As a family, we spent much of last summer building a playhouse – laying a foundation, staining, hammering. Nearing the completion of our project we noticed our back yard neighbour was also building a structure of his own – a fence. He finished his project a couple of months after ours. A week or two after Remembrance Day, Eileen was thumbing through the newspaper, ending with the obituaries, as she always does. There among them was a photo and write up of this same back fence neighbor, who unbeknownst to us had died . He had died of cancer; surely he would have known of his illness even as he was building his fence.
That fence brought both of us, but especially Garth, to a “crisis” of thought. What kind of legacy would we want to leave? This fence is nice looking (as much as a tall fence can be) and it was well planned, and would continue to provide for what he felt was important after he was gone. Even as we had built according to our plans for our backyard, he had spent a portion of the last two months of his life building a structure too. But what kind of legacy would Garth and I leave after we were gone (and none of us knows when that will happen)? Where would we want our time, energy, and money to go?
In the first couple of years of our married life, Garth and I had had a great desire to go teach overseas. In our third year of marriage we enquired about positions at a Christian school in Indonesia, were interviewed and were offered positions, only to find out we were expecting our firstborn (Hannah). We ended up declining the jobs, buying a house, and happily settling into family life and work in Chilliwack. But throughout the years as a couple we continued to revisit and discuss the thought of teaching in another country one day. With more children, the dream seemed less likely. Life was good and comfortable, but the thought was still there and would pop up every few years. Perhaps when we retired, we thought. We continued to pray about it, but never felt it was the right time. We knew one thing we did like to do as a family though was to travel, whether camping in Penticton, or visiting Garth’s parents in Florida, or using the resale of Olympic tickets to fund a trip to Mexico.
The topic of teaching overseas casually came up in conversation between Garth and I this past October, and we both were open to the idea but decided to postpone any further decision-making until our 15th anniversary weekend trip to Whidby Island in November. It was a relaxing time as a couple but also intense as we began to seriously discuss doing this as a family. We returned home united and excited, if a bit apprehensive, in our desire to see about this possibility. We established criteria for applying for positions: Not having to raise support, Finding a school that would fit with our teaching areas, and Being comfortable sending our children to the school, and a school that was located around the "10-40 Window" - degrees of longitude and latitude that encompass the least reached people groups for Christianity.
Over the next couple of months we applied to five different International Schools but heard nothing back. We received negative responses from three of them. We continued to pray that God would direct and we would be content whatever the answer. In mid-February, within days of each other, the two other schools began emailing, requesting more documentation, and setting up phone and Skype interviews (usually late at night with the time difference). Up to this point, we had not told anyone, other than our references, of these plans, including our children. It became clear to us early on that a Christian School in Malaysia – Dalat International School – would fit our teaching skills and our family the best. On February 28th we signed a two year contract, and withdrew our application from the other school (the school we were originally going to teach at 12 years before). We began telling our plans to our family and friends.
Our children have experienced mixed emotions but have become more excited as we have gotten closer to the date of our leaving. (One of our biggest prayer requests is for their transition to life in Penang, Malaysia and for the establishment of good friendships there.) We have sold our home as of the end of March. We will continue to sell many of our belongings (anyone need a good, used van?), and put the rest in storage. We have possession of our home until July 7th, and we will be leaving early on July 9th at 2:45 am. Garth will be the Middle and High School Learning Assistance Teacher and Eileen will be a Grade 2 Teacher (one of Eileen’s biggest prayer request is balancing family with work; I have never taught full-time before while being a wife and mom.)
We don’t know whether we will stay longer than two years (we can take up to a two-year leave from our teaching positions here before we would have to quit), or if we were to come back, where we would live. However, we have so very clearly seen and felt God’s direction, provision and peace as we have pursued this dream and set out in this way to establish a legacy in our children, and hopefully in the school and community of Penang, Malaysia.
That said, we really want to keep in touch! Our address in Malaysia is
#20 Lorong Sungai Kelian 2
Tanjung Bungah, 11200 Penang,
Malaysia
Our email addresses are
Garth and Eileen Buhr
So great to finally read your blog. We've been thinking of you as you prepare for your trip!! I know the next few days will be stressful, exciting, tiring, and so many different emotions. Looking forward to reading all your posts.
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