Hey so I realize it has been a long time again since my last blog post, but at ABS I have no idea what my schedule is or when I will have the opportunity for internet time. To be honest for the next 2 months until I come home there will likely be very few blog posts perhaps an ABS summary at the beginning of June because I will have some time before I go to Fiji. In Fiji it is safe to assume I may never come across internet access so I will have to do a summary of that in August sometime. So 2 long decent posts can be expected, but not for a couple weeks now. I shall post one for the 6 weeks I spent on ABS and 1 for the 6 weeks I will have spent in Fiji. It shall be grand :)
I can let you know though, that ABS is probably the hardest thing I've ever physically done in my life. There is so much... exercise wow, but it is good. I am learning some good perseverance and discipline skills which could come in handy for university. I am not supposed to write too much about what I have done on ABS because it is supposed to be a secret, but if you ever ask me about ABS I can tell you heaps of cool stories of the things we have done!
Much love my friends.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Hello my friends =)
Let me fill you in on what has been going on so far in my 2 week break. I spent the first week traveling around the south island for a week and now I am stationary (not traveling!) at a beach house on the north island. I had to make my way up to the north island because I will no longer be living at The Crossing on the south island, I will now be doing the program ABS (adventure bible school). There are two Capernwray Bible Colleges situated in New Zealand: The Crossing on the south island in Geraldine and Monvale on the north island in Cambridge. ABS is a program run through the Capernwray center on the north island, but is different from the bible college at Monvale, it is simply ran through Monvale. It actually has its own building called the Adventure Lodge which is ½ an hour away from Monvale. It is going to be a very challenging experience, but it should be really good for me =) Everything at ABS is on a need to know basis so we don’t know our schedule at all except when it happens, which is the point to keep us on our toes. However secret sources have told me that on our first night they wake us up at 3 a.m. to take us somewhere and we don’t know where we are going. I am glad I know that now haha oh wow. It is going to be all outdoor hiking, swimming, rock climbing, etc. I’ve always wanted to do something super outdoorsy like this, but ABS doesn’t start until April 18 so I will be at the beach house in Coromandel until then.
So anyways back to how I spent my first week of break! So the main people I was traveling with were Angela, Bryan, J.B. and Adam and the car we were in was named Betty. The five of us spent the first two hours looking around for Jonas and Michael because we had planned to meet up with them. Eventually we decided since we were unable to find them that we would just drive up to Mt. Cook and hopefully see them there. Mt Cook is about a 2 ½ hour drive. Halfway there we stopped at a place called Lake Takepo (I may have spelt that wrong). It is this beautiful bright blue lake surrounded by mountains with a little cathedral on its shore. We got there are sunset so it was really lovely. After that we continued on our way and at about 8 p.m. we arrived at the hostel in Mt. Cook. When we got there Jonas and Michael happened to be waiting in the parking lot and they were pretty overjoyed to see us. They almost dragged us out of the car they were so excited haha. After we got settled in we decided that we wanted to have a worship session. Fortunately, at our hostel they happened to have free guitars we could use. The 7 of us went outside, JB started playing the guitar and singing. We sang along praising God in the parking lot with the mountains all around us. It was beautiful while we were singing the moon rose right over top of the mountain so full and bright. It was really neat though people would come in and out of the hostel. Quite a few lingered longer than they normally would to listen to the words we were singing. One girl actually came out and started recording JB, she said it was absolutely beautiful. Another man came and talked to Bryan for like half an hour about God because he had a lot of questions. We were probably out there for almost 2 hours. Twas wonderful.
The next day we went and saw the Tasman Glacier which was a very easy 10 minute hike up this mountain-ish hill. It was pretty beautiful as well, goodness gracious this whole country is just gorgeous I should just leave it at that haha. After that the 7 of us headed to Wanaka. There happened to be this big even going on in Wanaka so all the hostels were full that night. We ended up having to “freedom camp” Basically we found a random field somewhere and set up tents there to sleep. Hey at least it is free, but it was pretty windy so I was awake most of the night. The next morning we went to this cool optical illusions centre called Puzzling World which has all these rooms of illusion and a giant maze inside of it. After that we continued on to Queenstown. On our way to Queenstown we had to drive down this mountain so it was a really steep way down and the road was curving the whole way down. It was really hard on our brakes so by the time we got to the bottom our brakes were smoking! Actually there were a few other cars at the bottom who also had to pull over to cool their breaks off haha. On the way to Queenstown we listen to a series about truth and Jesus Christ by a speaker named Ravie Zacharias, it was super good. He is quite the smart one I would say.
Shortly after that we were officially in Queenstown! We went and got all settled in at our hostel which was called Pinewood and then we decided to just walk around and check out the shops. The guys ended up going back to the hostel earlier than Angela and I. About an hour later Angela and I ended up getting stuck in the rain because it started pouring, so we had to buy some ridiculous brightly colored ponchos to walk back to the hostel. When we got back to the hostel we met this guy there named Spencer. A bunch of us had been joking about these ridiculous things we had heard about the rapture and he ended up asking us if we were Jewish or something. We were like nope we are Christians though. It turns out he came from a Jewish background and didn’t really know much about Jesus. The rest of the night we hung out with him and answered any questions he had and shared what we had been learning about God. It was funny because this guy we met had gotten the dates mixed up with his friends to meet up with him in Queenstown so he had to spend just that one night alone at this hostel. I feel like God totally put him in our path so that we could share Jesus with him.
The next day was Easter in Queenstown! The best day in the history of mankind I would say because Jesus rose again. We ended up finding this church called St. Andrews. It was quite a lovely service actually they acted out a lot of things, had music integrated throughout and the pastor spoke on the significance of the resurrection and the resurrected life living through us. He talked about one of the greatest proofs of Christianity is that all 11 of Jesus’ remaining disciples were martyred for Jesus’ namesake. If Jesus has never risen again these men would have never given their lives for something that had turned out to simply be a dead man, something that had turned out to be a lie or a hoax. However they encountered the risen Son of God, seeing him for themselves and followed him unto death. Which I thought was quite neat because I had never really noticed that before. Another one of the greatest proofs he talked about was how the risen life is seen through Jesus’ followers transforming people’s lives today as well. Basically it was a good service!
