just some great news.

No pictures for this post, sorry. :) I just wanted to quickly update you all on a few things!

Yesterday I Skyped with Huma, my coordinator with the au pair organization who is actually in Turkey searching for a family for me. I thought she was going to ask me some questions and I was going to ask her some, but it turned out she basically just talked for 40 minutes, which was great! She mostly talked about things I should and shouldn't do, especially with the kids, and having an open mind and not expecting everything to go perfectly and all of that. But I also learned some new things and asked a couple of questions!...

First of all, my availability dates are only a problem for some families. She mentioned there was a family with two older girls (ah, how perfect!) who weren't picky about dates who she sent my information to. She will continue to look and she said hopefully NEXT WEEK she would send me the contact details of a family or families to consider! I cannot wait.

Also, I learned more about the type of family it will be. She said basically all of the families they work with are basically nonreligious. (She said even if they are somewhat practicing Muslims only the men are allowed to go to the mosques and the women may or may not observe the times of prayer.) She said there are definitely more conservative Muslims, but they aren't the families wanting to bring foreigners into their homes. She said they'll be fine with me being a Christian and even going to church or whatever, but they probably won't give me the whole Sabbath off (which is understandable).

She also told me there are other au pairs for Turkey for this summer in the works, and that they usually try to place au pairs in the same area and give them the same days off so that they can go site-seeing and spend time together, which is awesome! And she said that probably 4-6 weeks into my time there I will go on vacation with the family, most likely on the Mediterranean coast. AH.

Finally, she told me that they Turkish families will adore me as long as I'm open with them and talkative, and that they are VERY generous and hospitable; they will want to buy me gifts and cook foods I like and things like that. I will also have at least one day and one afternoon off during the week, and I will have set start and end times to my "work day." All of this was so good to hear, made it a little more real-feeling, and made me even more excited!

If you are one of those praying for me, THANK YOU!!! Please continue to pray that I would be paired with just the right family and that the Lord would begin to soften the family's hearts even now. Please also continue to pray that I would receive the grant I applied for to help with the flights and program costs. I have not yet heard.

In other news, I just booked flights to go to London for a long weekend in March and to go to Edinburgh, Scotland for spring break in April!

My life right now is a fairy tale.

xxoo