Tramping

(Just to let you know tramping means hiking, I had no idea what tramping meant when I first heard the word)

So this past week was quite an experience. We all went hiking for about 3 days across Mt. Somer. We had to pack as little as possible and it was probably the lightest I’ve ever packed in my life. We set off shortly after breakfast on the first day to drive to the point where we were starting. We drove to one area, but found it teeming with a large touristy hiking group so we decided to turn around and do the planned route backwards.

When we begun I thought I couldn’t go on about 15 minutes into it, it was so hard at the beginning! We were climbing straight up for so long. It was really good though, we were separated into two groups to hike up the mountain because Peter Bichan says from experience you can get there faster in smaller groups. Peter Bichan is the ABS leader at Monvale, so he runs an Adventure-based Bible School, which is a 6 week program that runs so many times a year. I’m going to be doing an ABS in April sometime, so I can expect a lot of hiking, camping and whatnot from that. This was probably a very small dose of what I’ll be doing in April.

The hike overall was good, at times it was quite difficult but it was a really good experience. On the second day all the girls went swimming in this lovely area we found called Emerald Pool. It was this small pool which was connected to this river by a tiny waterfall at the bottom of this mountain. It was really cold at first, but quite refreshing. After that all the girls went to a place called the Water Caves. It was amazing. Amber and I went inside the caves and began to climb higher and higher throughout this network of rocks and waterfalls all enclosed in the walls of the earth around us. It was like a playground and we climbed until we couldn’t go any higher.

Peter also taught us through the book of Philippians while we were on the hike, at various points we would just stop and learn somewhere. That night though, we all went up to this high area overlooking Emerald Pool. We talked about what God had been teaching us in our lives lately and sang worship. It was a beautiful time to just reflect and be in God’s presence in the beauty of his creation.

This trip was a time in which all we had were the bare essentials, God and each other. There were no distractions from Him those few days; normally we can barely hear our own voice among everyone else let alone God’s. So for that reason alone it was nice to have time to just solely focus on Him.

Ak-ak-akaroa!

So where did I leave off last? Probably about 2 weeks ago, I haven’t really let you in on what we did in Akaroa so I shall have to do that now.

So we took 2 cars up to Akaroa with Bryan driving one and Stephen driving the other. And the drive there was absolutely ridiculous the roads were pretty much winding the entire time and there were so many hills going up and down. The scenery was quite gorgeous though.

When we first got there we actually got lost for about an hour because Google map had the wrong information! I have decided Google is no longer trustworthy. Their map led us completely off course to some random house at the top of this really steep hill. Haha it was so hard for one of the cars to get up there it was smoking so we had to wait a few minutes for it to cool off. And Stephen’s car could only go like 15 km up the really steep hills.

While we were looking for our hostel we found this other really nice resort that had peacocks walking around and we talked to the guy there to get directions. Stephen asked if we could perhaps stay there for free, but no luck. Ah oh well at least we tried. Even though we ended up being lost for an hour we did find our hostel. Our hostel is actually located in one of the highest places you can get a hostel in New Zealand, so it had a really amazing view of the ocean and the valley below us.

We ended up being the only people in the hostel, because it holds about 8 people and there were 8 of us so that was quite nice. Cameron, Angela and I got a hobbit room haha it was so funny we had to bend down to walk into the room and the door was really small. We also had a lord of the rings mural painted on the wall. Surprisingly enough I did not bang my head on the door, but Cameron did.

The first night we were staying at the hostel we could see this huge storm cloud coming in from over the ocean it was crazy (you could kind of see it in the pictures in the previous post). It was really cool though the storm came in and encircled our hostel, at one point you couldn’t see anything around you but white and the wind was blowing hail and rain all over the place.

The next day we woke up and most of us went into town to go to a café and shop a little bit. Then we went back to the hostel to pick the rest of us up and we decided we were going to go on a hike that day. We got slightly side-tracked and went exploring while we were driving as well. We ended up driving across these really narrow roads that wound around the hills and found this property at the bottom surrounded by hills in a valley-like area.

