never settled on a single church and we both wanted to build our faith together by exploring this aspect of our relationship a bit more.  

Chelsey hit the jackpot in discovering VOICA (voy-ka), or the Canossian (can-ocean) International Voluntary Service, which was created as a project to share the Canossian charisma and missionary vocation with lay men and women ready to offer their spiritual and professional energy in service.

We applied to be a part of the program in the Fall and were informed of our acceptance at the end of November.  By January 1, 2013, we had quit our jobs, packed up our apartment in DC and were headed to KY.  On January 8 we jumped in the car and headed west for 6 weeks of religious formation and language training in Albuquerque, New Mexico before moving to our ultimate destination, Encarnacion, Paraguay.