After that we went to this well-known little restaurant called Fergburger, which was quite delicious. So far in our journey it was JB, Adam, Angela, Bryan, Jonas, Michael and I. At Fergburger we met up with Joel H and Rob who were driving the car we call flower power. After that the 9 of us decided to hike up this mountain for about two hours to get to this thing at the top called The Luge. There was a gondola we could take to the top, but we decided we would rather just do a nice hike and not pay to get taken to the top. Once we got to the top we paid for five rides on The Luge. It is kind of hard to explain what The Luge is, but it is basically just this cool go-kart-like thing that you ride down this really long track. To get to the top of The Luge we had to take a chair-lift and every time you rode The Luge and arrived at the bottom you would have to take the chair lift up for the next ride.
After we finished The Luge we decided again instead of paying for the Gondola ride down we would once again make the trek down. The whole time we were riding The Luge it was absolutely freezing so on the way down it was quite cold as well. Some of us ended up running down most of the trail. I probably ran halfway down alone and then I ran into Adam and Michael in the middle. Adam and I spit off from Michael and we ended up getting lost so it took a little longer to get back to the bottom. While we were lost though we did meet up with Angela and Rob and the four of us were quite off track for a bit. By the time we got to the bottom everyone had been waiting for like ½ hour for us and it was about 6 p.m. As soon as we were all together we walked over to this elementary school to another Easter service for youth which ended up having some really good worship music. The reason we found out about the night service was because of this girl Gwenyth we met at the first service we had attended that day. Gwenyth is this girl studying nursing in New Zealand and plans to use her nursing to do missionary work in a third world country. It was interesting to talk to her because I am definitely interested in doing something similar along those lines.
After the service we stopped to chat for a bit and by the time we left it was about 9 p.m. Straight after that all 3 cars of us (Betty, Flower Power and Gloria) drove for 2 hours to Te Anau. As soon as we arrived we went straight to sleep because we were exhausted. The next morning Flower Power with Rob and Joel in it never returned. So it was just Gloria and Betty left. Just to remind you Gloria contains Michael and Jonas, while Betty contained Angela, JB, Bryan, Adam and I. Bryan, Angela and I were the only ones who stayed in a hostel that night, the rest of them either slept in their car or went and tented for free somewhere random. Soon after Gloria also decided to depart from us as Michael and Jonas decided they wanted to do something other than the plans we had made. Shortly after our Betty was off to Milford Sound. The drive to Milford Sound is beautiful and scenic with scheduled stops throughout the way there. Angela often asked us to stop to take pictures. The reason we drove to Milford Sound was to take this hour long cruise throughout the waters there and honestly it was gorgeous. I couldn’t possibly describe it, I would just suggest googling it or something haha.
That night when we drove back Angela and I also decided to something called the Te Anau Glow Worm Caves. We rode this boat for about 20 minutes to this cave and got taken through the center of the cave in this small boat. It was such a neat experience within the caves because it was absolutely pitch black, but all around you were these tiny glowing lights and some were only inches from your face. It was kind of like floating through space and seeing stars all around you; it was eerily beautiful. After that we went and stayed in Dunedin for a day or two where we went for a tour of their Cadbury Chocolate Factory which was quite neat. On the tour they gave us each a whole bag of candy bars, chocolate overload! Eventually we made our way back to Christchurch where from there we flew to Auckland.
JB, Bryan, Adam and I split up from Angela in Christchurch because Angela planned to work at a Te Mapua children’s camp this week. The remaining four of us flew to Auckland and once we got to Auckland we picked up Cam, Kelsey, Rob and Joel. We happened to arrive at our beach house one night early and were not able to get the key. So that night we slept on the driveway of the beach house, within eyesight of beds. It was quite tragic, but we survived. The next morning we got in and then as soon as we settled in we went to buy groceries from the town 20 minutes away because we were all starving. We hadn’t eaten in about 12 hours. When we were driving through town to get our groceries we saw Amber and Jordan on the side of the road so we picked them up. Amber and Jordan had planned to hitchhike to the beach house, but God worked things out so perfectly for them. They ended up not having to hitchhike at all because people from Monvale (where they were working last week) drove them all the way to Coromandel and then we ended up running into them in town so they didn’t have to hitchhike from there either. Rob and Joel actually have a crazy story of how God provided for them too. It is quite too long to write out here in detail, but I’ll give you the gist of it. Basically their car broke down at completely the opposite end of the island and they had to take everything out of the car and get themselves up to Christchurch within a few days in time for their flight to Auckland. They met a lot of interesting people along the way and always found a place to stay, it was great. Of course they made it here in time too : )
So now we are all together in our beach house, it is perfect. The house is spacious and a lovely environment for us to relax and have fellowship with one another. Mostly we have just been enjoying our time here together going to the beach (a 2 minute walk!) and hanging out at the house. We have made one trip to The Hot Water Beach (where when you dig deep enough in the sand hot water springs up) and Cathedral Cove (a gorgeous beach area proceeded by a 20 minute walk through this forest). One of my favorite experiences we’ve had here so far though was on Sunday morning. We had church in our living room just the ten of us. It was so good because it was personal and real, how church should be you know? We had Rob and Bryan play guitars to lead worship, we all prayed together for ourselves and for others and JB started a discussion about perseverance in our faith from Hebrews:
“Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet “In a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back” But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved” (Hebrews 10:35-39)
This is a journal entry from April 2009, so last year at this time, which relates to regaining that confidence in Him and wondering how I could ever let go of that:
“today I remembered what I should have never forgotten.
that God has been and is real in my life.
he's not a coincidence caught within dark moments
no he's a real genuine light, how easy I find doubt
creeping into my mind, how can you forget the ways he
has reached out to you, the way he's changed your life.
the way he's spoken directly to you, through other people,
that God would care enough to speak directly to you.
the creator, the father of it all, speaks to you.
this is unfathomable.”
