Grace and Blessings! I Passed!

My son opened up the email from the BEX yesterday and found the answer we'd been praying for:

“You passed the German BEX language test …”

I was so stunned. So totally stunned. I had actually already written to BEX, requesting to take the test again. I was that convinced I'd flunked it. And meanwhile, I'd started listening to Turkish tapes, wondering if it wasn't better to just spend the next six months learning Turkish.

That was yesterday. This morning, I'm still trying to take it in. But the shock is fading and it's giving way to gratitude. I’m grateful, so grateful, and so very, very relieved.

Almost immediately after receiving the email from State, I wrote back, asking for an update on my ranking on the Register. I’m hoping that my new score of 5.57 will put me in the  thirties. I do hope so. There are quite a few people with 5.6s and higher, but not so many. It’s mainly the other 5.57s I have to stand behind. We’re listed according to when we landed on the register. My date was January 12. So I’ll go behind the person who got on the register before that date and ahead of anyone who got on later, even if they received their 5.57 before I did.

I pray to get the call late this spring or early this summer, for the A-100 class that is schedded for the fall. Perhaps they would have to increase class size again and reach fairly deep into the register to get to me. Some say that's unlikely. Still, it might happen. The March class is already filled. There’s a class after that, which I doubt I’ll be called for— and then there’s another class after that. The third class would be the September one. That’s the one by which time I sincerely hope I’ve moved high enough up on the register to receive "the call."

In the meantime, I'm still considering whether to study Turkish. I really enjoyed the tapes I downloaded. I didn't have the faintest idea of what I was saying, but I found the pronunciation surprisingly easy. And it was enjoyable to start with a fresh language. There's an intensive beginner's class starting in April and I would like to sign up for it. I could study it now without pressure. If I get good enough at it, then maybe I could actually take the Turkish test and pass that, too. Wouldn't that be something?

But the main thing I'll do with this waiting time is use it to prepare — to clean up the apartment, empty it of clutter, make it ready for us to pack and move to Washington DC. The cleaning process will also help me believe that this is going to happen. We will be leaving this place and we will be moving on to a better one, a safer, cleaner, happier one. That’s our future.