Friday, August 20, 2010

Goodbye Australia, Hello England!

It's been a while since we have updated our blog, but it seems that as we wind down with our time in Australia things have become quite busy.

A lot has happened in the last couple weeks. Particularly dealing with what will happen after we leave Australia. There was great interest in Ryan with many clubs in all different countries. In this business you deal with lots of little details and logistics and it seemed at several points in the process we didn't know what to decide. We brought these decisions in prayer daily, knowing that God would lead us to the right place. And He did! We received a text about 1am from Ryan's agent giving us strong advice to take a deal in England because another deal fell through.

Faithfully praying about it the next morning, we felt God gave us a peace about deciding to go to England. After following through with the decision, we could see the abundance of God's provision for our time in England. The club will pay Ryan as a full-time basketball player for the Leicester Riders, they would find me a part-time job with one of the sponsors, and I would have the opportunity to play again with the Women's team.

After not playing for over a year, my emotions were mixed feelings. It's a game I have loved my whole life, but because I hadn't played in so long I never expected to play seriously again. Let alone in another country. Its like coming back after retirement. haha. All that to say, I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity to once again play the game that I have been so passionate about my whole life.  Although I am a bit nervous and have a some training to do these next couple weeks I am extremely excited to put on a jersey again!

Ryan's basketball season for the Geraldton Buccaneers came to an end this past weekend. The team made it to the semi-finals and played the Willeton Tigers, who their 3 game series 2-1.  The Buccs got off to a great start in the series beating the Tigers by 30 at home, but then had to travel to Willeton for the next two game and unfortunately couldn't get the win they needed to advance to the grand final.  They played really good in the 3rd game of the series but the other team just shot incredibly well.  It was sad to see their season come to an end, but they had a great season.

Our last week in Australia has been filled with seeing lots of friends that we will miss a lot once we leave.  Friends from the team, work and church graciously invited us into their home and I didn't have to cook dinner once this week!  Nice to get some home cooked meals!

We have certainly learned a lot about dependence on God through this experience and the grace he provides each day to help us through trying times without family and friends from America.  We are so grateful that the Lord has given us this experience in Geraldton and we are excited to see what He has for us in England.

We are grateful for all the prayers of everyone throughout this experience, we truely felt the support of our family and friends back home.

To our Geraldton family... we have enjoyed our stay so much and we hope to cross paths with many of you in the future.  You have become a home away from home for us and we will miss you all.

We arrive in California in 2 days..August 23rd.  We are excited to be home for a little while and see many of you who follow this blog!

Here we come USA!