We could see the ocean in the distance from where we had drove down to so we decided we must find a way to get there. We started driving through this farm area and came up to these gates. We went through about 2 of them but the next one we came up to said something about “make sure you know the hazards located in this area”. So we went to the one house there that must have owned the property to ask them if we could go through. There turned out to be three young backpackers (two German girls and a Mexican guy) who were watching the farm for the people who lived there. They told us it was fine if we went through.

I can’t remember but I think I put a picture up in the previous post of the beach we found. It was quite lovely and there were even seals on the rocky shoreline to the left. We spent an hour and half there just exploring and whatnot. Near the end we went to the side of the beach and then climbed up to this ledge up high to see this amazing view of the ocean and some rocks below. Later that day we also went to some hiking trails and hiked up the mountain to this waterfall which was pretty nice too, but it was quite steep. I am pretty sure I fell about 8 times on the way down. Jordan or someone would warn me that it was slippery and then I would fall anyways haha.

The next day was my 18^th birthday (woo!) and we all woke up at like 5am to go watch the sunrise which was beautiful. After that we all went to bed again until like 10:00 am and then we went sea-kayaking. We took the kayaks out for about 4 hours and most of us had a partner, I was with Cameron. Akaroa has a main bay which is the focal point of the town and we started there and worked our way around the shape of the land. We took some lunches in a waterproof bag and kayaked to this beach you could only get to from the water where we ate and explored. We kayaked another 2 hours after that pretty much just getting back to the bay where we started.

After that we had some lunch and went to hang out at the hostel. We had a barbecue that night and they surprised me with some carrot cake afterwards haha. That night we watched Lord of the Rings (of course) which was pretty much required because we are in New Zealand. The next day we woke up at like 7am, very nice and early, and drove home. All in all it was a lovely travel weekend J

Shortly after...

So after travel weekend (November 16) we had Peter Thomas from Monvale (the Capernwray on the North Island) come to teach us about Hebrews. Peter Thomas is actually one of Major Ian Thomas’ sons; Major Ian Thomas is the founder of the Torchbearers International organization that runs Capernwrays all over the world. Hebrews was good it was basically talking to those who were struggling with the switch from Judaism to Christianity back then and the book just reinforces how Christ is sufficient and supreme above all else. We also had Dale teaching us that week instead of DVD lectures and he taught a theme called “Law vs. Grace” about the terms of the old covenant and the new covenant. I realize none of this is very in depth at all, but I feel like going into all the details of what I’ve been learning would take far too much time.

Oh one other eventful thing that happened the week after travel weekend was Cam’s birthday. That day Cameron and I got a combined birthday rap from Joel and Ben, which was lovely haha. That night Joel, Jonas, Joseph, Cameron and I went to a café and while we were gone the girls set something up in our room for Cameron. When we came home there were flower petals leading into our room, and when you went inside the girls had taken all the mattresses down to make one giant bed on the floor. On the giant bed made on the floor they had used flower petals to make the shape of a heart on the bed. Oh and to top it all off they had “Can you feel the love tonight?” by Elton John haha it was really funny, but very cute.

18 in Akaroa!

So I am officially an adult. Holy moly. Anyways when I turned 18 it was our travel weekend at school so we all split up and went our separate ways. I think in total students only went to four different places though. It was either Queenstown, Akaroa, Mt. Somers or Christchurch. Akaroa is absolutely beautiful though, so I think it was a pretty good place to start being an adult :)

This is Cameron, Angela and I when we first arrived on the outskirts of Akaroa, it was gorgeous before we even got there so we had to take a picture haha. There were 8 of us who went (Cameron, Angela, Robert, Bryan, Colin, Stephan, Jordan and I) and we took two cars to get up to Akaroa.

This was our hostel. It was lovely we had the whole place to ourselves because it only holds about 8 people, which was perfect because there was 8 of us :)

Our hostel was located very, very high up. One of the highest places in New Zealand that a hostel is located I think actually. This is a storm we saw come in over the ocean, it was crazy. The storm came over us and then completely surrounded us. At one point we couldn't see anything around us except cloud and it got extremely windy and rainy. It was cool though.


