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.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
I had the most lovely day yesterday on Saturday. The youth group decided to go boating that day and they invited whoever wanted to come from The Crossing to come. Only Joel, Joseph, Jonas and I ended up going though. Others had to work to repay a car lent to them and some just didn't want to go. We drove about half an hour to this beautiful little lake that had some gorgeous mountain scenery in its background. The beginning of the day it was quite overcast and cloudy as the guys went wake boarding and some kids from youth went water skiing. A girl from the church actually hurt herself trying to water ski and ended up having to go the hospital to get x-rays. We didn't see it happen though because it occurred right before we got there. There were about 20-25 of us in total and we had about 3 boats going. We had about 4 tubes as well (which they call biscuits here, weird hey?) 2 double tubes and 2 single tubes. We started to tube after lunch time and at that point the sun had come out in full force, it was about 27 degrees I think. And I most definitely got a little sunburnt but not too bad actually. We got to go for really long times since we would have 3 boats going. I usually went with a girl from the church named Rachel in a double tube and at the same time in a single tube beside us Tanya would be going. It was heaps of fun and overall a really good day. It is weird going tubing in February though hey? We spent about 5 hours at the lake and on the way back we stopped in Geraldine for ice cream. It was good stuff.
Yes I just thought I would share that small update with you all, and I also found out for the ministry week we are doing from the 14-19 I will be going to Dunedin. We are being split up into two groups as one is going to Christchurch and the other is going to Dunedin. The cool thing is I have never been to Dunedin so that's sweet because I have been to Christchurch many times. Oh and in Dunedin is also the steepest street in the world, I shall have to go see that haha.
Much Love
Yes I just thought I would share that small update with you all, and I also found out for the ministry week we are doing from the 14-19 I will be going to Dunedin. We are being split up into two groups as one is going to Christchurch and the other is going to Dunedin. The cool thing is I have never been to Dunedin so that's sweet because I have been to Christchurch many times. Oh and in Dunedin is also the steepest street in the world, I shall have to go see that haha.
Much Love
Thursday, February 4, 2010
The Streets of Timaru
Ok so today we did something that I was extremely skeptical about: street evangelism. It’s basically where you go up to random people on the streets and start talking to them leading the conversation to God, what they believe about it, what you believe about it, etc. At first I was like are you kidding me? How ridiculous and forced is it for us to go up to these random people and speak to them about God. I was thinking that would be pretty much just be crazy, and that if you do that you’re one of those people who tries to force Christianity upon other people. We had someone who has done a lot of street ministry like this named Roy who came in and talked to us about it beforehand. He definitely changed my view of it. It is more so just going up to people and speaking to them in an easygoing way as you normally would and then integrating God into the conversation. Just to see what they believe and then share with them how God has impacted your life, and the truth of Jesus.
Of course most people still would probably think that sounds a little out there and forceful, but it isn’t unless you make it that way. How can I not share the incredible way God has worked and is working in my life, in my heart? How can I keep the most precious thing in my life to myself? I wish everyone could understand that God is the strength, love and redemption so many are desperately seeking in their lives. I wish people could understand it is so much more than a religion, or an opinion or a system. I wish people could understand it is not something just aimlessly believed, but that it is a living relationship. I can’t keep His truth all to myself.
A bunch of us went out and a lot of us had some really good conversations with people that really touched the hearts of some. We had a debriefing in which we talked about our 2 hour experience on the streets of Timaru. Some of us talked about the people we encountered who shared their doubts about God, their past hurtful encounters with other Christians and mix-matched beliefs regarding who Jesus truly was. A lot of us also talked about the people who just would dismiss you at the first note of God. Some people just run away from it at all costs, which can be understandable depending on their experiences. I was paired up with Adam and we pretty much got rejected a lot haha, but we didn’t really take it personally. They aren’t rejecting us really, they are rejecting God. Usually I feel like I would take something like that personally, but I feel like God enabled me in such a way that I did not. I feel like overall from the experience I learned to be more bold, people may reject you, but hey that’s to be expected as a Christian for the Bible itself makes this quite known to us.
Yet I find it so hard to understand how some refuse to acknowledge or search for God. If this is all there is in this life truly then how pitiful an existence is this? That one day you will perish, you remain non-existent forever and if you will be extremely lucky if someone 100 years after you’ve died might know who you were. If we don’t have God, we truly have nothing.
Fortunately God isn’t simply wishful thinking.
