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/
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
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 =)
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