1 Month Marker

  

Saturday the 24th marked 1 month I’ve been living in Australia.

As expected, the number of adjustments and changes I would encounter were many. I spent the first 2 weeks here in a hotel, well actually 2 different hotels. The first one couldn’t extend my stay, so I had to move. 

It didn’t really feel like I was settling into my new life because of the whole hotel stay and my home situation being unknown. In the midst of that, I was beginning to attend college, get used to walking everywhere, and plead with the Lord to miraculously adjust my body and hair to the tropical humidity. (Still waiting on that miracle by the way…😳)

Trying to rent and get settled into a new apartment took a little time and some efforts in organization with opening an Australian bank account, getting an Aussie phone number and getting my documents together for an application. I also had some work to do outfitting an apartment. Not having a car meant coordinating with college and new friends to give me a ride and help get items into my apartment. 

I had the privilege of spending a few hours with some very kind (and strong) 

young men who helped me. 

We even had an expert level Ikea assembler who is from Sweden and could tell us what the names of the products meant!👀

As faithful as the sun is to rise, so is God in providing and going before me. 

I have a lovely place to live that exceeds any need I have and is completely a gift from the Lord.

I’ve got a running list of things where I see God working and growing me. There are so many new experiences and rhythms of life to get used to, so much daily surrender. For instance, I have never lived alone, and I have never not had a car. There are benefits of getting a sabbatical from regular life, the rest from the usual busyness of home life. However, much like everything else that sounds like a dream, there’s a honeymoon period and then the new shininess wears off and you settle into reality. 

My schedule is fairly easy, I have Wednesday as my 1 big day of classes from 8:30am till 5:15pm, otherwise, just an hour or so on Tuesday morning and 3 hours on Thursday. 

My apartment is about an 8–10-minute walk from church and school, which are situated together separated by a parking lot. Being in school again after so many years was a challenge to my mindset, planning for homework time etc. I just needed a couple weeks of just doing it to gauge what my pace would be. 

One of the things God is working on in me is time management. Having been in a lifestyle where things were relaxed to now having a certain schedule every day, there were some adjustments that occurred regarding my morning routine. I may or may not have run for the first time in a decade in order to make it to class on time….😬

I have a wonderful group of ladies that adopted me right away. I may have looked a little new and lonely my first Sunday at church…but these ladies didn’t waste any time in becoming my friends. They’ve been great helping me shop for household items and getting them back to my apartment, sharing a meal, and just overall encouragement to me as I embarked on this new lifestyle. 

There are so many little things I take for granted at home in Michigan. Like the ease of getting groceries, getting bigger household items into the house, and going places when the weather is not ideal. Walking is good for my body and soul, and is how I planned to get around, as well as using public transit. I’ve been exhausted at bedtime after all the mental adjustments and physical changes this past month!

The good and praiseworthy report is that God is incredibly faithful and so generously kind. I have had so many conversations and experiences that are clearly from Him. Church is always a tender place for me. God has worked some major growth in myself and my family through this wonderful church and their music, so I am reminded of that whenever I enter the sanctuary. Regardless of how hard a day may be, I have full faith that He has called me here for this season. 

The personal growth and opportunities I am having to give encouragement to others based on redeeming work God has already done in me is clear proof. Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”, and I am seeing that worked out before me each day.

I have some ideas of why God has called me here, especially this time in my life. However, He surprises me constantly with hidden blessings He’s prepared for me in advance. It shouldn’t be a surprise anymore, after all I have seen Him do. It still causes me to feel overwhelmed with gratitude that God would see me and my little details and bless me in the most kind and tender ways to prove that He sees and is with me.

I wake up with daily expectation for seeing something great! This church’s focus for the lent season is 40 days of devotion. What I chose to do during that is to give up a bit of sleep early in the morning and to begin my day on my knees in surrender and worship. 

The song I use each morning is an old hymn called “Take my Life” that’s been redone by Chris Tomlin. You have no idea what that small action can do to change a person until you try it. The song goes through each part of a person; take my mind, take my lips, words, hands and feet, intellect and love. I pray through the song each morning, and this sets up my day. 

Each morning God is faithful to meet with me there.

One month has gone by fast, but slow at times too. I miss my husband, family, and pups so much that if I give any mind-space to dwell on that the tears are immediate, so close to the surface. 👉

God is tender and gracious to hold and carry me through that as well. I am very much learning how to rely on Him for my each and every thing.

My Year of Devotion in Australia

Why would a married woman and mother of 4 adult kids go away for a year to Australia? Never mind that year long concept… Australia! About as far away as you can go!

I am doing a reboot of my blog and using it to document this epic year before me, and so if you’d like to have updates and follow my journey you can subscribe and get email notifications when I post.

A quick snapshot into our current family situation- Chip and I have been married 25 years, going on 26 this September. Chip is an owner at the firm he’s been at for more than 22 years. Our oldest son James is married to Alexia, they met in Australia at Hillsong College. They are now living back home in Michigan. James is about to finish his degree and begin his fulltime career in public accounting. Alexia is fast becoming the best saleswoman David’s Bridal has seen! Lizzie is engaged to be married this summer to Brian, he is such a wonderful match for our Lizzie. 💖 She is also finishing her degree and flourishing in a tax internship. Charlie works full time in concrete and is starting to drive the trucks too. 

We’re so proud of his dedication and hard work. He’s quite a catch for any young woman! Baby Grace is in college full time and working. She’s got a servant’s heart and we are so looking forward to how God will grow her into the woman He’s created her to be. Last but certainly not least, is my 3 fur babies! Sassafras, Ducky, and Huckleberry are 3 Vizsla’s that have a large piece of my heart.

