Building in New Zealand

Hi readers,

Well, we've been in New Zealand for a month now and I'd love to document our adventure as we go. I'm expecting some amazing 'God testimonies' because it really feels like we have a mountain to move to get to where we need to be, therefore I'm putting my faith in God to help us with positive progress.

I'll take you back to 2013 where it all started.  It was coming up to our 10 year wedding anniversary and after a rocky month of relationship troubles I had started looking at buying a house in NZ, to go back home and be closer to my extended family and old friends.  Turns out marriage grows from these tough times and what was meant to kill us only made us stronger.  Cliche, yes, but true.

My little mention of New Zealand brought us together and we started looking at possibly moving back there for a fresh start.  We both looked at each other and said "If we moved back to NZ it would have to be to the coromandel." We pretty much typed in coromandel to realestate.com and came up with Tairua.  Fell in love with a section of land, put an offer on it and flew over for a 10 year wedding anniversary celebration.  The grandparents had the girls and we had some much needed time together.
I basically stood on the top of the section of land and cried.  It was so beautiful!

If I can paint a picture for you with words... It is 72meters above sea level on the side of a cliff looking out to the beach down below, the mercury islands beyond and the sound of crashing waves and native birds.  Like standing on the edge of heaven, I was in love.  Didn't know how we could build a house on there but decided we needed to buy the land all the same.

Our intention was to fly back to Australia, sell our house and move over to start our dream build.

I asked the Lord, "give me a number, how long is this going to take"... I heard the number 3, I saw it everywhere I looked.  Great I thought, 3 days this is going to be fast.  But no, 3 days went by, 3 weeks, 3 months, then 3 years.  I was devastated.  I felt like a fool believing I had heard that number so strongly and I started doubting my faith.  But God had a better plan, he wanted to stretch me...
On the 18 december, 2016 we sold our house.  It was exactly 3 years, 3 months and 3 days!  Good one God, you got me! haha

We moved out, rented for 3 months, packed up our belongings to take to Nz and left some behind for when we come back.  Because at this stage we had decided to build a beach house in New Zealand and after two years return to Australia and live the summer months in NZ and the rest of the year in Australia.  But I have to say, since moving over I have found myself loving the peacefulness, the picturesque scenery everywhere I look, the people we've met, everything about this place feels like home.  So, lets wait and see how long we actually do stay....

So, as I really would like to do updates every week of how we're going I'll start back at the first week.
Our bags needed to be 23kgs and we had extra allowance for 8 bags. 4 of the bags were enormous and I was worried we would be over weight.  God quietened my anxiety and covered me in peace.  All bags were exactly 23kgs or slightly under/over.  We made it through the scary part! Everything went well for the rest of the flight except when we were getting a taxi to our friends house in Auckland and I hadn't written the address down.  It was in messenger on my phone and we hadn't bought data packs yet so I couldn't get messenger up. Noooooo!!! i hate technology!!  Thank you God somehow It came up on my screen and we now had a screenshot of the address... next time i will old school it and write it on paper!

During the 3 1/2 years of waiting we had visited Tairua a few times and were blessed to meet lovely neighbours to our block that have a car yard in Auckland.  Now my husband is very particular on his cars - he's a car man, so I was thinking this is going to take forever to find a car he will be happy with but God knows our hearts and we didn't need that stress so our lovely friends just happened to have an Audi S6 wagon at the right price for us and off we drove!

So, then we pull up at this delightful little 2 bedroom batch that had been offered us through a Tairua Facebook page with no references from us, we just looked like nice people.  Not only did it fit into our budget but it came fully furnished ready for us to move straight in. It may be a small, dinky house but it has amazing views of the mountains and other houses dotted around us.  The greenery and the wildlife is so welcoming.  Thank you God, again!

The girls started school, they love it.  Super cruisy, they can walk to school, no uniform, no homework. Let's say I have very happy girls, they are even sharing a bedroom and it's the best thing we could've done to bring them closer together.

We bought a chainsaw and the two of us, working together have cut and lifted out a ridiculous amount of scrub and trees.  My legs ache at the end of the day, and I find myself talking to the trees and apologising to the nice ones for cutting them down and trying to save the ferns and replant them.. I'm hoping for green fingers to kick in at some stage.

It's raining today so we're having a rest day. Actually I feel like, even though we're working together, every day is a date day.  Things will change when Brad starts working again but for now I have him all to myself and I'm loving it.  A few teething problems of being together 24/7 but we've worked through them and now i can say, we are team building! As cheesy as that sounds, after 15 years together we are more solid than ever.  God knows everything we need and putting the two of us together every moment of everyday with no one else but ourselves seems to be working really well.