“Surely all my wandering finds its end in you” (Mike Mason, from “The Lover’s Hermitage,” The Mystery of Marriage, p. 220).
Dear Friends and Family,
I have felt a bit like a wanderer over the past four and a half years. I finished graduate school in 2006 and moved out of my Nashville apartment into a small room halfway across the world in a small eastern European country called Moldova. One year later I moved to Romania where I made my home in three different places, and then in January of this year I moved back to Moldova where I am already living in my third apartment. But I sense that my wandering has finally found its end, not necessarily because I just finished repairing the bathroom of my studio apartment or because I have a good relationship with my landlord, but because I have fallen in love.
And it is in my upcoming marriage to Rachel Leigh Hook that my wandering will find its end; in the stability of love I will make my home.
Rachel and I met over a year ago while I was in Columbus sharing about my work with WMF, and since then we have gotten to know each other through visits, emails and hours and hours of video chat on skype (for the whole story, see: http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/RachelHook&JohnKoon) and have decided to have a small wedding in Columbus on January 1, 2011!
Currently, Rachel is a social worker at a non-profit called The Center for Healthy Families and has there found an outlet for her passion for caring for people in need as well as for promoting health and wholeness. As our lives become one, however, Rachel has made the decision to leave her work and life in Columbus and to move to Moldova to be with me and to begin the process of discerning her calling to serve full-time with Word Made Flesh.
In order for this transition to a new married life in Moldova to happen in a healthy way, I have spent much time consulting with the WMF Community Care Department in Omaha. Their recommendation to me was to take a leave of absence and to spend several months in the US with Rachel preparing for our wedding as well as adjusting to married life post-wedding in our own culture. Because the transition from singleness to marriage is major, it was recommended to me that it not happen at the exact same time as Rachel’s transition to life in Moldova, which will be a second major life transition.
So, I will be entering into a leave of absence on November 15 that will last until April 15, 2011. Rachel and I will have six weeks to finish planning our wedding in Columbus and will then have three months post-honeymoon to purposefully set a strong foundation for our marriage before moving together to Moldova in April. During my five months in the States, I will continue to maintain many of my administrative and advocacy responsibilities that can be completed remotely (e.g. budget reports, editing The Cry, editing the school newspaper we’ve recently started). This time for me is not a sabbatical, so I will be available to the community in Moldova and will even expect weekly updates and discussions with them.
Because Rachel and I want to be as proactive as possible about laying a solid foundation for our marriage, we will be meeting on a regular basis with a marriage mentoring couple from Vineyard (Rachel’s church) who are from Columbus and who lived in Moldova in the late 90’s. We will also be meeting regularly with a counselor who was recommended to us by WMF who has experience in cross-cultural life and adjustment and who will help prepare us for the challenges ahead. And finally, we are considering attending a two-week language acquisition course in Colorado that was also recommended to us by WMF that will help equip us for language learning and management cross-culturally.
Finally, my desire is to be as big of a support to Rachel as possible during this time of transition as I learn what it means to fulfill my new vocation of husband. I understand what an enormous challenge it is to leave one’s life, friends and family behind to go and live in a different country, so I want to be with Rachel as she prepares and experiences this transition. I will be with her as she leaves her job, as she sells and stores and gives away all of her things until all she has can fit into two suitcases and as she grieves the separation from those most dear to her and anticipates new relationships in Moldova.
During this time, as allowed by WMF’s Marriage Leave Policy, I will continue to receive salary. I understand and am extremely grateful for the enormous sacrifices you all make on a daily basis in order for me to be able to continue my service with WMF and do not take this lightly. Thank you for continuing to stand by me, to support me and to walk with me through many life transitions. If you have any questions about this leave or about WMF’s policy, please do not hesitate to contact me.
My hope and prayer is that my marriage to Rachel not only brings stability into my personal life but also into the life of our community and into the life of the children in Moldova who are our dear friends. It is for Jesus’ sake and for the sake of our friends who are so vulnerable that we choose to leave behind all that is known and normal. As my spiritual director recently told me, if we really believe that God is love, then anywhere there is love, there is God, and this love has the power to change the world.
Please pray that the love that Rachel and I share would be protected and that it would blossom during this time of focused concentration on our marriage. Pray that a strong foundation would be laid, that we would gain much wisdom and that our love would be turned into an instrument of healing.
With much gratitude and love,
John Koon
P.S. Please continue to pray for the registration process of our local organization in Moldova as well as for the school newspaper that our advocacy team is working on. The voices of the children are being heard!