What'd Up!!!
So I'm in Wanaka right now, and its a much quieter town compared to Queenstown... in a sense. Its not as busy and loud as Queenstown but the youth in this town are quite loud. Apparently here in New Zealand Kiwi youth have been getting slightly outta hand and there have been a lot of problems and police ending up in hospitals... Unfortunately some hostels won't even accept people if the are younger Kiwis. Good thing we aren't Kiwis in this time of year... but still unfortunate because all hostels are full and we aren't overly sure where we'll be staying these next two nights.. We might just end up camping out somewhere which is always fun.
Tonight is New Years so we're going to see what New Years is like here in Wanaka, and then tomorrow we are most likely going to hike up a mountain and stay in a hut or a tent. We will be back in Wanaka for a few more days after that, and then we will be heading up the west coast.
It's crazy how fast time flies by. It's already day 15 of outreach and we are a quarter of the way done... it's crazy that we are already in Wanaka because it feels just that yesterday we were at base planning on where we would be heading and Wanaka seemed so far away. It's crazy that my mom sent me a package in the mail 2 weeks before i left for outreach and its still not here hahaha! It's crazy How I haven't seen my fam or my friends from home in 3 months, and that I haven't seen my friends that are in India, Thailand, and Australia in 2 weeks. Everything is going by so fast. I hate thinking that "April before you know it your gunna be hitting up the books... dang..." That's how life is though... Weird thing though, lately through this holiday season I've actually have been missing you all back at home. I find myself wondering what everyone is up to and such... and of course being like "dude, I really miss my dog."
Well there you go folks, a few random thoughts from me. I'll be posting up a team blog update in a few days so make sure you hit that up. Miss you all greatly and look forward to seeing you all in the new year!
Happy New Years!!
April
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Quick 10 minute blog... starting...
NOW! Ok so i only have 10 minutes maybe less to fill you in on what's going down. We are currently in Queenstown... quiet town.. not!! This place is known as the party capital in NZ and possibly one of the party capitals in the world, and I'll tell you what it definitely lies up to its name. For the past week we were camping at Te Anau and one night at Milford Sound. Te Anau was quite quiet and didn't have very many people so ministry opportunities we're slightly limited. We are all doing pretty good, as we learn about each other we've definietly had some struggles, but when does that not happen in a family? Tomorrow is Christmas and we are all missing home and our families but we are all excited to experience Christmas in a New Zealand type way. Christmas is Christmas, and it doesn't matter where you are in the world it always means the same thing.
Marry Christmas All,
To Dad, Mom, Adam, and Danielle: I miss you all very much and am thinking of you guys in this Christmas season. Much love, hugs and kisses!
April
Marry Christmas All,
To Dad, Mom, Adam, and Danielle: I miss you all very much and am thinking of you guys in this Christmas season. Much love, hugs and kisses!
April
Friday, December 17, 2010
Lecture Faze atta End.
Hey All!First off I'm going to apologize for the long amounts of time in between my blogs, I know it's been over a month which is kinda ridiculous, however within the last month life got super crazy and much has happened!
Speakers.
So Week Five we had Gordon, who spoke on the Father Heart of God. Gordon talked a lot about information that I’ve already known, however apart from the lecture there was a lot of realizations that I did come to. I realized that there is pain and hurt that I haven’t dealt with, or thought that I didn’t need to because it was unnecessary. Unfortunately for myself I was wrong about that. Listening to Gordon talk really helped me think deep into those hurts and be able to let them go.
Week 6 We Had Sam who spoke on Spiritual Warfare. Hmm where to begin... Well I’m just going to be honest; I wasn’t a huge fan of Sam’s. It might have been because of the fact that he was really built up to me before he got here and then just didn’t meet the expectations that I had, or he just didn’t click for me. The information was key, and was very important, but other than that Sam didn’t impact me as much as other speakers. This week has been really awesome, having the snowboarders come back and welcoming them into our family was awesome!! I loved getting to know them, playing soccer with them, and serving them. It was really sad to see them leave, and as well as hard to say goodbye to the ones I got to be close to.
Week 7 was Aaron who didn't have a topic so it was a Spirit lead week. Aaron’s week was a very interesting week, hard to process just because there wasn’t a particular aim that he was teaching on... he was just teaching where he felt the Holy Spirit was leading him. Aaron made us think, and think hard about stuff that we already knew from before but on a deeper level. What really impacted me about this week was how practical and hands on Aaron was. Not only did he teach us about praying, and prophesying but he got us to do it as well. At the beginning of the week I thought that only certain people had the gift of prophesying, but through Aaron’s teaching he made it a lot clearer that everyone can prophisize by inviting the Holy Spirit to enter in. It was sooooooo cool when it actually happened though. I was in awe of how the Holy Spirit can move! The only down part about Aaron was that he didn’t have time to spend with us students, as soon as lecture was over he usually headed out quickly. It was just a tad disappointing because I would have liked to pick his mind a bit on some subjects. But all in all I thought Aaron was great and really easy to listen to.
