This summer is a special one for our family. We don’t usually come home for the summer after our year of home assignment, but with our kids reaching working age, it felt important to give them a chance to do something they can’t really do overseas: work, earn some money, and start saving for college and beyond.
Finding jobs from overseas isn’t easy. A foreign phone number on a resume doesn’t exactly inspire employers to call back. So we’re incredibly grateful for the people who’ve helped open doors for our kids this summer.
One family from our church has a cabin a couple hours from Winnipeg, near Kenora, and they’re connected to a restaurant there. Last year they offered to have Cassie stay with them for the summer and help her get a serving job, even arranging transportation. It was a big opportunity, since Cassie only had a little café experience and this is a nicer restaurant than she’d normally have a shot at. But because the family vouched for her, and their own sons work there too, the restaurant took a chance on her. After four training shifts, she served her first table yesterday and earned her first tips. She’s loving it, and I think she’s also enjoying the independence of being a bit more on her own since graduating high school this past June.
Jay is working full time for a friend of ours whose husband owns a landscaping company. He’s been hired on for general labor, lawn mowing, laying sod, filling bags with gravel, and hopefully learning to drive a bobcat before the summer’s out. It’s good, hard work, and a great way for him to learn flexibility and pick up new skills. He’s also getting his learner’s permit this summer and practicing his driving in the evenings.
Kai is only fourteen, so his summer looks a little different, just enough work without too much. He’s helping a neighbor two doors down who’s recovering from surgery, mowing her lawn, trimming hedges, and weeding her garden. He could easily work full time at this point, but he’s chosen to keep it to about two hours a day. He’s also walking a friend’s dog once a week and picking up the occasional lawn job. A nice balance of earning and still having time to be fourteen.
All three kids will also get to go to camp this summer. Kai has a volleyball camp and a basketball camp on his calendar. Jay is headed to a basketball camp in Minnesota, a more serious one, since he’s hoping to play in college and wants to sharpen his game this year. And Cassie is off to a camp in Alberta for third-culture kids transitioning from high school into college life. Our church sponsored her for it, which has been such a gift.
And every day, Kai and I have been taking advantage of Planet Fitness’s free membership, getting our workouts in together, which has become a nice little routine of its own this summer.
It’s been a summer so far of hard work, new independence, and a lot of growing up for our kids, and we feel so thankful for the community that’s made it all possible.
Teaching Adventures 