2 week break part 2

So where I left off on my last post was about when we were in Queenstown. After Queenstown we went to Manapouri where we stayed at a house that the people I stayed with for ministry week had down there. It was a huge blessing but also came with frustrations. At that point there were 12 of us all traveling together and when we all stayed in one house together it was hard for me. In my last post, I talked about learning to love others. Well, in Manapouri, I realized how much, I was still trying to hold onto control of my plans for the trip and my plans for what others should or shouldn't be doing. It all came to a head and I felt like God was asking me "Will you trust ME, and only ME even if all your plans fall apart and people drama happen?" I had intended to make the trip about God but it was in Manapouri that I really saw how much I needed to surrender to Him.

Here is a picture of me outside a church we went to on Sunday in TeAnau near Manapouri. It was a really cute church and after we went there we headed to Milford Sound.

Milford Sound is one of the top three places everyone tells you to visit in New Zealand. It had just had snow the week before we got there and was closed down because you have to drive on this crazy windy road to get to it and it's super dangerous to drive on when there is snow. Luckily, there was no snow and it was a clear sunny day when we went. We took this scenic cruise around the Sound to get up close to the waterfalls and mountains.

Here is part of the Milford Sound. It was so incredible and huge!

Here is one of the many waterfalls. This one was cool with the rainbow in the mist.

Here is a picture of the lake we stayed at in Manapouri. It was small but really pretty and the windows of the house we stayed at had this view.

After Milford Sound we started making our way back up north and took the west coast so we could see the Fox and Franz Joseph Glaciers. Here is some water on the way to see the Fox Glacier. It was this incredible blue color.

Me by the Fox Glacier

After the Glaciers, we went to the Pancake Rocks just north of Greymouth. They were really cool looking rocks and they are called Pancake Rocks because they looked like stacks of pancakes. I imagine large round rocks when I heard their name so I was very surprised when we actually saw them :)

Only a couple of people wanted to go to the Abel Tasman when we got back up to the north of the South Island. Here is on our way to the Abel Tasman. The sand color is orange-ish on this side of the island. It was so pretty with the color of the water, making it look blue, then green then yellow.

Jellyfish. First time I've ever seen one outside of the zoo.

Me walking the Abel Tasman. We didn't get to see very much of it so I'm excited to get back there and do more hiking because it's super gorgeous.

After this day, we stayed in Nelson for a couple days and then went back to Picton to cross the ferry again.

When we were in Picton, we went to church at this church we randomly picked. It happened to be a congregation that had an average age of 75 I would guess. To make it even funnier, we went on a Sunday where they were having a special service to honor the elderly. Only three of us went and afterwards we met this guy named Paul. He was really nice and really wanted to show us around Picton. We hopped into his van and he took us to all these sweet lookout points and then we went back to his place and he made us amazing scones and told us a billion cool stories. I think we made his day and he definitely made ours.

Here is a picture of the Interislander Ferry we took across.

We got across to Wellington on the North Island around 2am and decided to drive to school which was about an 8 hour drive. Mitch drove for 5.5 hours and I drove for only about an hour and a half. The crazy thing was we hit snow about halfway up after being south for over 2 weeks and not even having rain it was a drastic change. We stopped in at a gas station and they told about another road to take so that we would have to drive in the snow which was helpful.

We got back to school and hit the ground running. We lost about 5 student to Adventure Bible School (ABS) and we gained about 6 students for a Business Ministry Leadership (BML) program which is a new thing they are starting this term. It was good to be back in a consistent bed and take a long shower and eat delicious meals! I have a new roommate this term named Sun who is South Korean and is 42 years old, so they put us to oldies together ;) It's a huge blessing to live with her.

2 week break part 1

It has been a whirlwind since getting back from 2 week break. I posted pictures on facebook but I wanted to give some more detail about my trip all around the South Island. Obviously I can't write about every detail but here are the highlights.

This is Wellington. It was cloudy and REALLY windy when we got there. It's about a 8 hour drive from school, but with stops it took us about 10 hours. We got in really late the first night so the next day we had time to explore until our ferry left at midnight.

This is part of the "Writers Block" in Wellington. They have these random quotes from different writers in concrete. Some of them were really cool but they were a lot harder to find than we thought so we only saw about half of them.

This is Te Papa Museum in Wellington. It was really cool and had 6 levels. It was mostly about NZ history and the Maori people. We all split up so I spent most of my time on the top level in the art galleries.

Here is our car FULL of stuff on the ferry. It was so windy so the ferry rocked back and forth a lot. We made friends with one of the guys on staff so he opened up this section for us and let us sleep on these benches which was really nice of him. We still were freezing and a little sea sick when we got off but appreciated the act of kindness. We crossed over to Picton that night and stayed in our cars. It was a funny experience. Not the most comfortable but we only had three people in the car so it wasn't that bad.

Here I am in Picton. We hung out here for a little while before heading to Kiakoura. It was still pretty windy and chilly here.

On our way to Kaikoura we saw this beach that we HAD to stop at. In the distance we could see snowcapped mountains. That big piece of wood was what we laid on for a solid half hour break before reaching Kaikoura.

Here is amazing Kaikoura . It was so unbelievable! the mountains in the background and bright blue water from the ocean. This is also when our weather took a turn for the better and we started having sunny skies with little to no clouds everyday!

Here is a picture of a seal. We saw tons of them at the edge of this peninsula in Kaikoura . It was a really pretty walk down to where they were (about an hour each way) and you could get up really close to them. It was about sunset when we saw them so the skies were super colorful and it was so amazing at one point I had to just sit down to soak it in.