Akaroa has A LOT of hills, with some gorgeous scenery so most of the driving looked like this:

This was a beautiful beach that we found while exploring, we found some seals on this beach too! I don't have any pictures of that right now though. The seals were quite cute... unless you get too close to them. Bryan and Stephen got about 6 feet away from one and it started hissing at them haha.

Just some exploring we did while we were on a hike, we hiked up this ridiculously high mountain thing to this waterfall, it was gorgeous.


So I shall have some more pictures of this later hopefully,and I'll write about the experiences I had in Akaroa in a later blog post, but I just thought I would put up a few pictures for you guys right now!

Much Love
Cara Lee

Who are you?

VERY IMPORTANT: I DID NOT WRITE THESE. These are from ADAM's blog, I DID NOT write these. I just thought I would put these up so you could gain a better understanding of some of the people I am living with haha, none of the staff character sketches are on here. When it says anything like "I think this" or "I didn't know" it is from Adam's point of view, not mine. Just to clarify, enjoy :).

* Capernwray Character Sketches

GIRLS
*Similarities of all of them: All five of the girls are really awesome. They've also all got great smiles.

* Amber
* Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada
- Curly red hair
- Bubbly, charismatic, cheerful, enthusiastic about life
- Bright personality
- Super outgoing - will start conversations with pretty much anyone on the street
- Upbeat attitude and steps in with good mom-ness when things are getting out of hand ... she'll be an amazing mom
- "Shoulder height to everyone else - aka. short" - Jordan
- Proactive worker, part of the student council with Ben
- Inclusive, aware, fun, loud, caring
- Yeah, really uplifting - a huge help for me
- Loves muesli (cereal) and occasionally steals some during the night and gives some to me

* Angela
* Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada
- Short straight light brown hair
- Loves the sciences, wants to work in the field dealing with creationism
- Reading the Narnia series out loud with Michael
- Personable, understandable, cheerful- Overly nice: "Can I steal that?" when asking for something at the table
- Has a boyfriend named Adam back home
- Went on a long walk with her awhile ago, taking an alternate route to town and it ended up being super long and exhausting at the time. Had fun complaining.
- Used sine waves in her testimony
- She is really neat and tidy. Apparently she makes the girls' beds in the morning
- Aims to be asleep by 9:30, wakes up at 6:30

* Cameron
* Colorado, USA
- Short wing-y (awesome) dark brown hair with highlights
- We worked doing veggie prep for dinner together and now we clean up breakfast together
- I got her in trouble once when I took a leftover cake out of the fridge and pressured her into eating a piece of cake with me and Colin (note: that's the only time I have gotten into trouble, don't worry, I'm not a troublemaker!)
- Positive thinker, open-minded
- Cheerful, soft personality
- We relate when it comes to introvertedness... at one gathering her and I hid behind the couches so we wouldn't have to talk with any of the strangers
- Answers lots of the questions in lectures - good perspectives

* Cara
* Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada
- Short brown hair
- Very focused conversationalist - looks straight into the eyes and probably the soul
- Five foot five!
- Clothing article of choice: Cardigan
- Tough questioner, very frank, not afraid to get into debates
- She has a look
- Career hope: Medicine
- Likes asking questions and genuinely likes getting to know people
- "Will straight up tell you what she's thinks about you." - Jordan
- We almost always work together on Wednesday work day and those are good times
- She also reads my blog sometimes, so she gets major bonus points for that
- And she also has an amazing plaid shirt which gives her more bonus points

* Kelsey
* Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Long brown/blonde hair
- Conscientious, nice to everyone, fun
- Likes to Skype with her family
- Positive, very good with strangers, good manners is a way to put it, I suppose
- Who knows how many bags of clothes and toiletries she brought... oh wait, Bryan does, he had to carry them all here for her (Half J/K)
- Athletic - played volleyball, soccer, probably others during high school
- She also has a pretty amazing plaid shirt
- "Boy crazy" - Jordan

GUYS
* All the guys are way more manly than I am. ;) Great guys, super funny, silly maniacs.