Sorry that this whole post was crazy long, but I have no idea when I will be able to post again next because I will be at ABS very soon. And I don’t really know anything about my schedule….
“God bless you… even though you don’t deserve it!” – Major Ian Thomas
Farewell for now!
P.S. I just finished the book “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Phillip Yancy and it is sooo good. I would definitely recommend it.
Let me fill you in on what has been going on so far in my 2 week break. I spent the first week traveling around the south island for a week and now I am stationary (not traveling!) at a beach house on the north island. I had to make my way up to the north island because I will no longer be living at The Crossing on the south island, I will now be doing the program ABS (adventure bible school). There are two Capernwray Bible Colleges situated in New Zealand: The Crossing on the south island in Geraldine and Monvale on the north island in Cambridge. ABS is a program run through the Capernwray center on the north island, but is different from the bible college at Monvale, it is simply ran through Monvale. It actually has its own building called the Adventure Lodge which is ½ an hour away from Monvale. It is going to be a very challenging experience, but it should be really good for me =) Everything at ABS is on a need to know basis so we don’t know our schedule at all except when it happens, which is the point to keep us on our toes. However secret sources have told me that on our first night they wake us up at 3 a.m. to take us somewhere and we don’t know where we are going. I am glad I know that now haha oh wow. It is going to be all outdoor hiking, swimming, rock climbing, etc. I’ve always wanted to do something super outdoorsy like this, but ABS doesn’t start until April 18 so I will be at the beach house in Coromandel until then.
So anyways back to how I spent my first week of break! So the main people I was traveling with were Angela, Bryan, J.B. and Adam and the car we were in was named Betty. The five of us spent the first two hours looking around for Jonas and Michael because we had planned to meet up with them. Eventually we decided since we were unable to find them that we would just drive up to Mt. Cook and hopefully see them there. Mt Cook is about a 2 ½ hour drive. Halfway there we stopped at a place called Lake Takepo (I may have spelt that wrong). It is this beautiful bright blue lake surrounded by mountains with a little cathedral on its shore. We got there are sunset so it was really lovely. After that we continued on our way and at about 8 p.m. we arrived at the hostel in Mt. Cook. When we got there Jonas and Michael happened to be waiting in the parking lot and they were pretty overjoyed to see us. They almost dragged us out of the car they were so excited haha. After we got settled in we decided that we wanted to have a worship session. Fortunately, at our hostel they happened to have free guitars we could use. The 7 of us went outside, JB started playing the guitar and singing. We sang along praising God in the parking lot with the mountains all around us. It was beautiful while we were singing the moon rose right over top of the mountain so full and bright. It was really neat though people would come in and out of the hostel. Quite a few lingered longer than they normally would to listen to the words we were singing. One girl actually came out and started recording JB, she said it was absolutely beautiful. Another man came and talked to Bryan for like half an hour about God because he had a lot of questions. We were probably out there for almost 2 hours. Twas wonderful.
The next day we went and saw the Tasman Glacier which was a very easy 10 minute hike up this mountain-ish hill. It was pretty beautiful as well, goodness gracious this whole country is just gorgeous I should just leave it at that haha. After that the 7 of us headed to Wanaka. There happened to be this big even going on in Wanaka so all the hostels were full that night. We ended up having to “freedom camp” Basically we found a random field somewhere and set up tents there to sleep. Hey at least it is free, but it was pretty windy so I was awake most of the night. The next morning we went to this cool optical illusions centre called Puzzling World which has all these rooms of illusion and a giant maze inside of it. After that we continued on to Queenstown. On our way to Queenstown we had to drive down this mountain so it was a really steep way down and the road was curving the whole way down. It was really hard on our brakes so by the time we got to the bottom our brakes were smoking! Actually there were a few other cars at the bottom who also had to pull over to cool their breaks off haha. On the way to Queenstown we listen to a series about truth and Jesus Christ by a speaker named Ravie Zacharias, it was super good. He is quite the smart one I would say.
Shortly after that we were officially in Queenstown! We went and got all settled in at our hostel which was called Pinewood and then we decided to just walk around and check out the shops. The guys ended up going back to the hostel earlier than Angela and I. About an hour later Angela and I ended up getting stuck in the rain because it started pouring, so we had to buy some ridiculous brightly colored ponchos to walk back to the hostel. When we got back to the hostel we met this guy there named Spencer. A bunch of us had been joking about these ridiculous things we had heard about the rapture and he ended up asking us if we were Jewish or something. We were like nope we are Christians though. It turns out he came from a Jewish background and didn’t really know much about Jesus. The rest of the night we hung out with him and answered any questions he had and shared what we had been learning about God. It was funny because this guy we met had gotten the dates mixed up with his friends to meet up with him in Queenstown so he had to spend just that one night alone at this hostel. I feel like God totally put him in our path so that we could share Jesus with him.
The next day was Easter in Queenstown! The best day in the history of mankind I would say because Jesus rose again. We ended up finding this church called St. Andrews. It was quite a lovely service actually they acted out a lot of things, had music integrated throughout and the pastor spoke on the significance of the resurrection and the resurrected life living through us. He talked about one of the greatest proofs of Christianity is that all 11 of Jesus’ remaining disciples were martyred for Jesus’ namesake. If Jesus has never risen again these men would have never given their lives for something that had turned out to simply be a dead man, something that had turned out to be a lie or a hoax. However they encountered the risen Son of God, seeing him for themselves and followed him unto death. Which I thought was quite neat because I had never really noticed that before. Another one of the greatest proofs he talked about was how the risen life is seen through Jesus’ followers transforming people’s lives today as well. Basically it was a good service!
