Morning Tea Devo

Here is a devotional that I did for our Morning Tea time:

As we were driving to Milford Sound on two-week break I saw a sign that said “Mirror Lakes”. As most of you are aware of, the sign was for the lakes that are so smooth and still, that they perfectly reflect the mountains and scenery above them.

Here is a picture of one that I saw in the Abel Tasman. It’s really incredible because you could be upside down and it would still look the exact same.

As we continued driving, I started to think about the lakes and the way they reflect the nature around them. In the days previous, I had just finished a book I was reading by Mark Batterson, a pastor in Washington DC. The book is “Primal: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity”. Here is a bit of the book:

In and of ourselves, we’re not capable of loving God. We cannot manufacture love for Him. We can only respond to His love for us. And I hope that sets you free. Religion is all about doing things for God. Christianity is all about receiving what Christ has done for us on the cross. And what we do for God is a reflection of and response to what God has done for us.

It’s not about what you can do for God; it’s about what God has done for you.

Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. – Romans 12:1 MSG

This is where the lakes come in. I think we are the water and God is the amazingly beautiful landscape above us. The water in and of itself cannot produce a picture like the one reflected. Water can’t be mountains and water can’t be flowers or trees; it can only reflect it. Just like how we can’t be God, we can only receive Him, his goodness and the fruits of Holy Spirit and we can reflect Him. And we reflect God best when we are still before Him. The water is most like a mirror when there are as little amount of waves as possible.

Because we live in a broken world, we will always have waves. Just as the wind creates waves on the water so, in life our own brokenness or outside circumstances can come and break up the reflection on God that we are intended to have. Actually we in and of ourselves can’t calm the waters, but we know from Matthew 8:23-27 that Jesus can. It says

“Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. Suddenly, a fierce storm stuck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown” Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. The disciples were amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked. “Even the winds and waves obey him!”

Jesus calms waves and storms in nature and in our lives. When we rely on Him and keep our focus on Jesus we are able to be still.

It all comes down to receiving and reflecting. It’s not as much about us as we sometimes think it is. It’s all about God. Here is more from Mark Batterson’s book:

Everything minus God equals nothing. God plus nothing equals everything. (repeat) At the end of the day, all that maters is God. God is God. And the quest for our lost soul often begins when we get to the end of ourselves. But that is when life really begins.

We all want our lives to be about something bigger than us, more important than us, longer lasting that us. And that is exactly what God wants for you. But that isn’t the ultimate goal. Loving God is. And if you learn to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then your life will exceed your wildest expectations. Why? Because His love will be reflected in your life.

As we enter into a new term with lots of assignments and hard work, I want to encourage you to take time to be still before God. To remember who it is that we worship and how we are utterly dependent on Him for everything. We aren’t called to work hard for Him because He says “and without faith it is impossible to please him” – Hebrews 6:1

Another verse that helps me keep my focus where it should be is “but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well: - Matthew 6:33

Because as I quoted before out of Mark’s book “It’s not about what you can do for God; it’s about what God has done for you.”

Learning Lots

I haven't been as disciplined on my blog posted lately and most of them center around traveling or doing various things in New Zealand but few are about actual Bible School.

It's hard to believe in just a couple weeks my time at Monavale campus will end. I have made so many close friends here and have learned SO much!

Just the list of lectures we have had is incredible. Our semester is broken into two terms (with the two week break in between). A list of the lecture we had the first term are: Daniel, Missions, Prayer, "Living as Jesus Lived", Colossians and Ephesians. This term we have studied: Revelation, 1 Corinthians, "Cults and Occults", Mark 1-8, Deuteronomy, Herbrews, 1 Peter and Minor Prophets. Each week a different lecturer or teacher comes in and teaches and it has been amazing. Some of my favorites have been Jim Wright who taught Mark 1-8, Lew Meyer who taught about cults and occults and Ron Lowery who taught Colossians.

On top of lectures, once a week we also have seminar groups and book clubs. The seminar group I'm in is Hermenutics with Hayden, who is also my family group leader. It's pretty interesting. I never realized how much I had gotten my theology from speakers or books or Sunday messages instead of reading and studying the bible for myself first. The book I'm reading is "Saving Life of Christ" by Major Ian Thomas who founded Capernwray. It's pretty amazing. The main theme of it is resting in Christ and not "trying" to be a good Christian but "trusting" God to work through you. It takes the emphasis off us and puts it where it should be, on Christ.

