Journey to Kuwait: World Citizen

I have a cousin that would share the same advice once all of the people
he loved, and thought were going somewhere in life, reached a major
milestone. He reminded us to expand our view to become citizens
of the world.

I was a late bloomer, finally leaving my parent’s house at 25. So the furthest had had been from the home where I grew up was one hour away.

When my cousin imparted his wisdom at the completion of my bachelor’s
degree it led me to South Texas. This wasn’t overseas, but it was away from anyone and anything, that I had grown accustomed. I had to depend solely upon myself and God during this period of exponential self-growth.

Fast forward about four years later, I found myself in a weird dichotomy. For the first time since I moved to South Texas, I was jobless but I was also finishing up my Master’s Degree.

Looking back at this time I felt so hopeless. Here I was on the brink of carrying out a major milestone in my life, a miracle in its own right, and I was worried about the future. I felt as if a major part of my identity had been stripped away. Being a working student was all I knew. I was proud of my self-sufficiency.

I also saw the blessing in my circumstances. I worked seven days a week to complete my internship during the last semesters of my Masters program. I could have worked and done this, but I was no longer equipped to deal with the occupational environments that I encountered up to this point. Plus I had prophesied to anyone that would listen that I was leaving South Texas after I completed this chapter.

Several weeks before, I signed a shorter lease instead of entering into a full year’s contract with my apartment complex. I remember talking to God saying “Ok Lord, we’ve got eight months.”  By the time I was doing my internship, I was paying rent month to month, which caused my housing to increase by more than two hundred dollars a month. My unemployment benefits and substitute teaching was barely keeping me afloat.

Even though the struggle was intensely real, I saw what God was doing. He only allowed things that were temporary to materialize while He was working on my behalf. I applied for jobs and got interviews, but the positions were either work I knew I didn’t want to do or pay that was beneath my salary requirements. It was a struggle for me to walk away in the midst of my hardship. But, it was also a struggle to continue to the perpetual cycle of accepting circumstances, which were beneath me. 

God showed me that He was closing doors to choices that no longer fit the life that He had predestined for me.

When I graduated with my M.S. in Counseling, that same cousin gave me
the same advice that spoke LIFE into my situation:  “You are a citizen of the world.”  By that time my mindset had shifted from only applying to jobs which I knew I could get, no matter the pay, no matter the work environment, some of which would keep me in South Texas for at least another year, to looking for positions which I could benefit in pay, which had an ideal occupational atmosphere and varying geographic locations.

When I saw the post on ideed.com for an Academic Counselor: Kuwait - I heard my cousins words in my head as clear as day, “You are a citizen of the world.”

I applied.