Busan, South Korea, is a long way from Missouri in so many ways.
However, in 2010, as the United States' recovery from the Great Recession started to gain steam, newlyweds Natalie and Kenney Newville graduated from Missouri Western State University and began searching for jobs.
"It's amazing, and it's something that we joke about," Natalie Newville said. "Everybody should go do something like that - be in a culture that's completely different from yours."
Coming out of college, the couple had few belongings. Each owned a car. That was about it.
Both had grown up in Missouri.
Both had earned their degrees, but the only jobs they could find were in retail. Then they heard from a few people who had gone overseas to teach English as a Second Language and went online to see if it was something they might tackle.
"We just kind of jumped on it," Natalie Newville said. "It was really the perfect time."
They had no strings.
"We didn't own a house yet. We didn't have children yet," she said.
And they leapt.
Everything was different from home.
Newville said she couldn't even read the street signs because the alphabet seemed so strange. The language was different. She had grown up in Sedalia, a city of about 21,000 people. Busan had 3 million people. It sat on the Pacific Ocean.
"South Korea has an amazing night life," Newville said. "There are things to do all the time."
The young couple's apartment stood about a block from the United Nations Memorial Cemetery, she said. The cemetery contains the remains of 2,300 U.N. soldiers who died during the Korean War. It is the only U.N. cemetery in the world.
One night, when the couple decided to visit the cemetery, they arrived just as it closed. As the Newvilles spoke with the people working at the cemetery, workers realized they were American and invited them to return the next day.
The couple explained they were not members of the military, but the Koreans insisted they return.
"They were so grateful," Newville said. "Because of our country, they wanted us to see this monument to the conflict that had happened. And they were so grateful to our country for helping with the North Korea and South Korea conflict."
The Missourians spent about a year and a half in South Korea.
While they were overseas, the couple thought back on their home state. They became familiar with Jefferson City when Newville had a college internship there.
"We fell in love with Jefferson City," Newville said. "So we always knew we wanted to come back."
They went home to Sedalia, and Newville took a job with ACT Missouri, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to work statewide to foster safe, healthy and drug-free communities, according to its website. She was there for about three years. Kenney got a job with the Boy Scouts.
Four years ago, after their daughter Catherine was born, he was transferred to Jefferson City. Later, Natalie found a job with the Missouri River Regional Library.
At the library, Newville is responsible for marketing and some fundraising.
"Our biggest goal right now is reaching people who don't have library cards," she said. "We're really trying to branch out more and hit those people who think the library is all about books."
It's getting people to walk through the door.
MRRL has so many resources people don't know about, Newville said. It has databases and free access to Consumer Reports. Customers can go to the library to learn how to use social media, edit a video or even do customer service.
"We don't want to be the 'best-kept secret' about anything," she said. "We want people to know about us."
The library has e-books and audio books. Television shows and movies can be streamed through a customer's library account. The Teen Zone contains console video games. On Game Nights, teenagers and adults gather in the library to play board games. The library offers 50-60 programs every month.
"We do so much that's unique," Newville said. "It's nice to come and market the library. It's so much fun to talk about books and programs and how we're enriching the community."