* Ben
* Alaska, USA
- Shaved head mostly - brown
- "Alaskan chin-bearded snow ninja" - Jordan
- Likes doing physical things - can climb anything (walls, trees), strong
- Wants to be a worship leader - plays the guitar a bunch, also a great piano player
- Confident, proud, perfectionist, lots of knowledge
- Clothing article of choice: Probably a muscle shirt if he was allowed to wear one
- Takes lots of videos - has made 4 volumes of our activities this year already
- Already got accepted into an aeronautical engineer program in Florida after Bible school - got huge scholarship for that

* Bryan
* Red Deer area, Alberta, Canada
- Straight red hair with long-ish bangs
- Clothing article of choice: Skinny jeans, has an amazing yellow toque
- Brought 12 pairs of shoes along
- Hair straightener
- Uplifting, encouraging, outgoing
- Great photographer
- Plays in a worship band. Can play guitar, bass, drums, piano
- Smiley, amused at my laugh, and does snicker a lot
- "Secretly a ladies man" - Jordan

* Colin
* Abbotsford, BC, Canada
- Short red hair, hairy, born on St. Patrick`s Day = He`s probably a leprechaun
- Great storyteller
- Has had some incredibly terrible yet funny things happen to him
- Between 9pm and 9am he`s pretty much dysfunctional
- Very enthusiastic about the things he likes
- A good co-counselor, great at disciplining
- Extensive Bible knowledge
- Intern, nicknamed "Esau"
- Good trip organizer - leader
- Clothing article: Dwight Schrute t-shirt
- Won high school yearbook award: Best bum
- Laugh goes very high pitched

* Joel
* Walheim(?), Saskatchewan, Canada
- CURLY brown hair
- Goofball - huge personality
- Sings a silly rap for every birthday
- Football player body
- Clothing article of choice: Sweatpants, bumblebee socks
- Makes lots of announcements after meals, usually about J&J's Fitness Club
- Has a huge Canadian accent
- Part of the triple J trio (Jonas, Joseph and Joel).

* Jonas
* Germany
- Curly short blonde hair
- "Tried to pick up Cam and failed" - Jordan (I had no clue... I think it's all cool though)
- "Likes Starcraft more than people" - Jordan
- Best buds with Joseph/Moseph and Joel
- Clothing article of choice: Well, he just bought a white Cowboy hat for 7 bucks...
- 21 - oldest person here
- Witty, confident, a jokester
- Created J&J's Fitness Club with Joel - it's pretty much just them and Joseph now

* Jordan
* Salt Spring, BC, Canada
- Dark brown hair - growing it out, getting curlier
- Most interesting life ever - amazing storyteller
- Tells at least 3 great stories every day:
Examples:
* One time when he and his dad were driving in their truck they passed a hitch hiker who gave them the finger. His dad passed him, turned around and then went back and picked him up. He told the guy about the gospel and then kicked him out the door.
* Crazy pranks with his friends like saran wrapping the whole school for 7 hours
- Too many awesome stories to write I'll just stop with those two.
- "If I were to date one guy here it would be:" Jordan
- Big frame - he is a logger
- Funny - also has a great explosion sound effect
- Loves the outdoors
- Willing prayer

* Michael
* Soldotna, Alaska, USA
- Short straight dark brown hair
- Can talk for long periods of time (about very intellectual things)
- Likes to climb trees - will disappear randomly and will be somewhere in a tree
- Played the piano on the back of a moving trailer through town
- Strong political standpoints
- Very conscientious about sticking to morals, good practices
- Clothing article of choice: Drivers cap
- Umm, did I say intellectual?

