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.