After that we went to this well-known little restaurant called Fergburger, which was quite delicious. So far in our journey it was JB, Adam, Angela, Bryan, Jonas, Michael and I. At Fergburger we met up with Joel H and Rob who were driving the car we call flower power. After that the 9 of us decided to hike up this mountain for about two hours to get to this thing at the top called The Luge. There was a gondola we could take to the top, but we decided we would rather just do a nice hike and not pay to get taken to the top. Once we got to the top we paid for five rides on The Luge. It is kind of hard to explain what The Luge is, but it is basically just this cool go-kart-like thing that you ride down this really long track. To get to the top of The Luge we had to take a chair-lift and every time you rode The Luge and arrived at the bottom you would have to take the chair lift up for the next ride.
After we finished The Luge we decided again instead of paying for the Gondola ride down we would once again make the trek down. The whole time we were riding The Luge it was absolutely freezing so on the way down it was quite cold as well. Some of us ended up running down most of the trail. I probably ran halfway down alone and then I ran into Adam and Michael in the middle. Adam and I spit off from Michael and we ended up getting lost so it took a little longer to get back to the bottom. While we were lost though we did meet up with Angela and Rob and the four of us were quite off track for a bit. By the time we got to the bottom everyone had been waiting for like ½ hour for us and it was about 6 p.m. As soon as we were all together we walked over to this elementary school to another Easter service for youth which ended up having some really good worship music. The reason we found out about the night service was because of this girl Gwenyth we met at the first service we had attended that day. Gwenyth is this girl studying nursing in New Zealand and plans to use her nursing to do missionary work in a third world country. It was interesting to talk to her because I am definitely interested in doing something similar along those lines.
After the service we stopped to chat for a bit and by the time we left it was about 9 p.m. Straight after that all 3 cars of us (Betty, Flower Power and Gloria) drove for 2 hours to Te Anau. As soon as we arrived we went straight to sleep because we were exhausted. The next morning Flower Power with Rob and Joel in it never returned. So it was just Gloria and Betty left. Just to remind you Gloria contains Michael and Jonas, while Betty contained Angela, JB, Bryan, Adam and I. Bryan, Angela and I were the only ones who stayed in a hostel that night, the rest of them either slept in their car or went and tented for free somewhere random. Soon after Gloria also decided to depart from us as Michael and Jonas decided they wanted to do something other than the plans we had made. Shortly after our Betty was off to Milford Sound. The drive to Milford Sound is beautiful and scenic with scheduled stops throughout the way there. Angela often asked us to stop to take pictures. The reason we drove to Milford Sound was to take this hour long cruise throughout the waters there and honestly it was gorgeous. I couldn’t possibly describe it, I would just suggest googling it or something haha.
That night when we drove back Angela and I also decided to something called the Te Anau Glow Worm Caves. We rode this boat for about 20 minutes to this cave and got taken through the center of the cave in this small boat. It was such a neat experience within the caves because it was absolutely pitch black, but all around you were these tiny glowing lights and some were only inches from your face. It was kind of like floating through space and seeing stars all around you; it was eerily beautiful. After that we went and stayed in Dunedin for a day or two where we went for a tour of their Cadbury Chocolate Factory which was quite neat. On the tour they gave us each a whole bag of candy bars, chocolate overload! Eventually we made our way back to Christchurch where from there we flew to Auckland.
JB, Bryan, Adam and I split up from Angela in Christchurch because Angela planned to work at a Te Mapua children’s camp this week. The remaining four of us flew to Auckland and once we got to Auckland we picked up Cam, Kelsey, Rob and Joel. We happened to arrive at our beach house one night early and were not able to get the key. So that night we slept on the driveway of the beach house, within eyesight of beds. It was quite tragic, but we survived. The next morning we got in and then as soon as we settled in we went to buy groceries from the town 20 minutes away because we were all starving. We hadn’t eaten in about 12 hours. When we were driving through town to get our groceries we saw Amber and Jordan on the side of the road so we picked them up. Amber and Jordan had planned to hitchhike to the beach house, but God worked things out so perfectly for them. They ended up not having to hitchhike at all because people from Monvale (where they were working last week) drove them all the way to Coromandel and then we ended up running into them in town so they didn’t have to hitchhike from there either. Rob and Joel actually have a crazy story of how God provided for them too. It is quite too long to write out here in detail, but I’ll give you the gist of it. Basically their car broke down at completely the opposite end of the island and they had to take everything out of the car and get themselves up to Christchurch within a few days in time for their flight to Auckland. They met a lot of interesting people along the way and always found a place to stay, it was great. Of course they made it here in time too : )
So now we are all together in our beach house, it is perfect. The house is spacious and a lovely environment for us to relax and have fellowship with one another. Mostly we have just been enjoying our time here together going to the beach (a 2 minute walk!) and hanging out at the house. We have made one trip to The Hot Water Beach (where when you dig deep enough in the sand hot water springs up) and Cathedral Cove (a gorgeous beach area proceeded by a 20 minute walk through this forest). One of my favorite experiences we’ve had here so far though was on Sunday morning. We had church in our living room just the ten of us. It was so good because it was personal and real, how church should be you know? We had Rob and Bryan play guitars to lead worship, we all prayed together for ourselves and for others and JB started a discussion about perseverance in our faith from Hebrews:
“Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet “In a very little while, the one who is coming will come and will not delay; but my righteous one will live by faith. My soul takes no pleasure in anyone who shrinks back” But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved” (Hebrews 10:35-39)
This is a journal entry from April 2009, so last year at this time, which relates to regaining that confidence in Him and wondering how I could ever let go of that:
“today I remembered what I should have never forgotten.
that God has been and is real in my life.
he's not a coincidence caught within dark moments
no he's a real genuine light, how easy I find doubt
creeping into my mind, how can you forget the ways he
has reached out to you, the way he's changed your life.
the way he's spoken directly to you, through other people,
that God would care enough to speak directly to you.
the creator, the father of it all, speaks to you.
this is unfathomable.”