Of course most people still would probably think that sounds a little out there and forceful, but it isn’t unless you make it that way. How can I not share the incredible way God has worked and is working in my life, in my heart? How can I keep the most precious thing in my life to myself? I wish everyone could understand that God is the strength, love and redemption so many are desperately seeking in their lives. I wish people could understand it is so much more than a religion, or an opinion or a system. I wish people could understand it is not something just aimlessly believed, but that it is a living relationship. I can’t keep His truth all to myself.
A bunch of us went out and a lot of us had some really good conversations with people that really touched the hearts of some. We had a debriefing in which we talked about our 2 hour experience on the streets of Timaru. Some of us talked about the people we encountered who shared their doubts about God, their past hurtful encounters with other Christians and mix-matched beliefs regarding who Jesus truly was. A lot of us also talked about the people who just would dismiss you at the first note of God. Some people just run away from it at all costs, which can be understandable depending on their experiences. I was paired up with Adam and we pretty much got rejected a lot haha, but we didn’t really take it personally. They aren’t rejecting us really, they are rejecting God. Usually I feel like I would take something like that personally, but I feel like God enabled me in such a way that I did not. I feel like overall from the experience I learned to be more bold, people may reject you, but hey that’s to be expected as a Christian for the Bible itself makes this quite known to us.
Yet I find it so hard to understand how some refuse to acknowledge or search for God. If this is all there is in this life truly then how pitiful an existence is this? That one day you will perish, you remain non-existent forever and if you will be extremely lucky if someone 100 years after you’ve died might know who you were. If we don’t have God, we truly have nothing.
Fortunately God isn’t simply wishful thinking.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Rangitata, Parachute & The Heart
Hey :) I hope you are all doing well. Let me just update you on some of the highlights of the past couple weeks! Last weekend 8 of us from the crossing (Amber, Kelsey, Joel, Michael, Bryan, Sheryl, Angela and I) decided we would experience Rangitata Rafting, so we went white water rafting for about four hours down the Rangitata River. It was a pretty awesome experience I would say. I shall put up some pictures up in the near future because while we were rafting they had a photographer going down the river to get some lovely action shots of us. Some of them are quite entertaining actually haha. The water varied from class 2 to class 5 on a scale of difficulty. Class 5 is the highest level for rapids, but the rapids progressed gradually from 2 to 5 most of the time, and they usually came in sections. For example, you would be a clam spot go through some rapids, get to a calmer spot, go to some rapids, etc. So it wasn’t a constant bombardment of crazy water the whole time. Also halfway through the rafting experience we went cliff diving which was pretty cool as well, the highest point which we jumped from was only 11metres, but I’ve never done it before so it was scary enough for me. It has inspired me to want to go bungee jumping now though so I am going to see if a bunch of us can take a car up to Queenstown some random weekend.
That was last weekend, and this weekend I actually flew up to the north island to Auckland then driving to Hamilton with Kelsey and Bryan and we went to something called Parachute. Parachute is basically this huge Christian music festival with over 130 bands and 30,000 people. It was pretty rad to say the least; we actually ended up staying with Bryan’s friends JJ and Alex in their tent for the weekend. There were actually areas reserved for tenting since the fee to tent was included in ticket prices so it was basically like a huge village of tents everywhere you looked. The first day we got there (Saturday) it was ridiculously hot around 27 I think. The next day on Sunday it poured rain so much, there actually was a bit of flooding because it was raining so hard. Some of the walkways were up to our knees in water, tents were flooded, signs were floating around. It was because the festival is right by this creek called Mystery Creek and it must have overflowed into the surrounding area. It was still bearable though and everyone seemed to stay. I will put up some of our pictures from Parachute sometime soon as well! Some of my favorite headlining acts were Leeland, Switchfoot, Parachute Band and Hillsong United. The very last band was Hillsong United at 10:30 P.M. on Sunday night and it was so amazing. Previous to their show the rain had cleared up for quite awhile, but soon after they came on it started pouring ridiculously. It was so cool though to worship in the rain like that and to me it just added a whole new element to me. I love rain, it just seem to be such a purifying thing to me.
Anyways those were my highlights for the past two weeks! Other than that we have just been learning as usual, hanging out together, and enjoying the sun when it comes around. I shall start updating more often again now that I am back on track with schedules and what not. I suppose I shall let you know a little bit more about what I have been learning this last little while. Werner Schreiber has been teaching us lately; he is one of our more usual teachers as this is at least the third time he has been teaching us. Werner’s favorite topic to teach about the condition of the heart and he usually integrates it into most of his teachings. We’ve been going through 2 Corinthians these past few days in which Paul is proving to the Corinthians that he was a true apostle of Christ when others were saying he was not.
