Stankavich Saga

“This is the best day ever,” Rochelle said when we had a picnic at the park. With the simple food we brought we all enjoyed the nice warm sunny weather that comes infrequently during the winter times. I must say even when the days are cold kids like to get out and play. As a mom I like to see their smiles, giggles, hear their laughter and feel their warm love. It’s a great feeling to know that I’m doing a great job as a mother, even if I sometimes feel insecure or down because I’m only a stay home mom. Sometimes I feel like I’m not supporting my family enough so I feel eager to work. I often times forget that my role as a mom is very important too. To nurture a kid is not an easy job – there’s a lot of frustration and patience involved. However, when my kids show me their affection all my sacrifices are worth it. I’m not saying that my kids are perfect and I not saying that I’m a perfect mom because we are not. Rochelle and Chantelle have their bad spells and they push me to the limit but I show them tough love. I want them to know that I’m in control but at the same time I want them to learn to make decisions. While they are young I want to imprint in their hearts and mind that I love them so much despite of not getting their ways.

I always try to think of a ways to make Rochelle and Chantelle happy without buying the most expensive toys. Family swimming, everyone can have a great time and the good part is that it’s very inexpensive. Another one that we love to do is playing at the park. We are so blessed that there’s so many parks to choose from and going to one of them is free. Nap time is a fight that’s why books comes handy. I read them stories and sometimes we make our own stories. Or simply have a mommy and daughter talk. And one of our family favorites is riding our trailer bike to the library. I’m very fortunate that I have girls that love books so we go to the library is very often. I need the exercise, so the more pedaling we do the happier and healthier I get.

As many of my readers may know, my wife Marissa is from the Philippines.  One inter-cultural marriage fact that I learned early on is that when you marry a Filipina, you also marry her family.  Some may see that as a negative, but I don’t, not at all.  I look at it as a direct opportunity to dramatically change lives for the better. 

One thing I made very clear to Marissa from very early in our relationship was that although I was happy to help her family and expected that to be a part of our relationship, I was not interested in subsidizing their lifestyle.  I don’t need more dependents than I already have.  So we agreed on a set of guidelines for assistance.  We help with infrastructure, education, and medical emergencies, but not ongoing living expenses or entertainment.

We have chosen to focus our primary efforts on education, particularly when that education can lead to a high paying job abroad.  While it would be good and admirable to work toward improvement within the Philippines, poverty and unemployment are so endemic that it’s very difficult to find opportunities to move up without going abroad.

Our first project was sending younger sister Sheryl to nursing school.  We have been paying her educational and living expenses for a few years now.  She will graduate in May of this year.  And yes, guys, she’s still single. Hard to believe, but true.

Now we are looking forward to who we can help next.  We have decided to focus on our brother-in-law Reggie.  He is married to Marissa’s younger sister Moneera.  He and Moneera live in Santa Cruz, Ilocos Sur, Philippines, which is in Northern Luzon.  They met in college as they were completing degrees in Education.  Reggie now teaches English and Social Studies at a private high school.

Reggie is well educated, speaks good English, and is generally a very capable guy.  But his salary is around $150 per month.  He and Moneera can’t afford to live on their own, so they live with and support his elderly parents.  They now have two children, so with his parents there are a total of six mouths to feed and a household to maintain, all on only $150 per month. 

Reggie is unable to afford a car or even a motorcycle, so he either walks or rides a bicycle to work.  They have no medical insurance, so if anybody gets sick, they have to ask for help from relatives in the US to be able to go to the doctor.  They have enough to buy groceries, LP gas for cooking, and basic household supplies and that’s about it.  Family members in the US help out when they can, but in this difficult economy we usually don’t have much to spare.

Although there are other jobs he could potentially get, the pay wouldn’t be that much higher, and the additional cost of living would quite probably exceed any gains.  The only way to make a significant improvement is to work abroad.

The good news is that there is unfilled demand for teachers in the US, particularly math, science, and special education.  As you might imagine, the challenges of special education often scare off or discourage local candidates. As a result, those positions are difficult to fill.