Sorry that this whole post was crazy long, but I have no idea when I will be able to post again next because I will be at ABS very soon. And I don’t really know anything about my schedule….
“God bless you… even though you don’t deserve it!” – Major Ian Thomas
Farewell for now!
P.S. I just finished the book “The Jesus I Never Knew” by Phillip Yancy and it is sooo good. I would definitely recommend it.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Blogs Galore!!
Hey here are some links for Angela' and Adam's blog about their time in New Zealand =) Enjoy!
Angela's
http://www.angela-nz.blogspot.com/
Adam's
http://newzealandspiritparade.blogspot.com/
Angela's
http://www.angela-nz.blogspot.com/
Adam's
http://newzealandspiritparade.blogspot.com/
Farewell Sweet Crossing
Holy moly I am done my time here at The Crossing now. This is quite depressing. God has just used this place to change my heart and I’m thankful for that. Of course there is always going to be much more changing for Him to do in my life, but only as I allow him to do it. I suppose though it is officially time to leave the Christian bubble. It is quite nice being in the bubble while it lasts though because it seems like it is just the way everything should be. Yet it isn’t the real world at all, so can’t stay here forever unfortunately. I feel like I am leaving at a good time though and it is good to leave on this end note. I have received such a foundation in the word of God here that I feel like I could firmly stand on it now. Cameron and I were talking the other day about how before we came here the Bible just seemed like this huge book that had so much going on and it seemed pretty impossible to get a grasp of it. Yet as she put it now, when we open it “you feel at home”. There were so many lies that I used to believe about scripture too before I came like about how I thought there were so many contradictions within it, that God is so different in the Old Testament (wrath & judgment) compared to the New Testament, etc. Just random things like that. I chose to believe things like that without actually seeking out the truth. I do that with a lot of things though, so many things I believe that I haven’t actually sought out the truth to discover. I think that is a dangerous way to think, even though we all seem to do it in one way or another.
Honestly it’s so easy to be living for God when you’re surrounded by such a strong group of support and encouragement and you are continually having the word of God poured into your life by teachers. Leaving this place is going to be a challenge, but a necessary challenge. Everything else around us is screaming at us to put other things in front of God, to lose him as our first priority. The thing is though; I don’t want a half-hearted relationship with God. It should be my all or nothing. I don’t want to just live for God on Sundays and the rest of the week mention him once or twice. He should be my life, not a part of it, but life itself. I don’t want my life to be all about me as it so often turns out to be… everyone lives for themselves. And how audacious can I be sometimes? My life should be all about His glory about His purposes. My relationship with God used to be solely all about God serving me and being there to help fulfill my goals and desires. Yet He is God, the unfathomable, all powerful God. I had it so backwards. I remember learning the first week at Capernwray that God’s number one priority was His glory. Haha oh wow that was such a shock to me, I was like wait a second it isn’t me? It isn’t people? It’s His glory? That was such a wakeup call. Even more so how amazing is it that he puts up with me, with us, when we decide we would rather just ignore Him and do whatever we want, when he gave everything to us out of no obligation whatsoever. He pours over His most precious gift of grace, time and time again. Grace is sometimes hard to grasp when the structure of our world is so contrary:
“From nursery school onward we are taught how to succeed in the world of ungrace. The early bird gets the worm. No pain, no gain. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Demand your rights. Get what you pay for. I know these rules well because I live by them. I work for what I earn; I like to win; I insist on my rights. I want people to get what they deserve – nothing more, nothing less. Yet if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor’s prison and got instead clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance instead I got a banquet, a feast, spread out for me”
So I don’t know how I really got on the topic of grace, but that’s okay. Grace is a great topic =) it is the most beautiful thing and it just makes me realize again and again how great is our God.
“God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are […] Grace baffles us because it goes against the intuition everyone has that, in the face of injustice some price must be paid. A murderer cannot simply go free. A child abuser cannot shrug and say, “I just felt like it”. Anticipating these rejections Paul stressed a price had been paid - by God himself. God gave up his own Son rather than give up on humanity”
(These two quotes are from What’s So Amazing About Grace? By Phillip Yancy)
“Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”.
Romans 5:20
But anyways now I am onto the next adventure: 2 weeks of traveling around New Zealand and then 6 weeks of ABS bootcamp goodness gracious. Hopefully I survive ABS I don't know how likely that outcome is!
Honestly it’s so easy to be living for God when you’re surrounded by such a strong group of support and encouragement and you are continually having the word of God poured into your life by teachers. Leaving this place is going to be a challenge, but a necessary challenge. Everything else around us is screaming at us to put other things in front of God, to lose him as our first priority. The thing is though; I don’t want a half-hearted relationship with God. It should be my all or nothing. I don’t want to just live for God on Sundays and the rest of the week mention him once or twice. He should be my life, not a part of it, but life itself. I don’t want my life to be all about me as it so often turns out to be… everyone lives for themselves. And how audacious can I be sometimes? My life should be all about His glory about His purposes. My relationship with God used to be solely all about God serving me and being there to help fulfill my goals and desires. Yet He is God, the unfathomable, all powerful God. I had it so backwards. I remember learning the first week at Capernwray that God’s number one priority was His glory. Haha oh wow that was such a shock to me, I was like wait a second it isn’t me? It isn’t people? It’s His glory? That was such a wakeup call. Even more so how amazing is it that he puts up with me, with us, when we decide we would rather just ignore Him and do whatever we want, when he gave everything to us out of no obligation whatsoever. He pours over His most precious gift of grace, time and time again. Grace is sometimes hard to grasp when the structure of our world is so contrary:
“From nursery school onward we are taught how to succeed in the world of ungrace. The early bird gets the worm. No pain, no gain. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Demand your rights. Get what you pay for. I know these rules well because I live by them. I work for what I earn; I like to win; I insist on my rights. I want people to get what they deserve – nothing more, nothing less. Yet if I care to listen, I hear a loud whisper from the gospel that I did not get what I deserved. I deserved punishment and got forgiveness. I deserved wrath and got love. I deserved debtor’s prison and got instead clean credit history. I deserved stern lectures and crawl-on-your-knees repentance instead I got a banquet, a feast, spread out for me”
So I don’t know how I really got on the topic of grace, but that’s okay. Grace is a great topic =) it is the most beautiful thing and it just makes me realize again and again how great is our God.
