Firsts

Merry Christmas!
This week has had a lot of firsts. First week of outreach, first time at the tip of the south island, first time "preaching" (more like sharing) in a church, first time on a ferry, first time being on the north island of NZ, first time getting burnt in December, first time going to the beach in December or Christmas for that matter, first time away from home and in a completely different country for Christmas, first time eating sweet potato casserole with marshmellows, first time going to a midnight Christmas eve service, first time going a midnight Christmas eve service at an Anglican church with "carols, communion, and candles", first time having a Kiwi Christmas with a Kiwi family, there's been a lot of firsts. My first week of outreach has been so good. It's been heaps of fun and I've loved getting to know my team better along with getting to build relationships with awesome Kiwis. The Kiwi families and homes we've stayed at so far have been so lovely and so hospitable, God has blessed us with amazing contacts. Traveling through NZ makes you really appreciate the straight roads at home, their roads are so windy and curves at every possible corner or hill or mountain. It's also shown me how amazing God our creator, our Father is. God loves to amaze us his children. He is so vast and just like his love we'll ever only grasp a speck of who he is. Just helping a family do their yard work this week which couldn't be done due to family situations, we got to show them how beautiful and how loved they are in God's eyes. Even something as simple like doing someone's yard work because they aren't able right now God still uses us. He is just so amazing!
Some things that you can pray for is:
• team unity and a one-ness of our team
• that we would countinually be open and willing to follow the Holy Spirit
• that God would work through us and fill us up with more of His Holy Spirit
• energy for our team
• healing for my team leader, that her headaches and migraines would be gone
• open-ness and the softening of hearts of the people we meet and come into contact with
• that joy and thankfulness would be abundent
• for clarity and focus
Thanks so much for your prayers and may you be blessed in this epic Christmas season! Merry Christmas!

Christmas Post

Merry Christmas!

Yes, the season is here, even in the summer. Coming from Manitoba, this definitely does not have the same Christmas-y feel, but the warm weather is such a blessing and I really love it, especially the lack of -40C below zero. But off the topic of weather, outreach has arrived.

The Bangladesh & Thailand team are leaving at 3 AM Saturday, December 15th in the morning. (Tyler... I'm going to miss you heaps cousin...). The Nepal team is leaving at 3 AM Sunday, December 16th in the morning. And my team (New Zealand) is leaving at 8:30 AM Monday, December 17th in the morning. This last week has been filled with a lot of talk about outreach and leaving this weekend. Last night, (Wednesday) was our evening commissioning service, each team got prayed for as well as each person by staff, trustees and fellow students. It was a really releasing and encouraging night. This morning at our last base intercession before outreach we got to pray for the teams and write down encouraging words, scriptures and pictures for each of the teams, as well as individuals. Today, the frantic packing has begun as the stuff we are not bringing along is being put in storage at 6:15 PM tonight, and our bags we are taking along need to be pack as if we were leaving the base now. Friday, tomorrow is the awesome day of cleaning. All schools, Justice, Backpackers and Climbers will be cleaning the entire base, every knick nook and cranny all day.

I've learnt a little bit more about what my outreach is going to look like. Our destination is Matamata, New Zealand. On our way we are planning on staying 2 nights in a rented house (*staying in holiday housing such as a house or apartment is cheaper than a hostel, especially at Christmas time) in Motueka, this is for team building. Then we'll be off to Nelson, where we will be staying with a local pastor, Allen. We will be staying at their house till Sunday. Not sure what we'll be doing but most likely we'll be helping out with the church, it's small groups and Sunday we'll get to be part of a baptism service. From there we'll head to Picton to catch our ferry at 1 AM December 24th and at 3 AM we will land in Wellington, NZ. Our plan is to spend Christmas as a team here. As a good Kiwi tradition (after some sleep of course) we will spend our Christmas at the beach! And rumor has it, we might get to see The Hobbit as our Christmas present. :) After Christmas at the beach we will make our way to Taupo. We'll be staying here from December 27th - 28th with a couple who spoke at our school 2 weeks ago. They are Kelvyn & Karen Watkins and they have wonderfully invited us to their farm. (Fun fact: they live 15 minutes away from the waterfall featured in the Lord of Rings scenery for the elves home). One night there, and off to Matamata where we'll help with the King's Kid's family camp till January 6, 2013. From there, our plans are not set in stone. We are thinking of  spending 3 weeks up at the Auckland YWAM base and after we'll head to the Taraunga YWAM base to help with some of their ministries such as street evangelism. There we'll get to meet up and work with 2 of our past speakers Josh Cole and Marty Emmitt. We're planning that after mid-February that we'll held back here down to the South Island and work with Nvader, who's founder also spoke on our school. So that's the plan right now and I hope to update you with epic stories and how awesome God is very soon as we head out on Monday. Love you guys heaps and if you would like to pray for me over my 11 weeks on outreach specifically, please email me letting me know that you're behind my team and I. Prayer is really essentially to outreach and it would be lovely know you are praying for us. I would love to hear from you. Be dangerous for Jesus!

Ngā mihi o te Kirihimete me TeTau Hou. (Maori)

A Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Updates...

Hey everyone!
(Please click on the links as they tell you more information on what I am talking about...)
So I am excited to tell you that there is only 2 weeks left of lecture phase, and wow it's already December 2. Time flies like crazy. My outreach is coming together though plans are not definite until they happen. I found out last week that from December 27th - January 9th my team will be helping with a King's Kids (YWAM youth program) Family Camp up at the Matamata YWAM base on the North Island. We'll be most likely getting to help run the camp, like cooking and such. After we'll make our way to Taruanga where we'll meet our past speakers Joshua Cole and Marty Emmitt (they spoke on Intimacy with Jesus). Not fully sure what we will be doing with them but probably evangelism and working in connection with THOP. Our outreach will mostly consist of us road tripping around New Zealand and sharing Jesus with whoever we meet. I am getting so excited.
This weekend half of my school, traveled to the West Coast for a night. We visited the Pancake Rocks which were beautiful, by the way. We stayed at this cool hostel, it was in the middle of a bush, had a great dinner of spagetti (cooked by Izi and myself, it was fun cooking again!). After a late dinner we went to a glow worm cave. Our staff that came along said before we went in the cave that the most they've ever seen was 6, well there were more than 6, more like 50 glow worms. This morning we scrambled (literally scrambled, we had eggs) to make it out on time as we had to leave the hostel by 10am, due to breakfast being a lot late because of pancakes taking a super long time to fry. Before we left the West Coast got to go to the best short walk in New Zealand, the Truman Track. What a beautiful place, and we got to play in the ocean for a bit :)
Thanks so much for your support and for all your prayers! 
I will be posting some pictures as soon as I can...