Marissa and I have met several Filipinos who have obtained employment visas to come to the US for teaching jobs.  We thought that might be an opportunity for Reggie, so we started asking around.  According to the teachers we talked to, the biggest demand is for special education.  We asked Reggie if he was interested in taking on the challenges of teaching special needs kids.  He is very willing to do so, and looks forward to the opportunity.

One of the Filipino teachers that we met was kind enough to tell us what qualifications are required and offered to put in a good word with his employers when they start hiring for next school year.  There are several ways to meet the required qualifications – an undergraduate concentration, a postgraduate certificate, or a Master’s degree.  As Reggie has already finished his undergraduate degree and did not pursue that concentration, the best course for him will be the certificate program.  The Master’s degree would be nice, but it would take quite a bit longer and isn’t required from what we can tell.

We’re still researching the cost.  At this point my estimate is $800-1000 for tuition and $400 for room and board.  Then he’ll have maybe $500 in visa related expenses and $800 or so in travel costs once he gets a job and the visa.  All in all, I estimate that the total cost will be between $2500 and $3000.  That’s a pretty big chunk for Marissa and I to come up with, but when I look at the impact that it will have on his life, it’s worth it.  If he can get even $30K per year in the US, he will be able to support his parents and save to bring over Moneera and his children.

If you found Reggie and Moneera’s story inspiring and would like to help them, please use the donate button below.  They would very much appreciate it.  Even a small amount will have a big impact. 

Rochelle drew these animal pictures for a recent homework assignment.  Mom and I thought the squirrel was dead, but she said no, it’s a sad squirrel.  I definitely agree that it looks pretty sad, but for some reason, I just crack up laughing every time I look at it.  I don’t understand why, but that’s what happens. 

Oldest daughter Rochelle received her first achievement award at Kindergarten this week for the momentous accomplishment of writing her name without tracing over an outline.  Hopefully it’s the first step toward a distinguished academic career 🙂

Some of my readers with sharp eyes may have noticed that I post on both stankavich.com and mikestankavich.com. If you did happen to notice, you may have wondered why I have two blogs with essentially the same domain name.  My intent is to write about topics of personal interest, promote my consulting services, and promote future products on mikestankavich.com.  I intend for stankavich.com to be shared with other family members as a place to talk about family events and funny/interesting things that my kids do. I don’t intend to promote any products or services on stankavich.com.

So today, I am posting a video of my oldest daughter’s kindergarten achievement award on http://stankavich.com, and I am posting a review of Dave Navarro’s 7 Steps To Playing A Much Bigger Game on http://mikestankavich.com.  I hope you enjoy your visit to whichever blog interests you.  Of course you’re always welcome to read both 🙂

It’s finally time to just make it go away.  I’ve had this house on the market since July 2007 and haven’t received even one offer. 

This all started back in 2007 when my family and I decided to rebuild and move into our rental property, as I explained in Housing Bubble Hits Home for the Stankavich Family blog post a few months back.  The construction project made sense based on the property values back in 2006, but we all know things have changed since then.

We didn’t get in a hurry to sell because we still needed a place to live.  So we didn’t get very aggressive on the pricing.  As a result we ended up trailing the market all the way down to where we are today.  After we had to drop the price below the amount owed, I just waited out the project to finish our new home, and now that that’s done, I need to get the best reasonable offer that I can and get it in front of the lenders.  There is absolutely no way that I can afford both house payments – I’m completely tapped out from the overruns on the construction project.

I’ve been working with Dianne Yake from Easy Street Real Estate.  This is the first time that either she or I have tried an auction, but we feel confident that we have prepared well, but we don’t really know what to expect.  It should prove to be interesting.  I found Richard Geller’s Mortgage Relief Formula website and ebook very helpful in learning more about short sales and auctions.  We are pretty much following his recipe for our auction format. 

I’ve got a website up at https://www.kwyk.net/bp for pre-registration.  I’ll be adding code today to allow bids to be placed online and for registered bidders to be able to review the bidding history.  If the website proves to be useful, I’ll pretty it up and extend it into a customizable service offering for others to use for their short sale auctions. 

I’ll continue to blog about the auction and the short sale approval process.  If you’re interested in hearing more about how this goes, you can subscribe to receive future posts by RSS feed or email.