* Robert
* Alaska, USA via Illinois, USA
- "Handsome Rob"
- Quiet demeanor but can really add fun, introspective things to conversations - Long curly dark brown hair, thick black glasses, chin beard, wears toque a lot
- Clothing article of choice: Nothing, likes it drafty (joke ... he's actually the opposite)
- Passionate about music - plays acoustic guitar, bass, got a harmonica for his birthday
- I love it when he plays his guitar outside + sings
- Can imitate voices very well, especially the "hick" voice
- Stays up late with Bryan and Jordan
- Takes lots of photos
- "Journals a lot" - Jordan

* Adam/Me
* Vancouver, BC, Canada
- "Weird"
- Runs away a lot (without any warning) - which makes the guys uneasy "Uh oh, where'd Adam go?" - The guys have spent 3 hours combined looking for me apparently
- "A man of many laughs"
- Can be very hyper at night
- Clothing article of choice: Plaid shirts
- " He is an Onion; he has many layers." - Jordan

My Favorite Hymn

It's pretty well known and it's quite modern compared to other hymns, but it's still my favorite.

In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone! who took on flesh
Fulness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness
Scorned by the ones he came to save:
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied -
For every sin on Him was laid;
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay
Light of the world by darkness slain:
Then bursting forth in glorious Day
Up from the grave he rose again!
And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me,
For I am His and He is mine -
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

Hey all =)

So I have slightly been falling behind on blogging because I’ve been quite busy this last week with my Progress of Redemption project, having to finish my bible study assignment and doing ministry, but I am blogging now so it’s all good. Right now I am sitting in a café with Cameron; she and I decided to go back into Geraldine after church, while most everyone else went to hang out at Waihi Gorge.
So this is what been going on in the last week here in New Zealand:

Mud Masks
Kelsey’s mom sent her these chocolate mud masks for your face in the mail and all the girls decided that we would use them one night. After we put it on we pretty much looked like we were black because the mask was so thick. We went downstairs to see how the guys would react and they thought it was hilarious just because they didn’t expect it at all haha

Waihi Gorge
That same night Kelsey, Amber, Sheryl, Adam and I went up to the gorge around 10 PM. It was really dark and we could barely tell where we were going. We eventually found the stream and we were walking across it using rocks as stepping stones. The water was absolutely freezing and I got stuck out in the middle of the water. Adam was walking by through the water and I asked him to give me a piggyback ride to the other side so I wouldn’t have to freeze my feet off again. As he was walking back with me he stepped on a loose rock and we both fell completely into the water. We were soaking wet, but at least when your whole body is wet the water isn’t quite as freezing.

Farmer’s Market, Holland & Accordions
The next day (on Saturday morning) we biked to the local farmers market and they had so much good, fresh food. Cameron and I bought some fresh strawberries and raspberries to take home. While we were there Louise from Church (who had invited us to her house for lunch after church last weekend) invited 7 of us from The Crossing to come on a picnic to Peel Forest after church tomorrow. Then Cam and I were walking around this free museum and we were talking to the owner for about half an hour, he was a nice older guy from Holland with some interesting stories. Throughout the last week we also had this guy named Ira staying at The Crossing, he was a student here last semester and he was working at the Te Mapua camp when we volunteered there in October. As Cam and I were walking through town Ira was sitting on the street corner playing his accordion for some money, he’s a very quirky guy haha, but he’s a lot of fun.

Peel Forest
After church last Sunday Louise took Cameron, Michael, Jordan, Jonas, Adam, Angela and I to Peel Forest. It was about a ½ hour drive, it was this really scenic forest right near the base of some mountains. We went on a short nature hike up to this big tree, hung out with the family and then had a picnic. Then we went and drove another 5 minutes to get to this gorgeous little church. It wasn’t the right time of year, but normally the church is surrounded by lilies everywhere you look. The church was from 1836 and it has these beautiful stained glassed windows inside. It was quite lovely to say the least.

October 31
We didn’t really celebrate Halloween here because it has a more negative connotation. But we still had some fun activities. A bunch of people from The Crossing went to volunteer at “The Light Party”, an alternative for kids to celebrate something on Halloween. After that we had a pumpkin carving contest while Cameron, Joseph, Sheryl and I made caramel popcorn balls in the kitchen. They were delicious. Then a bunch of people started playing this ridiculous hide and seek tag game, they almost took people out when they were running through the house.

Family Night
We had family night again, as we do every second Tuesday (where the students are split up into two groups and go to different places). It was really good, our group stayed at the crossing played some volleyball, played Balderdash and then had a campfire. While we were playing Balderdash Sheryl (the cook) made us this really interesting dessert by combining some leftovers. She took some pancakes drizzled them in caramel and then put blueberries on top. It was delicious.

