Hi everyone,
Sorry if you are a regular reader of my Blog... this entry is basically a summary of the year, but there may be some new things you weren't aware of!!
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Welcome to the season of Advent as we prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus!
Click on here for a special Christmas greeting from us!
Housing:Life in Adelaide is wonderful! We settled well into Archer Street and the community we live in is fantastic. We have made some wonderful friends here and enjoy the closeness to everything. In January it will be a year since we moved here, which is hard to believe. The three years remaining will be passing very quickly, I am sure!
Work:There is no doubt that God provided me with the job at the Diocese to help our transition to Adelaide. However, it ended up being quite different to what I was expecting, as well as very different to the Melbourne Diocese, so, I resigned at the beginning of October. I started a new job at the beginning of November and it is fantastic! The people have been very welcoming and lovely. It’s a much larger company than I have ever worked for, but I am definitely enjoying it. I work for CB Richard Ellis, a world wide company who deal with different aspects of the property industry. I am a Personal Assistant for the Director of the Valuations and Advisers department and the team. This job is a blessing from God and Vaughn and I know that it is all part of God’s plan, how my employment worked out this year. I now work in the city. I’d love to walk in, but it’s just that little bit too far and I’d be too flustered and hot before I’d even start work, so I catch the bus in. I do try to walk home, though, which only takes about 25 minutes.
Study:Vaughn has had a great year of study. He has fit in so well to the Australian Lutheran College and made lots of new friends. He studies a lot, but I think much of it comes down to the fact that he is really enjoying his course and field education. He’s now on holidays until February.
Church:Vaughn and I have been placed at St Paul’s Lutheran Church in Glenelg. It’s a lovely church filled with great people. We have recently joined a +20s small group which has been a great way to meet and get to know the young people of the church. I’ve even ‘met’ some people from my past – LSF days (typical Lutheran)! It’s great worshipping at Glenelg, because literally around the corner is Jetty Road, a wonderful place for coffee or lunch, right next to the beach!
Family news:We have a furry new addition to our family – Nemo the cat! A stray cat adopted one of the Archer residents and had kittens. Nemo is one of those kittens. We’ve had him for about two weeks now and he’s a cute little bundle! His brother was adopted by our next door neighbours and his two sisters still live where they were born. He’s predominantly dark grey with very subtle tiger stripes down his back. His feet and under belly are white and he has a white stripe down the middle of his face.
Other news:My trip to the States at the beginning of the year was great! I loved spending time with my family and got to see Seattle, Vancouver and San Francisco. It was a whirlwind trip, but definitely worth it!
I had ear surgery in May due to a perforated ear drum. I’m not sure what the cause of it was, but I had very little hearing in that ear. The recovery immediately after the surgery was long, but I’m fine now. My hearing in my right ear will never be 100% again, but it is much better than it used to be.
My class at Good Shepherd College had a school reunion in August. I caught up with an old friend last year and we decided it would be good to have a reunion… it took until August to get around to organising, but it was great to catch up with school mates from over 12 years ago (scary how long!). There were 8 class mates who were able to attend. That doesn’t seem like much, but considering our graduating class in 1995 was only 12 or so, those numbers are pretty good!
While we were in Melbourne for a visit, Vaughn and I went and saw “Thank God You’re Here” filmed live (yes, I managed to be seen on camera! If you have a wide screen TV, apparently you could see Vaughn as well!). Our episode aired in September. It was so much fun! There’s not a lot that’s cut between filming and airing but it was interesting seeing behind the scenes. The warm up guy, Brian Nankervis (the poet from “Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday’), was very funny!
Vaughn and I will be travelling to Melbourne again over Christmas. We’ll be spending actual Christmas down at Ocean Grove with Vaughn’s family, where his parents will have a caravan. It should be good weather for it! On Boxing Day, we travel up to Melbourne for a little while, then back to Adelaide via Hamilton (and possibly a couple more days in Ocean Grove). We are really looking forward to bringing Vaughn’s tinny back to Adelaide, so we can use it while we are here. We hadn’t brought it earlier as we had no place to store it, but a close friend I made while working at the Diocese offered to store it at their place.
Prayer Points:PRAISE: Vaughn’s studies went well in his first year
PRAISE: The provision of a new job for me
PRAYER: Safe travels over the Christmas period
PRAISE: A great small group at a wonderful church
God bless you this Christmas season and always and we pray that this letter finds you well and in God’s peace. With love and Christian greetings to you and your family.
Janelle and Vaughn (& Nemo)