The Corinthians were very well off and reflected much of the Western Society we live in today that is focused on individualism, materialism, the value of appearances, etc. In the culture we live in image is everything and as long as the outside looks good then everything is good. The outside needs to match the inside or else Christianity ends up looking like an empty shell devoid of any genuine meaning as there must be a balance of relationship and application. If someone sees a person act in two different ways i.e. in a church setting and then completely different at home, it just makes someone think Christianity must be a lie, that it isn’t legitimate. As Paul says, “We can say with honest confidence and clear conscience that we have been honest and sincere in all our dealings. We have depended on God’s grace, not on our own earthly wisdom. That is how we have acted toward everyone and especially toward you”. Paul is laying out to the Corinthians that other “false apostles” who have been accusing him of being a fake have no grounds as he, inside and out, reflects integrity of the work Christ has done in his life.
Paul reflects a deep concern and love throughout his letter and by doing so reflects the mark of a true apostle of Christ. When Paul expresses his love it is a manifestation of Christ, as selfless love is Christ’s love. Human love is conditional, divine love does what human love never can: “love your enemies”. As Paul says “[T]he only letters of recommendation we need (to prove our authenticity) is you yourselves! Your lives are a letter written in our hearts, and everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you”. People who have been really changed and transformed are a stamp of authenticity as the lives of people Paul worked with were changed. The written code and law of religion is unable to change the heart. Many religions have a tablet of stone (written code or law), but if your heart is not changed the tablet is not real. You only find new ways to cover up what is in your heart, pushing it back.
When talking about the human heart in this sense it means the real person, the real inner being behind everything we do. It is referred to repeatedly in scripture. This condition of our heart is often hidden from us, but there are moments of difficulty, whether small or large, in which God tests us. The natural reaction that stirs up within us is a revelation of what is truly in our heart whether it be anger, jealously, insecurity, etc. When you put something under pressure that is when the contents will come out, when the real person will come out. Is it Christ who comes out in these situations for us? For Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13: 5, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is really genuine. Test yourselves. If you cannot tell that Jesus Christ is in you, it means you have failed the test”.
Of course this does not mean that we are to be perfect, but as God gradually reveals the condition of our hearts as he tests us and then we can learn from Him about areas he needs to work within us. As Werner often jokes if God were to completely reveal our hearts to us all at once we would probably be completely overwhelmed and have something along the lines of a heart attack.
The world today is all about compromise, all paths are right, all are possible, etc. Yet we shouldn’t get stuck on religious issues, rather LIFE issues. No religion in the world can change the human heart because that is the living God’s domain. All have the inability to change the heart. A change beyond the ability of mere psychology, education, etc. but truly changing the heart, not hiding it. There is no religion comparable to the relationship of the living God. Christianity isn’t a religion; it’s a relationship with the living God.
Yup, so that is just even a small taste of what I have been learning about. Quite marginal actually, but I just thought I could give you all a more thorough example of some things I have learned here. It’s just some things Werner has been teaching us through 2 Corinthians and how it can be applied to our lives today.
I am going to bed though so goodnight :) It’s probably about 3 a.m. back home so you’re probably asleep as I post this. So sweet dreams!
That was last weekend, and this weekend I actually flew up to the north island to Auckland then driving to Hamilton with Kelsey and Bryan and we went to something called Parachute. Parachute is basically this huge Christian music festival with over 130 bands and 30,000 people. It was pretty rad to say the least; we actually ended up staying with Bryan’s friends JJ and Alex in their tent for the weekend. There were actually areas reserved for tenting since the fee to tent was included in ticket prices so it was basically like a huge village of tents everywhere you looked. The first day we got there (Saturday) it was ridiculously hot around 27 I think. The next day on Sunday it poured rain so much, there actually was a bit of flooding because it was raining so hard. Some of the walkways were up to our knees in water, tents were flooded, signs were floating around. It was because the festival is right by this creek called Mystery Creek and it must have overflowed into the surrounding area. It was still bearable though and everyone seemed to stay. I will put up some of our pictures from Parachute sometime soon as well! Some of my favorite headlining acts were Leeland, Switchfoot, Parachute Band and Hillsong United. The very last band was Hillsong United at 10:30 P.M. on Sunday night and it was so amazing. Previous to their show the rain had cleared up for quite awhile, but soon after they came on it started pouring ridiculously. It was so cool though to worship in the rain like that and to me it just added a whole new element to me. I love rain, it just seem to be such a purifying thing to me.
