Ministry Week Part 1

Last week I was busy doing “Ministry Week”. It is a week where we go out into the community and put on tons of different activities partnering with local churches. We also get to stay with a host family all week.

Sometimes ministry week is in a town far away from Cambridge where our school is located but this semester we teamed up with Cambridge churches and stayed pretty close to home. It was really cool because we all go to different churches on Sunday so we already know some of the people here.

The first Sunday of ministry week we had a combined service with all the different churches in Cambridge and I got to share my testimony in front of everyone. I was getting sick so I didn’t feel good and I was super tired. I prayed and prayed that God would speak through me because I had nothing to give. Sure enough, He did and it was really cool to talk in front of everyone. I didn’t even blush. It’s cool to see how God has been giving me more and more confidence with speaking in front of people.

We are each assigned a team and each team works together all week on various ministries and are associated with a particular church. My team was lead by Hadassah, our missions teacher and my church was Raleigh Street Christian Church. The different stuff we were involved with were Bible In Schools, Youth Night, hanging out with Alternative Education (AE) kids and helping in the garden at the church and Cambridge High School.

Raliegh Street church reminded me a ton of CCC. It’s like CCC with only 300 people on a Sunday. They have a great staff and were super great to work with. The AE kids (about 6) have their own section of the church that they rent from Raleigh Street that includes a small gym and we spent a lot of time in there. To be in AE you have to have gotten kicked out of every high school in Cambridge. The AE guys loved playing basketball and we taught them the game “Knockout” and they wanted to play over and over and over. We cooked with them on Thursday afternoon, which was cool because it gave us some time to really get to know them.

Bible In Schools was a blast as well. I already am involved with this on Friday mornings at one particular school, but with ministry week we went to about 6 different schools. We taught them a song, put on a skit and had them learn a memory verse each time. New Zealand kids are so stinking cute! They’re little accents are absolutely adorable.

Ministry Week Part 2

The Youth Night was Saturday night and it was a hit. The theme was God’s Love and we had the kids go around to different “stations” to experience God’s Love in different ways. It was fun to brainstorm ideas and to see how to implement them with zero budget. It was a ton of work but I really enjoyed the process.

The room or “station” I led was the “love wall” where I talked to the kids about identity. They each got to take their picture in their new identity in Christ.

Lastly we did some gardening. And by gardening, I mean pulling weeds. One cool story is before we went to Cambridge High School to pull weeds some of the teachers were bashing on Christians and a lady from Capernwray kind of spoke up. They all didn’t realize she was a Christian and kind of shut up after that but still mumbled negative stuff about Christians in general. Then we come along and have no clue about this and just get going on some hard core weeding. I now appreciate the beautiful gardens people have after hours of pulling weeds. It only rained a little and we all seemed to have positive attitudes while we worked. Afterwards the gardener was really thankful for our help and I guess the teacher’s attitudes had changed and didn’t have cynical stuff to say. They were kind of impressed that we served and did it with a smile. It was really cool to find all of it out the next day when we heard the story. No, none of the teachers accepted Jesus, but God used a mindless thing like pulling weeds in someone’s life as one step closer to being a Christian.

My team had a WIDE variety of people on it and it was very challenging at times. Partly because I got sick straight from the get go, my patience was at an all time low. Thank Jesus it’s not my own strength I rely on. Every morning we would have devotional time and because my host family was gone most of the time I really got to enjoy getting into the Word and depending on Jesus.

Earthquake

I've gotten a lot of emails and facebook posts about the earthquake so I figured it would be worth blogging my thoughts and stuff on it.

The earthquake's magnitude was 7.1 and happened around 4:30am last Saturday in Christchurch. Here at school we don't have the best updates on news so I actually found out from a fellow student who found out from our principal calling into the school that morning. Peter Thomas our principal had already called down to the other Capernwray school that morning and heard that everything and everyone was ok down there and knew that since the quake was international news people's parents and friends would most likely be contacting them. Sure enough, I went online and had already received emails about it.

Another student (Ben Reshey) made this image to show how far away we were from the earthquake. We didn't feel it at all.

It's crazy to think about how much damage was caused by the earthquake and how it could have easily happened when we are traveling to the south island on two week break or somewhere closer to school. It makes you realize how you can't depend on anything but Christ.

It's interesting how sometimes we think, "Oh, well at least I have Jesus" but to have Jesus as your personal savior is to have everything. Being here and traveling on weekends, I continue to see how HUGE God is and how crazy it is that he cares about each individual person. As I live in this small community with people from different cultures and very different personalities I am super humbled by how selfish I can be and how I can't do anything without the Holy Spirit.

I've been praying alot for the people in Christchurch. I don't just pray that they would feel better or everything would be ok, but also that they would get a bigger picture of their need for Jesus and see how unreliable stuff in this world is.

Thanks for all your concern for me when you heard about the quake and for your continued prayers for me over here! I can't tell you how much I appreciate them.

Raglan

Last weekend I went to Raglan with a few other students. Raglan is on the top five places to visit in New Zealand so I was really excited to see this famously known surfing beach.