“God loves people because of who God is, not because of who we are […] Grace baffles us because it goes against the intuition everyone has that, in the face of injustice some price must be paid. A murderer cannot simply go free. A child abuser cannot shrug and say, “I just felt like it”. Anticipating these rejections Paul stressed a price had been paid - by God himself. God gave up his own Son rather than give up on humanity”
(These two quotes are from What’s So Amazing About Grace? By Phillip Yancy)
“Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound”.
Romans 5:20
But anyways now I am onto the next adventure: 2 weeks of traveling around New Zealand and then 6 weeks of ABS bootcamp goodness gracious. Hopefully I survive ABS I don't know how likely that outcome is!
Saturday, March 20, 2010
An eternity later she posts another blog
Hm so I realize I most definitely have not posted in like a month. Sorry about that! I slightly forgot about the blog entirely :) I only have two weeks left of bible school here at The Crossing in Geraldine seeing as we will finish semester 2 in 2 weeks time. Everyone else except Amber, Ben, Jordan and I will return for the third semester which is another 6 weeks. We are going to head up to end with another 6 week program at the Capernwray facility on the north island. We are going to be doing something I've mentioned previously called ABS. Just to refresh your memory ABS stands for Adventure Bible School. It is run by a man named Peter Bichan and we basically do a bunch of hiking and outdoor activities. It's like an outdoor bible school. Apparently it really keeps you on your toes because we never know what is going to happen next. I've heard that you are only told your schedule on a moment to moment basis. So they could tell us okay we are leaving to go on a tramp we're leaving in this amount of time be ready for it, and not even necessarily tell us how many days we will be gone for or what we are doing activity wise. Should be interesting haha I don't really know what to expect. It will probably be pretty physically and mentally challenging, that is for sure. But before I head up to ABS our entire school (all 15 of us woo!) has a 2 week break (well 17 days). I'm going to travel around the south island with JB,Bryan and Angela for the first 9 days and then go up to the north island for the last 8. A bunch of us are going to try to rent a beach house on the north island for the last 7 days of break and just hang out around there. Should be good good good. I also hope to go bungee jumping over break finally... but I will probably back out. Ah well at least I am thinking about even doing it, that should deserve some credit :)
Well well what else can I say. Just last night mostly everyone went to a Crusaders rugby game in Christchurch. It was the Canterbury Crusaders against South Africa. I think the South African team was called the Lions. People in New Zealand are pretty obsessed with rugby, just so you know. Honestly I don't think it is that great, but I am not a big sports person. It was cool to go though just to have the experience. At the beginning of the game they had a bunch of men ride into the field all decked out in medieval crusader outfits to some dramatic orchestra kind of music. That part was entertaining haha. And every time the Crusaders would score these torches all over the field would go up in huge flames. I don't remember what the score was, but the Crusaders won by a decent amount. Apparently the Crusaders are really good and they win a lot.
And one another piece of news. I am officially going on a missions trip to Fiji now for 6 weeks when I am done the ABS program! So I will not longer be home at the beginning of June, instead I will be home at the end of July. I am pretty excited to go, but it will definitely be a growing experience, I'll have to rely on God a lot. When we go there we are going to be living in a rural, village area so nothing near the city. We will be staying with a man named Pastor Tumasi (I may have spelled that wrong). He is the only Christian person in the area seeing as the main religion found there is Hinduism. We're going to be living basically across the street from a school while we are there so we will focus on helping them out. We will be painting the school, doing sports ministry, village evangelism, starting a sustainable gardening program, helping teach the kids, leading a Sunday school kind of thing, etc. There are only 5 of us students going: Joel, Jonas, Jordan, Robert and I. Our director Dale's entire family with his wife and two children will be there as well, along with Hanna and Jen (a missionary and previous student). I'll be the only girl there around my age, except Pastor Tumasi has a 16 year old daughter apparently. Ah well it will be good though.
Oh one other random thing. The stars here are absolutely gorgeous. The other night I have never seen stars so bright and so numerous in my life. I even saw 2 1/2 shooting stars (I saw the 3rd one out of the corner of my eye so I can't fully count it). Just thought that was important to mention =)
Well well what else can I say. Just last night mostly everyone went to a Crusaders rugby game in Christchurch. It was the Canterbury Crusaders against South Africa. I think the South African team was called the Lions. People in New Zealand are pretty obsessed with rugby, just so you know. Honestly I don't think it is that great, but I am not a big sports person. It was cool to go though just to have the experience. At the beginning of the game they had a bunch of men ride into the field all decked out in medieval crusader outfits to some dramatic orchestra kind of music. That part was entertaining haha. And every time the Crusaders would score these torches all over the field would go up in huge flames. I don't remember what the score was, but the Crusaders won by a decent amount. Apparently the Crusaders are really good and they win a lot.
And one another piece of news. I am officially going on a missions trip to Fiji now for 6 weeks when I am done the ABS program! So I will not longer be home at the beginning of June, instead I will be home at the end of July. I am pretty excited to go, but it will definitely be a growing experience, I'll have to rely on God a lot. When we go there we are going to be living in a rural, village area so nothing near the city. We will be staying with a man named Pastor Tumasi (I may have spelled that wrong). He is the only Christian person in the area seeing as the main religion found there is Hinduism. We're going to be living basically across the street from a school while we are there so we will focus on helping them out. We will be painting the school, doing sports ministry, village evangelism, starting a sustainable gardening program, helping teach the kids, leading a Sunday school kind of thing, etc. There are only 5 of us students going: Joel, Jonas, Jordan, Robert and I. Our director Dale's entire family with his wife and two children will be there as well, along with Hanna and Jen (a missionary and previous student). I'll be the only girl there around my age, except Pastor Tumasi has a 16 year old daughter apparently. Ah well it will be good though.
