Stamford, UK

Apologies to all our followers out there for not updating our blog. It's been about a month since we have been in England. Each week we've settle in our home a bit more and are finding our way around Leicester. 

Although it's only been a few weeks since we've become residents in the UK, we can already see glimpses why the Lord has brought us here. Both Ryan and I have the extraordinary task of sharing the Gospel with many unbelievers in Leicester. We are both extremely humbled and privileged at the opportunities that God has given us to share the Gospel through the game of basketball. 

Each week Ryan and I have responsibilities to go to schools and teach basketball to students. Along with several of his teammates, Ryan attends a number of different schools each week to teach the game of basketball and lessons that involve fitness and health. He continually meets new faces of children who are enamored with his status as a professional basketball player.  Ryan sees this as a great opportunity to set an example of a Godly young man for the kids to look up to.  I on the other hand only have one lesson a week at the same school with a group of 15-20 girls. Leicester is a heavily populated Muslim community and the school that I teach basketball at is filled with Muslim students. I am eager to get to know the girls over my 10 weeks of coaching them. My daily prayer is that I am faithful and bold in showing them the love of Christ. 

Another huge part of our time over the last  month has been trying to find a home church to worship at for the next 7-8 months.  Through a friend that Ryan met at Master's, who happens to be familiar with the UK, we were directed to a church in Rugby, a town just 30 minutes outside of Leicester.  Consequently, Ryan and I made our way down to Rugby on Sunday 10th of October.  This church was of particular interest to us because we had heard that the Pastor is a graduate of The Master's Seminary.  We worshipped with them on their 43rd anniversary service and had great fellowship with the people there and really enjoyed our time meeting with Pastor Tom McConnell and his wife over a traditional English lunch after the service.  Tom referenced us to a bunch of great churches right in Leicester and since then we have been visiting them one by one. We still plan on building a relationship with Tom and his wife, as we see them as a great couple we can learn from in our time here.

There are some definite advantages about being in the UK over some other great places we could have ended up this year.  One bonus is that we have some friends close by that we can visit every now and again.  Two weeks ago after one of Ryan's games we met up with Craig and Amanda Owen. Amanda is a friend of Ryan's from First Baptist Church in Perkasie, PA, Ryan's home town. It was nice to see a familiar face and fellowship with another Christian couple... I'm sure we will see plenty of them in our time here.

Another great thing about living in the UK is that everything is generally in close proximity to one another. Ryan and I made our first day trip to Stamford, a historical town only an hour east of Leicester.  Being in this town made us feel for the first time we were truly in England. The streets were made of cobblestone, old stone buildings were covered in ivy, churches were on every corner with their steeples soaring above the rest of the shops and each had tombstones smothered in moss that were so old you were unable to read the names on it. As we made our way into the village, we stopped at the Burghley House. The Burghley House is England's greatest Elizabethan house. It was built in 1555 by William Cecil, Lord High Treasurer of Queen Elizabeth I. We were in awe at how magnificent this place was. Each room was so ornate in detail and filled with bright colors. We only have pictures of the outside because no photos were aloud inside, but hopefully you can see how extravagant this place was from the pictures.  

We expect this is only one of the many wonderful sites in the UK so we plan to make day trips as often as our schedules allow. The history and landscapes continues to blow our minds here in England and we will continue to put of more pictures of all the sites we see in the future!

Hope things are going well back in the states! We will try to stay up to date in updating our blog! Hope you enjoy the pictures especially of our new addition, Zulu! She is our new kitten:) Very playful and cuddly!

Welcome to England!

Hello from England!

Well we've made it! Our flight to London went relatively smooth and quick. After we landed things didn't go as quick. We were told that once we made it through immigration there would be a driver waiting for us carrying a sign with "ZAMROZ" on it.  

We made it through immigration and saw hundreds of drivers carrying signs but none had "ZAMROZ" on it. Here we were in the biggest airport I've seen with no phones and no numbers to contact anyone or English money if we had a phone. After what seemed like forever of walking up and down the terminal --searching for what I imagined in my head, an English man in a suit and funny hat driving an old-fashioned taxi like the movies-- we finally found an internet station where we could get ahold of someone over email. 

An hour and a half later we realized our driver was at Terminal 3 while we were waiting in Terminal 5. So, with our home/life in a cartload of suitcases we raced down the terminal to catch the train to take us to Terminal 3. We roll up the ramp thrilled to see a little man carrying a sign with our name on it...although a bit disappointed for he was nothing like I imagined:)

We arrived at our lovely apartment nearly two hours later. Since then we have settled in very nicely. 

Because we haven't received our car yet our days have consisted mostly of cleaning and getting settled in our home, taking walks down the street to the Birstall shops and taking bus trips into Leicester city. Our neighborhood is quite new and very English:) the roofs are tall and slanted just like in Peter Pan, and the roads are curvy and narrow with tiny little cars. I imagine our car will be similar when we receive it. The club likes to give the players a few days to adjust to driving on the wrong side of the road, especially with stick shift. Although we drove on the left side in Australia it should still be interesting as we haven't tried stick shift. 

Ryan has had several practices with his team and has thoroughly enjoyed jumping right in with the new guys and looks forward to playing full-time this season. I get to meet my team for the first time tomorrow at our practice. I'm looking forward to meeting some new girls and trying to get involved right away as well. We both have tournaments this weekend; Ryan's games are home and I will be traveling to not sure where yet. Hopefully next week I'll get to interview for a job at the hotel; one of the club's sponsors.  

By the way, I just wanted to congratulate my hubby for winning MVP in the SBL in AUSTRALIA! Great Job Babe!

Like I mentioned before, things are settling in very nicely here in Leicester and we look forward to telling you more about our great experiences in the future! We always covet your prayers as it is not always easy being away from home and as we begin a new adventure may we be a shining light to those we come in contact with. We are once again thrilled for what God has planned for us here and we thank Him for His provision and grace in these special opportunities.

Love you and miss you all!!!! 

Cheers

PS. our new address is:

1 Brook Furlong Birstall

Leicester, UK LE4 3LU

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!