Anyways those were my highlights for the past two weeks! Other than that we have just been learning as usual, hanging out together, and enjoying the sun when it comes around. I shall start updating more often again now that I am back on track with schedules and what not. I suppose I shall let you know a little bit more about what I have been learning this last little while. Werner Schreiber has been teaching us lately; he is one of our more usual teachers as this is at least the third time he has been teaching us. Werner’s favorite topic to teach about the condition of the heart and he usually integrates it into most of his teachings. We’ve been going through 2 Corinthians these past few days in which Paul is proving to the Corinthians that he was a true apostle of Christ when others were saying he was not.
The Corinthians were very well off and reflected much of the Western Society we live in today that is focused on individualism, materialism, the value of appearances, etc. In the culture we live in image is everything and as long as the outside looks good then everything is good. The outside needs to match the inside or else Christianity ends up looking like an empty shell devoid of any genuine meaning as there must be a balance of relationship and application. If someone sees a person act in two different ways i.e. in a church setting and then completely different at home, it just makes someone think Christianity must be a lie, that it isn’t legitimate. As Paul says, “We can say with honest confidence and clear conscience that we have been honest and sincere in all our dealings. We have depended on God’s grace, not on our own earthly wisdom. That is how we have acted toward everyone and especially toward you”. Paul is laying out to the Corinthians that other “false apostles” who have been accusing him of being a fake have no grounds as he, inside and out, reflects integrity of the work Christ has done in his life.
Paul reflects a deep concern and love throughout his letter and by doing so reflects the mark of a true apostle of Christ. When Paul expresses his love it is a manifestation of Christ, as selfless love is Christ’s love. Human love is conditional, divine love does what human love never can: “love your enemies”. As Paul says “[T]he only letters of recommendation we need (to prove our authenticity) is you yourselves! Your lives are a letter written in our hearts, and everyone can read it and recognize our good work among you”. People who have been really changed and transformed are a stamp of authenticity as the lives of people Paul worked with were changed. The written code and law of religion is unable to change the heart. Many religions have a tablet of stone (written code or law), but if your heart is not changed the tablet is not real. You only find new ways to cover up what is in your heart, pushing it back.
When talking about the human heart in this sense it means the real person, the real inner being behind everything we do. It is referred to repeatedly in scripture. This condition of our heart is often hidden from us, but there are moments of difficulty, whether small or large, in which God tests us. The natural reaction that stirs up within us is a revelation of what is truly in our heart whether it be anger, jealously, insecurity, etc. When you put something under pressure that is when the contents will come out, when the real person will come out. Is it Christ who comes out in these situations for us? For Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13: 5, “Examine yourselves to see if your faith is really genuine. Test yourselves. If you cannot tell that Jesus Christ is in you, it means you have failed the test”.
Of course this does not mean that we are to be perfect, but as God gradually reveals the condition of our hearts as he tests us and then we can learn from Him about areas he needs to work within us. As Werner often jokes if God were to completely reveal our hearts to us all at once we would probably be completely overwhelmed and have something along the lines of a heart attack.
The world today is all about compromise, all paths are right, all are possible, etc. Yet we shouldn’t get stuck on religious issues, rather LIFE issues. No religion in the world can change the human heart because that is the living God’s domain. All have the inability to change the heart. A change beyond the ability of mere psychology, education, etc. but truly changing the heart, not hiding it. There is no religion comparable to the relationship of the living God. Christianity isn’t a religion; it’s a relationship with the living God.
Yup, so that is just even a small taste of what I have been learning about. Quite marginal actually, but I just thought I could give you all a more thorough example of some things I have learned here. It’s just some things Werner has been teaching us through 2 Corinthians and how it can be applied to our lives today.
I am going to bed though so goodnight :) It’s probably about 3 a.m. back home so you’re probably asleep as I post this. So sweet dreams!
Monday, January 18, 2010
Open My Eyes So I May Behold Wondrous Things
Guess what? I’m blogging again! Seeing as I am now back at The Crossing from my month long Christmas break I decided I would resume posting on The Geraldine Scene as well. I had a good Christmas break hanging out with the friends and family that I love. By going home I have been reminded of the huge blessing God has given me by putting such amazing people in my life.
Flying back to New Zealand I flew from Saskatoon to Toronto to L.A. to Auckland to Christchurch, basically many hours of flying (about 22 in total). It was pretty uneventful this time on the way back, which is good uneventful = not very many problems.
The next day after I had arrived in New Zealand, after spending the night in a hotel, I took a bus from Christchurch Airport to Geraldine. When the bus pulled up to the airport I was standing there with my luggage and all of sudden something just sprung onto me! Then I realized it was Michael from school, he was on the same bus I was taking. It was so good to see someone from The Crossing.
