All That Jazz

Hey everyone :) I hope you are all doing well. So this is my fourth week here at the Crossing so this coming Monday on October 19TH I will have been in New Zealand for a month! Holy moly eh? That’s crazyness that means only two more months until I come home for Christmas. This week in classes Dale (our director) is teaching us about the progress of redemption, basically going through the big picture of the bible and God’s plan. We also have a DVD lecture everyday from Billy Strachan this Scottish man, he is really hard to understand sometimes, but quite entertaining haha. Today was also our workday which means from 1pm-5pm, which is our free time every other day, we have work projects. I was assigned to the house today with Adam and Jonas, it was good and then later Hanna, Cameron and I cracked Walnuts for like 2 hours. We had some pretty good conversations about stalkers it was lovely. Oh and earlier this morning we surprise skyped this guy named Joel Baxley. Joel is one more person who is supposed to be at the crossing right now, but he has had a really big delay with his student visa. So right now at the moment he is just waiting for his visa and as soon as he gets it he is heading straight over here. It was his birthday today and he didn’t know Dale knew, so Dale was like I would just like to skype you to see how things are going, but when he was talking to him we all came in and sang happy birthday to him haha it was great. So we have all kind of met him now as well? Hm I don’t really count skype meetings though. Nope not really.

Ah and just yesterday we celebrated Canadian thanksgiving here at the crossing! It was so lovely, Hanna and Sheryl and Patti decorated up the room with candles and jazz and we had a big meal. We had some turkey, ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes, gravy, mashed potatoes, carrots and peas. It was sooo good. There was no pistachio salad that I usually have though, only sad part. That night was also family night. Family night is a night where we the students are split into two different groups (same ones every time) and we either stay at the Crossing or go to Dale and Patti’s house. During family night we play games and just hang out. So yesterday my group was at Dale and Patti’s house we just played this card game that asks you questions so we pretty much just talked for a few hours. Colin told us one of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard in my life we were all pretty much losing it laughing. We also had dessert at Dale and Patti’s which was homemade apple pie and pumpkin pie with whipped cream and ice cream. It was quite delicious.

So this week so far has been quite good, a lot more relaxed than the last week I had. The last week for us at the Crossing was our Ministry week so we were split into two different groups and sent to two different camps. I went to a Te Mapua Camp which means something like precious child in Maori and it was located at the Woodend Christian Campground. It was about a two hour drive to get there because the camp is located 10 minutes outside of Christchurch. The camp was a really good experience for me to have, but I have to say it was one of the most difficult weeks I’ve ever had. Dale didn’t really tell us much about the camps except that one of the camps our two groups were being sent to had some children with higher needs. He was definitely right about that one. It turns out the camp we went to was completely sponsored children (basically they were quite poor) and all of them came from backgrounds of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. They told us some kids have never been taught to eat with a knife and fork, some had never even seen something like a grape before (like their parents never fed them anything like that) or that some had to be carefully watched because they had restraining orders against people who were trying to abduct them (i.e. divorced parent, step-parent). At one point the leader of the camp read to us some of the specific backgrounds the children were coming from, but without telling us their names to protect their privacy. It was really hard to hear the situations these young kids were coming from.

The night before we started camp during staff training we had this pastor come in and talk to us. He talked to us about how these kids have been given labels by the world, but that doesn’t make them any less worthy and that we shouldn’t let that scare us, these kids are still precious children of God. He told us this Christian environment at camp would be so countercultural for them because they are coming from places with no hope. He told us to “Give hope, show love”, to show the love that God has so graciously bestowed on us, pass that on and be a vessel of God’s love. He said that this week it should be 80% of God’s love and 20% yours, we can’t do it without him. After he talked to us we had some time alone to prayer and then prayed with all the girls. All of us from the Crossing were quite terrified before that, but we felt better after that.

During that week I was in a cabin with two other leaders, most people had one other leader, but I had the young girls (6-7 years old) who were higher needs children so we needed one more leader. While we were at camp everything we did was about serving the kids and being about them. I don’t think I literally had one moment of free time for myself the entire week; we were always with the kids, constantly looking after them. The longest I ever left the kids that week was for about 15 minutes which was the one night I showered because we weren’t supposed to leave our other leaders alone any more than we had to. We were basically their parents for the week. All of the children we had lacked a lot of basic skills even with eating or communicating or taking care of themselves. Their behavior was a reflection of the neglect these kids had had in their lives, because if you love your children you take the time to discipline them. Even though these kids were so difficult to take care of and took so much out of me, they were still beautiful, amazing girls who deserved to be loved so much. My heart breaks for these girls. God really showed me that I needed to depend on him this week too because there is no way I could have done it without him. Even though it was a hard week for me and the Crossing crew, I am so glad we could provide this place of refuge for these kids even if only for the week.

So yes, this is what’s been going on lately in my life in New Zealand. This weekend Amber, Kelsey, Ben, Michael and I are driving to Christchurch to go shopping. I am so stoked I have not had any prime shopping opportunities yet so we are going to go to this big mall they have in the city. Hopefully we don’t get lost in or getting to the city, which is quite probable haha oh well.

love & miss you all heaps
Cara Lee