The long wait

I'll admit that I didn't consider the Peace Corps 50 years ago, but it has popped into my head intermittently for almost that long. Lots of diversions along the way (love, work, play and one wonderful son) but always a desire to help and serve others with fewer advantages than I. Not that I've lived a life of luxury, but I've always been aware of others in the world without food, housing and education.

So here I am at age 66, ready to retire and still dreaming of helping and encouraging others - knowing full well that it will be me doing the learning with adventure and challenge mixed in.

And I'm inspired by my "co-applicants" to the Peace Corps who've already started blogging about having their application toolkit updated, waiting for their invitation, and watching the wiki Peace Corps timeline to see when applicants get their country assignment and staging date. My personal timeline is sometime in the Summer of 2010.

My journey since submitting my application in July 2009 and interviewing in August has probably been longer than others. I thought I would save the PC money by having my health insurance pay for my annual physical and that was in November. From then on, it was one missing piece of information after another until I finally mailed my completed medical and dental paperwork on December 23rd, 2009.

Was that an automated email on January 1 2010 saying my status had been updated? Looks like it's still in review to me. The wait continues.