Monday, October 23, 2017

Bidding Part 4





I have been sharing with you some of the more important considerations when deciding posts we would like to bid on.  I really could stretch this out into about 5 or 6 more posts, but as I am sharing these I am getting so many more ideas of things I want to share about.... so I am just going to sum the last considerations up into this final post. 

In Part 1 I talked about bidding in the foreign service.  Part 2 covered some considerations for our family.  Part 3 we covered education... it's a biggie.

Today, I am going to list our final considerations for choosing our next post options. 

1. Timing of the post.  Some posts are two year posts, some one year and some three year.  It's a priority for these next two posts to be three year cycles.  The reason behind this is that puts our kids on rotations to graduate after being at a post for three years.  For example, Ella is in 6th grade.  Next post will be 7-9 grades and the next post will be 10-12 grades.  It is not my wish for us to move either Ella or Anna's senior year in high school. 

2. The professional considerations for Erik's job experience.  He needs to consider the project size, type and if it will give him the experience he needs for what is best for his career.  Getting that to line up with your family preferences can be tricky ;-)

3.  Another consideration for us is to be in a more Christian minded place.  Sri Lanka is wonderful, but it is a Buddhist nation, Hindus are second, then Muslims, then wayyyyy down at the bottom there are Christians.  I am not delusional in thinking we will find some kind of bubble where everyone loves Jesus and we all just lift each other up daily... but we would love to find a post that has a little more of a Christ centered foundation.  Many central and South American countries are Catholic. 

4. Speaking of Central and South America... it would also be nice to be a little bit closer to the states.  Living 27+ hours away just feels so far, so disconnected from friends and family, and so so hard to get back home, if ever we needed to.  I think our preference would be to shorten our flight time and be maybe over in the Western Hemisphere... one can dream.

Ultimately we will fall back on our family mantra which is Proverbs 16:9
A man can make his plans but it is the Lord that directs his path.
 Resting in the comfort that as long as we are faithful in our research, use the minds the Lord has given us and keep His priorities in line with ours, God will direct our path along the way that will be successful for us.

It's an exciting time for the Lindholm party of 5. Who knows where we will end up!

Any other FSOs or Military families out there bidding on posts right now? How is it going? Let me hear from you!

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