A crazy thing about New Zealand is that the color of sand on their beaches is different depending on what side of the island you are on. Last post about Mount Mauganui you can see that there was white sand on the beach because it's on the east side of NZ. Raglan is on the west side so there is black sand. Here's a picture of it. It more looks like wet sand instead of "black" sand but still there is a difference.

We walked along the beach and then explored.

Here is the good ol' Husker 'N'. It's funny how much more my Husker pride has developed since I've been away. I think because it reminds me of home. It's weird to not have "game days" and stuff. GOOOO BIIIGGG REEEDDD, GO BIG RED :)

Even though it was cool and really windy it was still an awesome time at the beach.

We took two cars to Raglan and the driver of my car was this kiwi named Oliver. He saw this sign on the way back for Bridal Veil Falls and on the spur of the moment decided we should check them out. We were running a bit late for dinner but after see the falls we were SO thrilled that we stopped. The top lookout point only took about 10 mins to get to and the middle lookout point only was 2 mins more so it was perfect.

Bridal Veil falls from the middle lookout point

Here is the view from the top lookout point.

Random bits

Here are a few things that aren't really big enough to write a whole blog post about so I thought I'd combine them.

On Sundays, like I've blogged before, me and two other students are assigned to St. Andrews in Cambridge for church. It's Anglican and very different from CCC but I love it! The people are absolutely amazing and so welcoming. This past Sunday we had a pot luck after church and here are a few pictures from it.

Here we are in the hall singing show tunes as part of the festivities of the pot luck.

Here is Kelsey, Foongi, Diane (Di) and me. Di (pronounced "die") was the first person we met at tea after church. She is hysterical and all three of us look forward to each Sunday when we get to see her.

Here is Kristine (called baby Kristine), Deborah, and me (called mama Christine) on our way to a concert at a church about a half hour away. The band was Sons of Korah. They were really really good. They're an Australian band that sings the Psalms.

A couple weeks ago we were all talking about home and showing each other on google maps where we live. It was so cute how excited everyone gets when it's their turn to talk about their home towns. Later we were watching a movie and someone popped some popcorn and then yelled out "Hey, Christine, this popcorn is from Nebraska!" I was so excited that I immediately got my camera.

and yes, it was delicious :)

Prayer Request:

- Praise that my kness are all better and I didn't have to go to the doctor for them

- Prayer for 2 week break that is September 23 - October 11 (yes, I am aware that it's a bit longer than 2 weeks). Prayer for planning and that we can keep the cost down when we travel.

- Prayer for ministry week next week in Cambridge. That God would work in the hearts of Non-Christians in Cambridge and that lots and lots of people would come to the events.

- Praise for how God has been stretching me in how I look at missions and how God calls us to REST in Him not work for Him.

Mount Mauganui

A couple weekends ago I went on a trip to Mt Mauganui. It was really really cool. We drove on a ton of windy roads and here is a picture of me when we stopped at this amazing lookout point on our way there.

Here is the Mount in the distance.

The first thing we did was head up the Mount. It wasn't long before about half of the people who went decided to head to the shops and not up the steady climb up the Mount. It was so cool because as we walked up the scenery totally changed. At first there was sheep and here is a picture of a shepard with a baby lamb and a sheep. Then it was more foresty, and at the top more rocks.

Here is a good picture of how we felt walking up.

But the view at the top was gorgeous! You could see for miles and miles.

Here we are at the very top point. Of course the boys were excited to climb even higher on this tepee looking thing.

After we climbed down we headed to the beach. New Zealand has different colored sand depending on which part of the island you are on. Here on the East coast there is white sand and the beach here was beautiful! The weather wasn't super nice. It was a bit chilly but since the sun was shining it was warm. Not swimming weather but nice enough to still enjoy the beach.

We walked along it and picked up sea shells and stuff. The peninsula thing in the previous picture of me on the beach looked like it would be cool to walk on so we headed there next. I was the one to convince everyone it would be fun and I'm glad it turned out to have really cool views.

Here's a picture of me on some rocks with Mt. Mauganui in the background.

After a long day of walking and climbing we got icecream and this really quaint icecream place. I also found some sweet thrift stores when we were walking around the shops and stuff which is always a good time.

All in all, it was a super great day and fun to be there with the friends I continue to make at Bible School. I love getting out and exploring on weekends and really experiencing the different parts of New Zealand. I also see my faith in action when I go places on the weekends because you can learn all you want about loving people and trusting God but then its cool to actually do that. I'm sure when two week break comes around I'll be putting even more into practice.

I've also come to really appreciate the way the ocean is instantly calming. I love the sound of the waves. It sounds weird but it reminds me of Africa. When I went a couple years ago we stayed right by the ocean for part of the short term missions trip and we would put these plastic chairs on the beach at night and talk and just listen to the sound of the waves coming in. It was the first time that I thought about how God delights in creation. Something I've been learning here is how even as beautiful creation and nature is, God delights in us even more. When He made man He said it is Very good, unlike the other days of creation when he just said good.

I really love that people can experience New Zealand with me by reading this blog. And I hope that as you see the beauty, that I don't do justice to with my pictures, it reminds you that God loves us even more that all the beauty in nature and His love is wider and deeper than any ocean and higher than any mountain. :)