One of my favorite time in Kaikoura was when we made this camp fire on the beach and sang worship songs. After we had been singing for a while we saw a moon-rise. It was incredible. The moon started out red coming up over the water and then turned orange and then yellowish. I didn't even know moon-rises happened and it took us a while to figure out what it was. Later that night we camped right by the water about 25 mins out of town.

We went to church every Sunday on break and we usually just randomly picked one. In Kaikoura we went to an Anglican church which was full of really sweet people. They gave us a tip on seeing baby seals at the bottom of this waterfall just outside of town and it was SO cute! They splashed around and jumped off the sides into the water. We were really thankful for the tip!

That day we headed to my Esther's family house (my old roommate) to stay there for a night. It's about an hour outside of Christchurch and had all sorts of animals! It was so sweet that her family let us stay and they even made us pizza for dinner which was a huge blessing after eating PB&J for the last couple days. Here I am in front of the pigs and chickens they had.

Here is Esther's alpacas which are hilarious looking and one of their sheep.

The animals continued in the house where they had longhaired dachshund puppies!! They were so cute (because they were small). After we stayed the night, we headed into Christchurch the next day.

This is Michelle, Mitch and myself at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. The three of us were all in the same car together.

Here is the Christchurch Cathedral. It was really nice. We didn't see very much earthquake damage in the main city.

I was the only one who wanted to go to the top of the Cathedral tower. It was a reallly windy staircase that you climb and is 134 steps. I liked the sign at the top.

The view from the top was really awesome.

Here is another view of Christchurch.

Next we went to Lyttleton, not far from Christchurch for the evening. This lookout point was beautiful so we took lots of pictures!

In Lyttleton, we stopped at a Fish 'N' Chips shop and I saw this full tattooed Maori guy. I asked if I could get a photo with him because I had heard of the full faced tattoo but he was the first one I had seen in person.

This is overlooking Akaroa, near Christchurch. We left Lyttleton late and drove for a super long time on really windy roads to get to Akaroa in the dark. A backpackers let us stay there even though they had already closed which was a huge blessing. We had intended on doing a hike the next day but couldn't find it so we ended up just taking pictures at this view.

We all really enjoy taking pictures :)

After leaving Akaroa we headed to Geraldine to see the other Capernwray called the "Crossing". It was super cute and much smaller so there was only 18 students. They had just started school the previous week so it was a fun reminder of how we were when we first arrived.

The Crossing house. I have heard LOTS of stories of this place from Nick and Angie Kelly because they used to run this B&B before it was a Capernwray school. It was fun to see the teachers that were up at our Monavale school last term.

That night we ended up at Lake Tekapo. Here's a picture of Mitch hanging up our tent which we borrowed from the school's resource room. It was a terrible tent and we had to string it up to a tree and our car that night. The wind almost took the whole thing away.

Lake Tekapo was gorgeous. It was one of my favorite places. The water is SO blue and the mountains in the distance are unbelievable. This is a picture of sunrise. I had gotten up really early that day and was journalling by the water.

Later that day Michelle and I went for a walk by that water at Lake Tekapo.

Here is a lookout point for Mt Cook, the tallest mountain in the New Zealand. We didn't get to go closer to the mountain because of the way we planned our trip but it was cool to see it from distance.

When we were in Wanaka, we did this walk up Mt Iron which had some spectacular views at the top.

Here is halfway up Mt Iron overlooking Wanaka.

This is me at the top.

This is me at the airport when we picked up Frank in Queenstown. He was helping at a camp the first week so we had just Mitch, Michelle and I for the first part of the trip and then the four of us for the rest.

This is a walk I did with a friend named Kym when we were in Queenstown. It has some really spectacular views at the top.

On the way down we saw these kids jumping on a trampoline that was build into the ground sooo naturally I asked if I could jump on it and they said yes. Then they had to show me their flips which I definitely am not skilled enough to do

Here is a lookout point on the Queenstown Walkway.

Yum Starbucks! I think this picture is hilarious because of the way the wind is blowing my hair, I look like a spokesperson for Starbucks NZ.

This is a picture of the Gondala we went on in Queenstown

At the top of the Gondala in Queenstown, sporting my sweet Camlebak backpack that I got for a super discount in Wellington.

One of the favorite places for everyone in Queenstown was Fergburger. They had GIANT burgers that taste like American burgers and not the NZ ones you find everywhere else. I had to split mine with someone because it was too big for me. Also, I found this lovely hat at a Salvation Army in Queenstown. NZ thrift stores (or op shops) are amazing.

The Saturday in Queenstown had a little market by the harbor where people where selling crafts and stuff. It was really cute.

More of the market. Later I took a nap under the willow tree right by here.

And that concludes part one of my two week break. There's so much to write about but I hope that gives a little glimpse into what I was up to. New Zealand is incredible because it's so small but every square inch of it is jam-packed with beautiful scenery.

Everyday we would pray for our day and I did a Beth Moore bible study I've been working on each day as well. It was great to make the trip about God and not about sight-seeing.

In this part of the trip I really saw how selfish I am when it comes to loving people. I've heard it been said before that when you travel with people you see them as they really are. I think that's true and unfortunately you usually don't see the good side of them. For me I saw that I can get caught up in sticking to the plan or doing things my way over focusing on God and living out of the Holy Spirit in all things, not just some things. It was cool how God broke me down but then taught me so much after that. In the second post I'll talk more about what He taught me when it comes to loving others.

Here's a vague map of where I went for the 2 and a half weeks I was gone. If you click on it you can view the larger size.