Jason & April Ruggles

10 Things You Should Do Before Leaving the Country

Posted on 23. Apr, 2009 by April in food

1. Spend Plenty of Time With Friends and Family

We’ve been taking every opportunity to “hang-out” with our friends around here.  Playing games, eating meals together, and just enjoying each others company.  We’re just trying to soak in as much as we can.  Most of our immediate family will be here this weekend for the missions conference, and we’ve got friends coming in from out of town, too!

2. Enjoy “American” Food.

Our bodies are saying “what did I do to deserve this?”. With a lineup of Cracker Barrel, Buffalo Wild Wings, hamburgers, Cebolla’s (mexican), chocolate cake, pie…  well, it’s not exactly health food…

3. Enjoy “America’s Favorite Pastime.”

Fort Wayne’s new ballpark just opened last week, and we’ve taken the opportunity to go see the Tin Caps play twice already!  Parkview Field is a great stadium, complete with a great view of Fort Wayne’s skyline, and an apple dumpling concession stand!  And the TinCaps are doing excellent this year (11-1).


4. Pack.
How do you decide what you’ll need for a whole year?  How do you pack up the things you’re leaving behind?  We’re getting there.  Although, now the problem is needing to pull out clothes to wear for the next few days!

5. Buy Stuff

Jason’s been busy figuring out the best equipment for the work he’ll be doing, finding the best price, and then getting it set up.  I’m sure it’s not all work for him though.  It’s kind of like a kid with new toys at Christmas.

6. Finish Up Paperwork.

Change address, get out of cell phone contract, sign district licensing paperwork, figure out tax situation, contact banks, credit cards, insurance companies… *yawn*  There is plenty of that boring stuff to do and try to keep track of.

7. Make Sure Travel Documents are in Order.

Print tickets, make copies of passports, get phone numbers together, and so on.  Flying internationally takes a good amount of preparation.

8. Finish Work.

Jason’s been done for over a week now.  Tuesday was my last day teaching.  It was a class I was familiar with and a school where I have good relationships with the teachers.  A good “last day.”

9. Tell People All About Your Travels.
Everywhere we go we get to tell people about what we’re doing, how long we’ll be there, how we came to the decision to go, what we’ve learned about Thailand so far, and the few phrases of Thai we can speak.  This weekend our church is having its annual missions conference, and we get to tell the whole congregation about it!  I’m excited to fill people in on more of the details and show them how to stay connected to us and other missionaries on the field.

10. Say Your Goodbyes.

This will be the hardest part.  It’s not like we’re leaving for forever, but a year is a long time. A lot can change in that time- kids grow up, people have babies, get new jobs, get new haircuts, all kinds of stuff!  I try not to think about the goodbyes because it gets me all emotional.  I can guarantee there will be a good amount of tears before we leave.  Thank goodness for Skype.  (Don’t know what that is?  I think I’ll write a post about it soon, just so you’re all informed )

Let’s get some comments rolling here….

What do you think is the one thing we shouldn’t forget to pack?

Tags: baseball, family, friends, goodbye, paperwork, Travel