*I am not good at grammar but I hope that I can share what the Lord is doing in my life with others!
DOWN UNDER AND UPSIDE DOWN
Prior to 9/11 , my family did a krazy thing! We sold our beautiful home in Phoenixville, PA and hightailed it to New Zealand...
I will never forget that evening when we were all in the family spa and my dad announced that we were moving. I was angry enough to explode! I was only seven. Move??? Why would we want to do that? But it was no use... my parents were set on the idea. We sold our house and pretty much everything we held dear. Even after all of these years my parents occasionally ask about things we sold and lament the fact that we sold them. Our extended family thought we had lost our minds but we still moved...
The first year in New Zealand was agony! The way people lived was definitely not AMERICAN and the attitude was so different, not bad BUT very different. New Zealanders are very chilled out people. We spent all of this first year trying to find a place to live. We even spent our first Christmas in a rental home.
During the following year we came to a little area known as Cheviot. Cheviot is located in North Canterbury, New Zealand. Cheviot is also an hour and a half north of Christchurch.
We found a beautiful piece of land near Cheviot and we decided to build a Mediterranean home. This was an arduous task and it quickly gave people the wrong impression that we were RICH AMERICANS. I was attending a small rural school at the time of about 200 students. I liked the teachers a lot. You do not get a lecture from teachers in New Zealand for reading a bible and sharing about it during Read and Share time. Some of the children were very nice but others picked on me because I was American.
I came home one day after school and saw my parents. Something had happened and I could feel it inside. My dad told me that we had left God out of everything and that we had moved for purely selfish reasons. This was the start of something beautiful. GOD FOUND US IN NEW ZEALAND. I had always believed in God but it was not until New Zealand that he really came alive for me personally. I was baptized in New Zealand in the Public School pool and I shared my faith with my friends. But the greatest work was still to come.
We came back to America in 2005 to adopt Jeremiah. We thought that the process of adoption would take 4-6 months, it took two years! I wondered if I would ever see New Zealand again. During this time we experienced different church cultures and made a ton of friends. Revival swept our family but some of them thought we were religious bible nuts. Jeremiah and I were home schooled but we both agree that these two years back in America were the best years of our lives. We met so many fantastic and wonderful people. But we went back to New Zealand one more time.
When we went back to New Zealand, nothing had really changed in two years. We attended that small rural school and we were once again labeled as JESUS FREAK AMERICANS. But the opportunities to witness were unbelievable. I gave a speech on John the Revelator in front of the whole community and I got to share my testimony in my Social Science class. I took first place on the speech cup which is now in the Cheviot Museum. But God was calling us back to America. Our time in New Zealand was done and over. But I will never forget because GOD FOUND US IN NEW ZEALAND.
WE ARE TAKING A WEEK LONG TRIP TO MASSACHUSETTS, I WILL WRITE MY NEXT BLOG ABOUT THAT!
"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." ROMANS 8:28
