In September of 2015, we got an idea, impression, inspiration (call it what you may) to shoot for an overseas experience for our family. That little idea turned into a serious discussion of moving to another country. Now you need to know, I am a creature of habit. I thrive on routine and I don’t like change or risk. The fact that I was even considering this notion was crazy! But this is a story about how I took a complete leap of faith and our family took a journey to New Zealand.
Once we received our initial thought, we started to pray. And we prayed like never before. Is this really for us? Should we really uproot our family and move to another country? What country should we move to? Where are we needed? Where do we need to move for our own growth? So many questions! As we worked out answers, we took our prayers and more questions to our Heavenly Father. And every time we were comforted with peace and the reassurance that this is what we were supposed to do and where we were supposed to move. So even though I was completely comfortable with our life as it was, I knew deep down to my core, that our family needed this. I felt an overwhelming sense of comfort and resolve that this was the right decision for us.
Our impression led to a job search, which led to lots and lots of research, which led to piles of paperwork, which led to a job opportunity much quicker than we anticipated! At first, we had thought it would take a year or two to get all of our ducks lined in a row to make this overseas idea happen. But in a matter of months, we had a job offer and a fast future in New Zealand!
My husband was offered a great job right before Christmas and the company wanted him to start at the beginning of March. We had so much to do in so little time to do it! We hit the ground running getting passports, Visa paperwork, medical checks, shipping container scheduling, selling 2 homes, selling 2 cars, selling 3/4 of our stuff, packed a 20 foot shipping container, and tying up loose ends. It makes me tired just remembering everything we had to do in such a short amount of time! We saw miracle after miracle as we prepared to leave the country. We prepped and sold two homes in a month! Our Visa paperwork came back in less than a week! We successfully sold our possessions on Facebook, Craigslist, and garage sales. We were surrounded by angels as friends helped clean and bring us meals and help in any way they could. It was amazing to see everything fall into place. We knew we were supposed to move before, but after seeing all of the miracles come rolling in, it was undeniable that our family was meant to move to New Zealand.
Leaving our home of 8 years was awful. We said tearful goodbyes to many friends. We bawled as we said goodbye to our loving extended family. But we had comfort knowing this was right and we would learn and grow in unthinkable ways.
Our family of 6 boarded our nonstop plane from Los Angeles to Auckland with 18 suitcases, feeling excited, nervous, and anxious to see what our future held. As we landed in New Zealand, we had no idea the caliber of lessons, growth, experiences, and relationships we would have…and let me tell you, everything has far surpassed our expectations and we wouldn’t trade any of it for the world!
