Our Peace Corps Timeline

They say the Peace Corps process takes lots of time and patience. They're right. Here's the time line of our application from the day we submitted our applications to the day our invitations arrived at our door! It felt like such a long process but it all felt worth it when we found out we were going to Uganda!


11/18 /09 - Applications submitted

11/29 /09 - All 6 of our references are submitted!

12/3/09 - We "meet" our recruiter through emails and a package of extra forms in the mail. We fill out the paperwork, get fingerprinted, and send our information to the Chicago recruiting office.

12/21/09 - Our recruiter receives the extra forms and sets up an interview

1/7/10 - We take the Megabus to Chicago for our interview! At this point, we were told that couples were nominated once every quarter from the National Office. If everything worked out for us, we would be hearing sometime in March, and our nomination would be for the March-May quarter of 2011!

3/2/10 - We touch base with our recruiter again. We send in extra updated forms. She tells us, "If all goes well, we could hear within 2 weeks!" We get more excited and more anxious!

3/9/10 - Nomination! We are nominated to serve in the Caribbean! Ryan serving with Community Development and Emily with Youth Development. We are ecstatic!

3/15/10 - Medical Packets arrive in the mail - sooner than expected!

3/22/10 - Emily and Ryan have their medical and dental appointments!

4/2/10 - After lots of tracking down immunization records and waiting for lab test to arrive, our medical packets are ready to be sent in! We're relieved to be done with this part (hopefully!)

4/10/10 - Toolikit updated: Medical packets have arrived in D.C.

5/19/10 - Toolkit updated: We are both dentally cleared!

9/10/10 - Toolkit updated: We are both medically cleared! Our journey begins to feel real!

9/23/10 - Toolkit updated: We are both legally cleared! One more step and we'll know where we are going!!!

9/27/10 - We get our first email from the Placement office. They need my final transcript and our firm availability date. We hope to hear very soon!

11/3/10 - We get a call from the Placement Desk in D.C. Surprise! They ask us to consider serving in Sub-Saharan Africa! They would like to invite Ryan as a primary teacher trainer and Emily as a secondary math teacher. We say we'll do it! Send that invitation!

11/6/10 - We wake up to an exciting toolkit status update: Invitations have been sent!!!!

11/10/10 - Invites arrive!!!!! We are going to Uganda February 9th!

How it all began...

Here we are sitting in Nina's (our favorite coffee shop) dreaming of what will be our reality before we know it. The dream: serving in the Peace Corps. After many years of hoping, and a year or so of planning we are now in the long process of applying to be volunteers. We've made it to the nomination phase. Up next - medical clearance! So what will the coming months hold?... rather what will the next three years hold? Only time will tell...

If you are reading this blog you either have an investment in our lives, or an interest in joining the Peace Corps. Whatever your reason for reading this blog we hope that you find reading about the events as exciting and interesting as we will find living them.

Until we write again, stay well, spread peace, and find love!

~Ryan~