Oh one other random thing. The stars here are absolutely gorgeous. The other night I have never seen stars so bright and so numerous in my life. I even saw 2 1/2 shooting stars (I saw the 3rd one out of the corner of my eye so I can't fully count it). Just thought that was important to mention =)
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Ministry Week
So about a week ago I went with Jonas, Kelsey, Adam, Robert, Colin, Jordan, Sheryl and Dale to Dunedin for a ministry week. It was a lovely week we had a lot of fun together and got to help some people out. The night we arrived in Dunedin all of us put on a service at a church called St. Matthews. I shared my testimony (how I came to God and his work in my life), some of us shared something God that had been teaching them personally, we put on a skit and then Jordan did the main message of the night. Jordan did his message on Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh I now live by faith in the son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”. It was a good message and apparently the church put it up on facebook haha. Oh the wonders, we now hold facebook fame!
For our accommodation in Dunedin we were billeted out to various members of the church. Kelsey and I stayed together with two university students. We had the youngest billets who were quite lovely to have because we got along with them quite well and had some good conversations with them. Throughout the week we helped out various people who were in need of assistance. We did some maintenance at an elementary school, helped an elderly couple move homes, worked on the home of a man who has been struggling with disease and did landscaping at St. Matthews. It was some good practical work.
Throughout the week we also visited numerous different faiths: Muslim, Buddhist, Universalist and Baha’i. At first I thought somehow this could cause me to doubt my faith because of course those questions come to mind. What makes Christianity the truth? But the thing is as we talked to these different faiths it rather made me so much sure more than anything. The way that Jesus has been working in my life and the lives of those around me is so undeniable. He is the way, the truth, the life; the only way to God, the only truth amidst all these other messages, the only place we can find life meaning every other path ultimately leads to death. As much as I wish every path led to God, I can’t. It is a much more comfortable belief, but if I compromise that portion of scripture then scripture begins to lose its integrity in my life. It is wrong if I just choose pieces to believe and others to disregard.
One thing that didn’t make sense at all is that in most of these religions they would quote scripture to back up their beliefs than disregard other parts of scripture as a metaphor or not accurate. It seems to me that one should either accept all of scripture as truth or else it is all lies because it is ultimately all about Christ. Everyone kept saying “Oh Jesus is a great moral teacher” but nothing else.
As C.S. Lewis said “A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he’s a poached egg – or else he’d be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse…. But don’t let us come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He hadn’t left that open to us. He didn’t intend to”.
For our accommodation in Dunedin we were billeted out to various members of the church. Kelsey and I stayed together with two university students. We had the youngest billets who were quite lovely to have because we got along with them quite well and had some good conversations with them. Throughout the week we helped out various people who were in need of assistance. We did some maintenance at an elementary school, helped an elderly couple move homes, worked on the home of a man who has been struggling with disease and did landscaping at St. Matthews. It was some good practical work.
Throughout the week we also visited numerous different faiths: Muslim, Buddhist, Universalist and Baha’i. At first I thought somehow this could cause me to doubt my faith because of course those questions come to mind. What makes Christianity the truth? But the thing is as we talked to these different faiths it rather made me so much sure more than anything. The way that Jesus has been working in my life and the lives of those around me is so undeniable. He is the way, the truth, the life; the only way to God, the only truth amidst all these other messages, the only place we can find life meaning every other path ultimately leads to death. As much as I wish every path led to God, I can’t. It is a much more comfortable belief, but if I compromise that portion of scripture then scripture begins to lose its integrity in my life. It is wrong if I just choose pieces to believe and others to disregard.
One thing that didn’t make sense at all is that in most of these religions they would quote scripture to back up their beliefs than disregard other parts of scripture as a metaphor or not accurate. It seems to me that one should either accept all of scripture as truth or else it is all lies because it is ultimately all about Christ. Everyone kept saying “Oh Jesus is a great moral teacher” but nothing else.
As C.S. Lewis said “A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d either be a lunatic – on the level with a man who says he’s a poached egg – or else he’d be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse…. But don’t let us come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He hadn’t left that open to us. He didn’t intend to”.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Will you be my valentine?
Valentines day down here at The Crossing did not go by unnoticed believe it or not! Both the boys and the girls had planned in advance a day for the others :)
Friday - Serenading us + chocolate = perfect
Early that week the boys left an invitation in our mailbox for a formal evening dining experience. All of us girls (Cam, Kelsey, Amber, Angela, Patti, Isabel, Sheryl and Hanna) got all dressed up and ready for whatever the guys had planned. We really had no idea honestly. When we walked downstairs altogether at 6pm Adam, Joel and Jonas were awaiting us at the entrance to the dining area all dressed up as fancy waiters haha. They had transformed an area of our house, which is normally a large room with the dining area on one side and the formal lounge on the other, into a smaller room. They pulled across a panel of wood which extended from the wall to make a smaller more secluded dining area. They pushed the tables together to make one, long central table. They decorated it with fancy table clothes, napkins and flowers. There were flowers all over the place actually. Our 3 waiters took turns escorting each of us individually to our seat and pushed in the chair for us. Shortly after they came around with sparkling red and white grape juice for us. Then we started to hear some lovely piano music in the background. On the other side of the pull-out wooden panels was our grand piano. Some of the boys took turns consistently playing our background music during our meal. This is what the menu consisted of: salad with an assortment of vegetables and mint dressing, a pallet cleanser (strawberry sorbet), for the main course we had couscous with this amazing sauce which I don't know what it was, chicken wrapped in bacon and for vegetables we had this warm spinach with cucumbers. And dessert of course included chocolate! We had this delicious chocolate pudding with whipped cream on top. And the best part happened during dessert. While we were eating dessert the middle wall dividing the room opened to reveal a chair. JB proceeded to come in and sing a song he wrote to us while he played his guitar. Robert and Joseph also wrote their own songs that they played for us. And Joseph and Colin also did a duet singing us Daughters by John Mayer. Serenading added a nice touch that is for sure, overall it was a lovely night.
