Apply now for Peru and Poland. Tell me if one of these scenarios sounds familiar to you: You're dreaming of volunteering abroad with ILP but don't want to leave a relationship behind? You may be wondering what it will be like to volunteer abroad with them being on the other side of the world! Our previous head teacher , Miranda Brayton Sherwin had the exact same thoughts.
Miranda Brayton now Sherwin was the head teacher for our Summer Romania group. Single at the time, she decided to apply for one of our humanitarian programs as an ILP head teacher.
Long story short, she was accepted and as she was preparing to leave she met Austin her now husband! After much thought and prayer and second thoughts For all of you out there in the same situation; trying to decide if spending a semester apart is doable, I asked Miranda to tell us about her experience and if she had regrets with her decision.
I had gone on the program once before, and agreed to go to Romania again as a head teacher before anything got serious with Austin. As our relationship became more serious, I became pretty positive that I was going to marry Austin eventually, but we both felt like it wasn't right for us to get engaged before I left. I had never pictured dating someone seriously while going on the program, but after some resistance and struggling to decide I knew two things for sure: 1 I needed to keep dating Austin and 2 I needed to go to Romania over the summer.
That's just what was right for us. One of the other volunteers in my ILP group was already engaged and another was unofficially engaged. It was a great bonding experience for us and brought us closer as a group because I could rely on them and they understood. We were able to get to know each other in new ways to a deeper level than many people experience even years into their marriage. The hardest part was when we'd go on vacations and the WiFi connection was bad, or the connection was bad at home.