On top of that, we also have family groups that meet once a week during our morning tea time and that's like our small group time. My family leaders are Hayden, our dean of students and Dave Firth, our communications director and the BML (Business Ministry Leadership) teacher. I love family time and look forward to it all week. It's nice to bounce ideas of each other and we all take turns presenting a bible study that we have done.

The assignments we have are mostly bible studies. I've never written as many papers as I have here because I went to art school so it hasn't come naturally but I've really enjoyed it. We also did a oral report and study paper this term which was challenging but fun.

I think I've learned a ton from living in such a small tight-knit community as much as, if not more, than the lectures. You can't hold grudges and you can't pick and choose who you hang out with like at home. You also see your own selfishness a lot clearer when put in situations with so many different personalities and cultures. I have been stretched and challenged so much by the other students here. It's really cool how God planned for us all to be together for this time.

Thank you for all your continued prayer and support. I get overwhelmed sometimes that I get to be here and have this amazing experience and I wouldn't have been able to come if people hadn't supported me the way that they did.

Rugby Game

Here in New Zealand, ruby is a huge deal. They get as excited about it as Nebraskans do about Husker football. A while back, I was able to go to a live game and it was super fun! The teams were Waikato vs Canterbury. Waikato is the name of the region I live in and Canterbury is in the South Island and includes Christchurch.

I went with Deborah (German) and Scott (Australian)

I guess the mascot for Waikato is a cow because of the large amount of dairy farms here. Here is the main mascot and some little kids with cow heads on riding in the back of the truck at the opening of the game.

One of my favorite parts of ruby is when they throw the ball in and the teams lift their guy up to catch it. I'm sure it has a technical name but I have no clue what it is.

After the game, everyone went onto the field and we got to meet some of the players. We wanted to get pictures with them even though we had no clue who they were.

Here is a Waikato player with me and Deborah. I'm pretty sure their shirts have a cartoon of a waiter serving a beer....

Here we are with a Canterbury player. This dude was huge!

Another Waikato player who I have no clue who he is

And another...

And here we are with some of the French rowing team because the World Rowing Championships were in Cambridge so there were lots of internationals a few weeks back around town.

It was a super fun time and reminded me a lot about watching Husker games. Oh, and Waikato won!! whoohoo!

Coromandel weekend

A couple weekends ago, I went away with a few other students to the Coromandel Pennisula. It was a long weekend because of Labor Day so we wanted to head to the beaches.

The first beach we went to was Cathedral Cove. It was about a half hour walk down to the cove but it was definitely worth it. Here is a view from where we parked at.

Here is the path down. It was not as fun coming back up.

Cathedral Cove. The water was pretty cold but there was another island, bigger than this rock, a little out in the ocean, that we all swam to and jumped off of, which was really fun!

Laying out is one of my top five favorite activities :)

After a day at the beach... heading to our campsite.

One of the students said we could stay on his family's land for the weekend but he stressed it was just land with no facilities and wasn't anything fancy. We didn't care as long as we didn't have to pay to stay somewhere. When we got there we realized it was on the top of this hill and had an incredible view! It was such an amazing blessing to get to stay there!

Me on the campsite hill in the morning.

My tent is the blue and orange one. I bought it on 2 week break and then didn't end up using it so it was nice to get it and it worked really well. (and got a really good deal on it)

We went to a church on Sunday that was super sweet in Whitianga.

Classic beach necessities... Blublockers (thank you Mike), journal and water bottle :)

The second day we went to Hot Water Beach. Here's how they have hot water :"Some volcanos develop huge underground reservoirs of superheated water. Over time, this water will escape to the surface — cooling on the way." - Mercurybay.co.nz

So everyone brings a shovel and you dig in the sand and bam you have a hot water pool. It's only in the one area on the beach so it's funny to see all the people gathered in this one spot.

That night, when Leah and I went for a walk, she heard something and it ended up being a hedgehog and of course Leah had a pet hedgehog so she picked the little guy right up.

The last beach we went to on Monday was Whangamata Beach which was also lovely. It's hard to go wrong with beaches in NZ, especially when there were basically no clouds in the sky that weekend. It was really nice to just relax. We have lots of projects this semester so it can get overwhelming but then you go to the beach and listen to the waves and remember how big God is and how silly my problems are and sigh, all is good in the world.

Prayer Request:

- Praise for an awesome roommate this term

- Praise for me getting up early everyday and going to prayer meeting

- Praise for being able to run and warm weather so we can now go in the pool

- Prayer for my 6 week summer break coming up in about a month

- Prayer for time management with assignments and hanging out with friends

- Prayer against worry for what I'll do after Bible School

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.