So that leaves me. As you can imagine, raising a family over these years, working parttime and full time some years, sometimes so busy with sports and school schedules I could hardly see straight has been a very full life so far. That brings us to the question of what on earth am I doing going to Australia for a year?!

To start at the beginning would be too long a story, and maybe over time I can share it throughout this journey. However, what I can do is build a timeline of sorts.

So I suppose for me, it might’ve began 25 years ago. I was a very young, pregnant mom-to-be back then, when I first heard Hillsong’s "Shout to the Lord". God often uses music to speak to me, to comfort my heart and lead me to Himself. This song was a catalyst to that. That baby I was pregnant with is James. He went to their college for 3.5 years. This is a blog about my faith struggle to send him.

We can fast forward several years, close to 8 years ago now, we found ourselves in a crisis. I don’t want to bury this post in that whole story, you can find some of that in my post archives in the beginning of my blog

However, that’s where this whole thing began with Hillsong Church’s influence in my walk with God. As most know, they are well known for their music. Their church has been around for more than 30 years and their leadership college has been for over 20 years. They expanded beyond their own little corner of the world into a worldwide superpower of good for the Kingdom of God. He mightily blessed them and I would even say that when I’ve been in their home church building, the presence of God is palatable!

Eight years ago, in that marriage crisis we were in, I spent some serious time in sorrow and at times it was deeply oppressive. My husband would come lay over me, pray, read scripture and he started to play Hillsong worship music. In that peaceful moment, God chased away the darkness I was in and healed my heart. We began to look more into who they were, the church and services we could watch online. It was such a source of encouragement in my restoration time that it became regular. From that, came the strong leading for James to go to the college. It was a big battle of faith for me. At the time, there was no way to go see him, I had no passport, and certainly not extra cash to take that kind of trip. In my tiny seed of faith I mustered, God grew an incredible tree of opportunity!

Hillsong has several conferences they do over the course of a year, all focused on growing people to live for Christ and to grow leaders in the Christian community to spread the gospel and lead well. During James’ time there, God did a lot of blessing and changing in our family. He grew Chip’s work practice tremendously, we got passports and began traveling. Among the first trips Chip took for a business conference was to Sydney just 2 short months after we sent James. Then God made a way for me to go 6 months later! 

The first visit that July had a big impact. I was completely taken off guard by the deep the sense of “home” I felt inside the church building. I knew the spiritual academic stuff, that being among fellow believers and in a church building can give you the “my people” feeling. This was different. So much stronger and pulling.

For the sake of brevity, I’ll just say that God’s blessing grew far past anything we had hoped or dreamed for, and the continual strong pull to go to Sydney just grew. I had the privilege to go 7 total times, each one attending a conference. In November 2019, Chip and I were there together, he at a work conference and me for visiting. We attended church Sunday morning, and there was an ad that played for the college. The line that caught my attention was “Give God a year of your life and see what He will do”. It sounded amazing! A year of solely devoted to seeking Him, studying and resting from all my normal life things. However, completely unrealistic and outside of the realm of possibility for me.

Or so I thought.

While I was thinking it was unrealistic, the Lord was impressing on my husband’s heart that he needed to send me there for a year. Chip later told me about what he thought the Lord’s leading was, and my first reaction was very much doubt and disbelief. How could this be possible? To leave my family and my whole life for a year? The cost of supporting an entirely separate life in another country was daunting and seemed ridiculously extravagant. Chip felt the Lord’s leading on timing was to be after my youngest graduated from high school. So we continued to pray and we waited.

When March 2020 happened, we had to bring James and Alexia home, leaving behind an unfinished degree for both. I was in Australia at the time, at the women’s Colour Conference. While we were in the last Sunday evening service together, we were waiting for God to fully confirm what we were dreading. We asked Him to confirm to us as a collective little group that we needed to bring James and Alexia home right then because of the covid scare happening and closing of borders. God did indeed answer and confirmed for us that we needed to. I was very sorrowful because I knew how big this whole college experience had been and that it was cutting it short. I also knew that if they left right then it was quite possible that whenever the Lord planned to send me here, that they wouldn’t be here anymore. I really did not like this plan. We had all sorts of things worked out in our minds of how it would look if I were to come to college. Besides bringing the kids home right then, I got one clear message from God- “Will you still obey Me? Will you still come?”

As we got through the tremendous year of change in 2020, I began to have real doubts if college for me would ever happen. We rolled into 2021, and there was a small glimmer of hope that borders would open, but as December approached, hope was lost. 

Until December 20th, when God spoke to me on the way to church.

I was just driving along, singing worship music and praying a bit when this very loud and strong sentence popped into my head. “It’s time, I want you to go now, the January intake for college”. First of all, this is nothing I ever would’ve come up with on my own. I didn’t know the borders had opened to students yet. As it turned out, they had opened 3 days prior! I was still questioning, wanting to have a strong confirmation before I voiced out loud what I thought I heard. I went home after church and was by myself for a while, so I took the opportunity to pray more about this. I put on a sermon from my church that I hadn’t heard yet, to have on in the background. It turned out to be my confirmation. One of our pastors, Tom, was preaching out of Genesis 12- the Abraham and Sarah obeying God and going to a distant land chapter. At first, I thought well it’s just coincidence because our church is doing a series through Genesis and it just happened to be that chapter. However, when my pastor leaned towards the camera and said “Is God asking you to do something right now? Is there something you need to obey God on right away?” I then acknowledged this was not a coincidence but my confirmation I asked for.

In upcoming posts I will share more regarding the struggles of actually getting into the country. But for now, you can see that I am indeed here, I did obey, and my mind is heavy with anticipation for what God has called me here for. 

One thing is for certain. It is a year wholly devoted to Him.