Saturday - Blindfolds and Beef pretty much explains it all.
The next night on Saturday we pretended to start supper like normally .We rang the bell for dinner, everyone came and sat down and we prayed, but what happened next was quite different. Each of the girls got out a blindfold and tied one around each of the boy’s heads thus they were now lacking the ability to see. They were so confused, but really excited at the same time. We took two by two, still blindfolded, to the van until we crammed all 12 of them in there. Hanna proceeded to drive them around in circles for twenty minutes. The idea was to make them think we were taking them somewhere, but just come back to the school in the end. They were blindfolded so they would not be aware they were driving in circles or that they were just coming back to school. During this drive it gave all of us girls time to set up the student lounge, moving around chairs, table clothes and organizing it buffet style. It was quite entertaining for us to guide the boys around and watch their reactions as they returned from the twenty minute drive. Some of them figured out that we were back at home, but it was still pretty funny. We made them keep their blindfolds on until we sat them down in their specific seat in the student lounge. And sometimes when we were leading them we were distracted with other blind people yelling at us therefore some of the guys walked into things and hurt themselves. Sorry guys! When we removed the blindfolds they were all pretty excited about how we set up the student lounge and also for the meal to come. Our menu was as follows: nachos nachos nachos with many toppings, steak with Patti’s “awesome sauce” roasted garlic potatoes and then for dessert we made them ice cream sundaes with chocolate and caramel sauce, lollies, whipped cream, etc. After the first course (nachos) we also each brought in each boy’s favorite drink (i.e. coke, milk, peachee) so they could enjoy it with the steak. We left them alone the whole time except to give them more food or clean up their dishes. At the very end we came in and read them a satirical poem from all of us. They seemed pretty happy by the end of it, and both the guys and the girls got a lovely Valentine’s Day meal so mission accomplished.
Friday - Serenading us + chocolate = perfect
Early that week the boys left an invitation in our mailbox for a formal evening dining experience. All of us girls (Cam, Kelsey, Amber, Angela, Patti, Isabel, Sheryl and Hanna) got all dressed up and ready for whatever the guys had planned. We really had no idea honestly. When we walked downstairs altogether at 6pm Adam, Joel and Jonas were awaiting us at the entrance to the dining area all dressed up as fancy waiters haha. They had transformed an area of our house, which is normally a large room with the dining area on one side and the formal lounge on the other, into a smaller room. They pulled across a panel of wood which extended from the wall to make a smaller more secluded dining area. They pushed the tables together to make one, long central table. They decorated it with fancy table clothes, napkins and flowers. There were flowers all over the place actually. Our 3 waiters took turns escorting each of us individually to our seat and pushed in the chair for us. Shortly after they came around with sparkling red and white grape juice for us. Then we started to hear some lovely piano music in the background. On the other side of the pull-out wooden panels was our grand piano. Some of the boys took turns consistently playing our background music during our meal. This is what the menu consisted of: salad with an assortment of vegetables and mint dressing, a pallet cleanser (strawberry sorbet), for the main course we had couscous with this amazing sauce which I don't know what it was, chicken wrapped in bacon and for vegetables we had this warm spinach with cucumbers. And dessert of course included chocolate! We had this delicious chocolate pudding with whipped cream on top. And the best part happened during dessert. While we were eating dessert the middle wall dividing the room opened to reveal a chair. JB proceeded to come in and sing a song he wrote to us while he played his guitar. Robert and Joseph also wrote their own songs that they played for us. And Joseph and Colin also did a duet singing us Daughters by John Mayer. Serenading added a nice touch that is for sure, overall it was a lovely night.
Saturday - Blindfolds and Beef pretty much explains it all.
The next night on Saturday we pretended to start supper like normally .We rang the bell for dinner, everyone came and sat down and we prayed, but what happened next was quite different. Each of the girls got out a blindfold and tied one around each of the boy’s heads thus they were now lacking the ability to see. They were so confused, but really excited at the same time. We took two by two, still blindfolded, to the van until we crammed all 12 of them in there. Hanna proceeded to drive them around in circles for twenty minutes. The idea was to make them think we were taking them somewhere, but just come back to the school in the end. They were blindfolded so they would not be aware they were driving in circles or that they were just coming back to school. During this drive it gave all of us girls time to set up the student lounge, moving around chairs, table clothes and organizing it buffet style. It was quite entertaining for us to guide the boys around and watch their reactions as they returned from the twenty minute drive. Some of them figured out that we were back at home, but it was still pretty funny. We made them keep their blindfolds on until we sat them down in their specific seat in the student lounge. And sometimes when we were leading them we were distracted with other blind people yelling at us therefore some of the guys walked into things and hurt themselves. Sorry guys! When we removed the blindfolds they were all pretty excited about how we set up the student lounge and also for the meal to come. Our menu was as follows: nachos nachos nachos with many toppings, steak with Patti’s “awesome sauce” roasted garlic potatoes and then for dessert we made them ice cream sundaes with chocolate and caramel sauce, lollies, whipped cream, etc. After the first course (nachos) we also each brought in each boy’s favorite drink (i.e. coke, milk, peachee) so they could enjoy it with the steak. We left them alone the whole time except to give them more food or clean up their dishes. At the very end we came in and read them a satirical poem from all of us. They seemed pretty happy by the end of it, and both the guys and the girls got a lovely Valentine’s Day meal so mission accomplished.
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