Team Therrien Takes Down Under: 2013

Hello to our dear family and friends!

I hope we have done a decent job staying in touch with you guys (at least individually?) throughout our time here in Aussieland. As you can see, I am not a very good blogger. :) Perhaps it's my lack of time? Ah, I won't give excuses for myself... I would rather sit and do calculus than write a paper. Math is more my thing. :)

Anyways, we still seem to be standing despite the gravitational pull being a lot stronger down here... hahaha j/k. Nah, but we are doing pretty well. Josh is continuing to rock it with his studies. Greek seems to be the class he has to put most of his time to... everywhere (literally) we go he seems to be carrying Greek flashcards in his plastic baggie-- church, the grocery store, long car rides, friends houses... He has a pretty busy schedule at the moment: working Monday, Friday, Saturday and classes Tuesday-Thursday. We have also gotten involved in serving at a Hillsong extension service 30 minutes from our house. We have enjoyed the community at that church and the different experience.
I am still working at the cafe, working Monday through Friday, yet still working over 40 hours a week. I joined the gym a few doors down from work and found a trainer that seems to thoroughly enjoy working me to the ground each session. The gym has some great classes that I have enjoyed as well, just to change up from my usual running. I am really enjoying the cycling class and the boxing class (which is run by this crazy nazi-police woman who I am TOTALLY intimidated by... she literally almost made me cry the first class.). It seems I have found my own little community at the gym now and some of the regulars that come to the cafe always are friendly to me when they see me.... I am actually doing the cycling class with a few of the 50-70yr old ladies that come into the cafe regularly. :) LOVE IT. I have also become quite close to a lot of the regulars that come into the cafe and it has been so fun to get to know them beyond their "Large cappuccino, two sugars" order.
Josh and I have made some additional great friends through our connect group through church. It's awesome to have friends that are from all over the world.
Australia life has seemed to fit more comfortable for us (well, really me because Josh could honestly live anywhere and be fine..). Our routine seems to be a bit more set.

On that note, we do have some news for you all. With much prayer and thought, we have decided to return home for GOOD when we come home for Josh's brother's wedding in June. This is for a few reasons-- finances and my health. Don't get me wrong, my stomach pains and severe bloating that I had earlier have gone... but now my hormone levels aren't right and my "body processing" is still out of wack. I have seen the doctor several times now and they cannot seem to figure out what is up so Josh and I have decided that I seems much safer for my health if we return back. Hormone levels are definitely not something we want to mess with, especially if we would like to have kids in the future. Our prayer and hope is that everything will balance out once we are on American soil... this seems to be what SEVERAL American girls have experienced for some weird reason. One girl I chatted to the other weekend seemed to think that it was the water here...perhaps? Who knows!
Financially, we save a couple thousand dollars by having Josh finish his courses online from the States. I have NO idea how this works.. doesn't make sense to me. Josh will still finish by February, as we had planned... and he will only be taking three courses online that he would have actually done in a classroom setting.. so he is not missing out on as much as would be expected.

With all this being said, please keep us in your prayers-- we are trying to establish a living situation, purchase another car, and both find jobs. Josh will be looking for part-time work and an internship (counting as class credit). I will be looking for a full time job, either doing admin work, HR, or something of the sort. Any ideas or thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Also, if you see any great car deals, we would love to hear about that too!

We are SO looking forward to seeing you all so soon! We miss you guys HEAPS!

Lots of lovin',

J & L

Oh I am soooo not doing a good job at this. My apologies once again.

Well, family and friends, I would say a lot has happened since I blogged last! Let me TRY and give you a BRIEF update.

Josh finished off the semester at the end of November and did QUITE well! I am so proud of him! He starts his next semester in a few weeks with a pretty intense load including Greek 1! Yikes!

Josh also has started a new job which was a total blessing from God. Literally. He somehow got connected up with guy that was praying for someone that he could hire to manage his tire and small mechanics shop that he just opened up near the Blue Mountains. This job is better pay, a way better work environment, and he gets compensated for gas to and from work… not to mention that he is able to use all his past years of experience in managing the shop. He is pretty pumped about this.

I am still working at the café but have some potential new jobs in the works… will update you as things come to pass! As far as my health, I am totally blessed to say that after six months of the worst stomach issues in the world, I am completely healed! Not kidding! I had done several tests—full blood, parasite, ultrasounds, celiac, etc—and was ready to head to a gastro- specialist to see what he could do as nothing seemed to be showing up on the tests. I just so happened to get connected with a girl (the wife of one of Josh’s friends when he lived here before) who has been living here for 7 years with the same EXACT issue as I was having… she had the same symptoms and the doctors couldn’t seem to figure out what it was… they ended up diagnosing her with celiac but she knew that wasn’t it as basically everything she ate would bother her. However, as soon as she would go back to the states to visit family, she would be fine! She told me that on her 3+ week holiday in California she ate EVERYTHING and had NO issues and even lost weight! After chatting to her on the phone I was comforted by the fact that there was someone else out there with the same issue but I also knew that only God could solve this… no doctors…

So, as we have entered 2013, the vision of Hillsong Church for this year has challenged both Joshua and me: believing with faith and expectation for God’s blessing upon all of our lives. This has been so hard for the both of us in the past as we have felt so undeserving of God’s blessing… like we have had to earn it… In this mind-shift, we have been both praying and believing for God to do GREAT things in His Church, His people, and us. So, I began praying and believing fervently for God’s miraculous healing upon my body…a complete wholeness to my system. It was as if a switch had by hit in my body after this mindset change… It was about the second week or so of January when my bloating was disappearing and my stomach pain was going away. I slowly started adding foods back into my system that I hadn’t been eating… my body wasn’t reacting to them! I am now eating any and every kind of food without a bit of reaction! I know that this is only by God’s healing touch. There is NO other explanation for it as I have done nothing else differently. I am so excited and blessed to see the power of God upon my life!

On another note, Josh and I have had the opportunity to do a bit more traveling and sightseeing, which I am so excited about! We were invited to our first Australian wedding at the end of November in Hunter Valley, wine country. My work Christmas party was an outing to the Sydney Aquarium (I got to see where Nemo had settled. Hehe). I got to experience my first New Years’ Eve in the city, watching the AMAZING fireworks from the balcony of our friends’ house! Lastly, my sister, Sarah, came to visit for two weeks! We explored a bit more of the city together and traveled up to the Gold Coast and got to see Surfer’s Paradise and Brisbane. We had an absolute blast!

Josh and I are looking forward to an AWESOME and eventful 2013 filled with God’s grace and blessing! We hope this post finds you all well! We honestly think of you all quite often and look forward to seeing many of you on our visit back home in June for Jordan’s wedding!

Much love,

Team Therrien