Puppet show
Kelsey and I presented our Progress of Redemption project (overview of the bible in relation to God’s plan) in the form of a puppet show on Thursday last week. Our puppet was more.... humorous than serious haha. Our puppets were not necessarily what they would’ve looked like back then (i.e. we had a group of girls represented through Disney princesses), but the information was correct. It was fun and everyone seemed to think it was funny so that’s good.

Kris Banes
Our teacher this last week was a guy named Kris Banes, and he was really good. Haha I think all our lecturers are really good though. He is originally from England so he had an English accent. He taught us through the book of Colossians and Jonah. Colossians is the most Christ centered book in the bible, it warns us about the dangers of legalism and focuses not on what we do, but rather on what Christ did. He also taught us about the book of Jonah which is one of my favorite books now.

Hayden Johns & Werner Schreiber
Hayden, who is from the Capernwray on the north island in NZ, came in to teach us about making bible studies and emphasized the point of thinking for ourselves and not just being spoon fed answers. He questioned on us why we believe the things we do and how we back that up, he was really interesting. Werner (who taught the first week) came back and taught us through the book of Ephesians, he’s always a lot of fun to have around, he is very quirky as well

Mud Pits & Mary Kay
So last Friday night we kind of had another guys and girls night. All the guys stayed at The Crossing and did some mud wrestling; it was quite funny they made this giant mud pit on the outskirts of our property. While they were in the mud pit Joseph got this huge gouge in his leg and James found this really thick broken glass which is probably what caused Joseph’s wound. After that they did this jousting thing, which I don’t even really know what it was, and then they watched The Italian Job. All the girls went over to Patti’s and of course she had a bunch of delicious baking. We had a big Mary Kay night with a bunch of other ladies from the community. The Mary Kay person here has so much more than what I’ve seen at home, it was cool. We basically just hung out and then watched a movie and slept over at Patti’s. The next morning we had the most delicious baked French toast ever.

Timaru
The next morning after our French toast breakfast Sheryl, Hanna, Cameron and I went into a town called Timaru about ½ hour away from us and got some shopping down. It is a really nice little town with some good shopping and an ocean view. We all decided to go to this Thai restaurant for lunch which was also quite good.

The Beach
Bryan’s good friend named Stephen from Canada just moved to New Zealand for 6 months a week ago and he lives about an hour away from us. He decided to come stay at the crossing for the weekend to see Bryan and meet some of us. He has his own car so on Saturday night Amber, Kelsey, Cameron, Bryan and I went with him to the beach about 20 minutes away. The beach was absolutely lovely that night to see the sunset off into the mountains. We stayed there for a couple hours and talked with some random people who were fishing on the beach. A lot of people always seem to be fishing at that beach.

Concert
Just yesterday on Sunday we had Kris Banes come back to The Crossing for a piano concert, as he is a musician. We invited a bunch of people from the community to come and listen to him play. He was really good, he played a bunch of hymns and told us the stories behind how the hymns were written, which makes the songs so much more powerful.

Present Day
So that’s a little bit of what’s been going on for the last week or so. This week we have the local pastor Ian Hyslop teaching us through the book of Exodus, but only until Thursday. This week we have a travel weekend where all the students leave from Thursday to Sunday to travel somewhere in New Zealand. So I am going with Cameron, Angela, Bryan, Robert, Colin, Jordan and Stephen to an Oceanside town 2 hours-ish away called Akaroa, which is where I will also turn 18 this Saturday =)

Thanks to Ellen & Rod and Aunty Bup & Ted for the birthday cards you sent, I appreciate it!

I probably won’t blog again for another week or two because I’ve got travel weekend coming up and I have an assignment to finish this week.

Much Love
Cara Lee

Newbie

Hey sorry so I realize I have not posted a blog in quite a ridiculously long time, so I promise that this weekend on Saturday (Friday in Canada) I will put up another blog. =) I just don't have time at the moment so just letting you know I do plan to!