Eventually we all met up at the school and there were many hugs and joyful shouting as people slowly trickled back home. It’s good to be back in this house with everyone who we’ve become so accustomed to being around. The majority of those here who spent the break travelling around New Zealand were quite happy to be back in a stationary place, traveling can get quite exhausting and frustrating it seems. Everyone had a relatively good break though haha good stories from everyone and we shared all about the things God has taught us while we were away from the school.
Today Dale just went over some orientation stuff again and we also finally have the new Joel who just arrived yesterday who couldn’t be with us last semester, but will be joining us for this one. Since we already have a Joel in the house we have since officially named him JB. Just to make things easier you know?
We also had a DVD lecture today from Russell Kelfer and it was called “Open my eyes so that I might behold wondrous things”. That is a quote from Psalm 119 and it’s in regards to reading God’s word. Russell talked about how we have lost the once profound awe and respect held for the Bible as we so often take it for granted with a passive mentality. Do we not realize the power and majesty we hold when we hold the Bible, the word of the living, almighty, powerful God in our hands? Is it not even a miracle that such a God would speak to us; us who, even to be generous, in the big picture are mere specks of dust in the wind? (yes I stole a cliche song lyric haha) Basically he talked about how we need to readjust our perception, it was a good lecture.
Today we also picked a bunch of the plums from the trees in our front yard and they were absolutely delicious. We probably ate more than we picked actually. Anyways though, I am glad to be back here : ) it is lovely to be with everyone again. This upcoming weekend I am going white-water rafting which should be heaps of fun.
I hope you are all doing well!
Flying back to New Zealand I flew from Saskatoon to Toronto to L.A. to Auckland to Christchurch, basically many hours of flying (about 22 in total). It was pretty uneventful this time on the way back, which is good uneventful = not very many problems.
The next day after I had arrived in New Zealand, after spending the night in a hotel, I took a bus from Christchurch Airport to Geraldine. When the bus pulled up to the airport I was standing there with my luggage and all of sudden something just sprung onto me! Then I realized it was Michael from school, he was on the same bus I was taking. It was so good to see someone from The Crossing.
Eventually we all met up at the school and there were many hugs and joyful shouting as people slowly trickled back home. It’s good to be back in this house with everyone who we’ve become so accustomed to being around. The majority of those here who spent the break travelling around New Zealand were quite happy to be back in a stationary place, traveling can get quite exhausting and frustrating it seems. Everyone had a relatively good break though haha good stories from everyone and we shared all about the things God has taught us while we were away from the school.
Today Dale just went over some orientation stuff again and we also finally have the new Joel who just arrived yesterday who couldn’t be with us last semester, but will be joining us for this one. Since we already have a Joel in the house we have since officially named him JB. Just to make things easier you know?
We also had a DVD lecture today from Russell Kelfer and it was called “Open my eyes so that I might behold wondrous things”. That is a quote from Psalm 119 and it’s in regards to reading God’s word. Russell talked about how we have lost the once profound awe and respect held for the Bible as we so often take it for granted with a passive mentality. Do we not realize the power and majesty we hold when we hold the Bible, the word of the living, almighty, powerful God in our hands? Is it not even a miracle that such a God would speak to us; us who, even to be generous, in the big picture are mere specks of dust in the wind? (yes I stole a cliche song lyric haha) Basically he talked about how we need to readjust our perception, it was a good lecture.
Today we also picked a bunch of the plums from the trees in our front yard and they were absolutely delicious. We probably ate more than we picked actually. Anyways though, I am glad to be back here : ) it is lovely to be with everyone again. This upcoming weekend I am going white-water rafting which should be heaps of fun.
I hope you are all doing well!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Joy to the World
I will blog in near future about what I have been up to all December, I've been quite busy with some papers and whatnot. I shall be home in a couple days to Canada so once I'm back I'll have some time to blog and I can put up a lot more pictures and perhaps a few videos!
I hope your all doing well! Merry Christmas!
I hope your all doing well! Merry Christmas!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Literature Skills of Jordan Lee
Hm so I have discovered, via Adam's blog, that Jordan has some amazing talent that I did not expect. Check out this piece of writing that he came up with on the hike:
http://newzealandspiritparade.blogspot.com/2009/11/guest-post-featuring-jordan-lee.html
http://newzealandspiritparade.blogspot.com/2009/11/guest-post-featuring-jordan-lee.html
Sunday, November 29, 2009
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.
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 18th 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.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
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:
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
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
Monday, November 16, 2009
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
* 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
Sunday, November 8, 2009
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.
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
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
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