Week 8 was Mark Parker who spoke on Lordship! This past week has been a very interesting week, I didn’t like Mark Parker at the start, and I think it was due to his “in your face” personality. I wasn’t so keen on him that’s for sure. But what he spoke about each day was really great. I especially enjoyed his talk on relationships, it reaffirmed my view on relationships, as well as I personally think it’s a subject that is not talked enough about and needs to be talked about more. It was great hearing it come from him because he is a dad. I really enjoyed what Mark set up for us on Friday. It was kind of like doing surgery to our souls and hearts, and it was incredibly moving. The most impactful part for me was when we had to take a burnt and sin offering to God, letting go of some things was really hard to do, but once it was done it was completely freeing.
Week 9 was Matt Dawson who's topic was relationships... FAVORITE SPEAKER SO FAR! Matt reminded me sooo much of Marty Mcfly from Back to the Future, mostly because of his personality and his sense of humour. He was really easy to listen to, which made it easy to learn, but hard to take notes. It was really great that Matt can be very direct with whatever he was talking about, there was no beating around the bush about a point that he was trying to get across he was just blunt. Yes bluntness for some people isn’t good, but when it comes to talking about relationships the bluntness was great. Matt talked a lot about stuff that I’ve already learned and have grown from, but it was really great to just have those ideas and thoughts reaffirmed. During this week we also had something called Angels and Mortals week, which was we each were an Angel and had one person who was our Mortal. Throughout the week we had to bless our mortals by doing crazy nice stuff for them, but it all had to be done in secret! My mortal was Erik who is from Sweden, and I had so much fun blessing him; my favorite one was when I got all the girls to serenade him at the beginning of class one day. We sang Ain't No Mountain High Enough, and so what we did was every girl had a line and so when it came to their line the stood up and sang it and then at the chorus we all walked to him singing the song and then said your angel loves you and gave him a group hug. I don't think I've ever seen Erik's face so red, but he did tell me later that it was one of his favorites because of how funny it was. This week was probably one of my most favorite weeks because of how much fun it was to bless our family, to be blessed, and to learn about relationships.
Week10 Chris Donaldson on Missions.
Week 9 was Matt Dawson who's topic was relationships... FAVORITE SPEAKER SO FAR! Matt reminded me sooo much of Marty Mcfly from Back to the Future, mostly because of his personality and his sense of humour. He was really easy to listen to, which made it easy to learn, but hard to take notes. It was really great that Matt can be very direct with whatever he was talking about, there was no beating around the bush about a point that he was trying to get across he was just blunt. Yes bluntness for some people isn’t good, but when it comes to talking about relationships the bluntness was great. Matt talked a lot about stuff that I’ve already learned and have grown from, but it was really great to just have those ideas and thoughts reaffirmed. During this week we also had something called Angels and Mortals week, which was we each were an Angel and had one person who was our Mortal. Throughout the week we had to bless our mortals by doing crazy nice stuff for them, but it all had to be done in secret! My mortal was Erik who is from Sweden, and I had so much fun blessing him; my favorite one was when I got all the girls to serenade him at the beginning of class one day. We sang Ain't No Mountain High Enough, and so what we did was every girl had a line and so when it came to their line the stood up and sang it and then at the chorus we all walked to him singing the song and then said your angel loves you and gave him a group hug. I don't think I've ever seen Erik's face so red, but he did tell me later that it was one of his favorites because of how funny it was. This week was probably one of my most favorite weeks because of how much fun it was to bless our family, to be blessed, and to learn about relationships.
Week10 Chris Donaldson on Missions.
Chris had good lessons to teach us this week, however I don’t feel like I got much from him. It might have to do with the fact that he was talking/teaching us about stuff that we have already learned during the lecture faze. I felt like a lot of the stuff he brought to lecture had already been covered, or I’ve already known. It was really awesome how he got us to do hands on things. I LOVED doing the project of the 10 year plan! So basically we got put into smaller groups, had to pick a place (my team was Israel), and make a 10 year plan for missions in that country. This made me so excited for missions, excited for Israel, excited for the future, and excited to see what else God has in store! It was crazy to see how possible this could actually be. Chris took information we already knew and made us more excited about it.
Week11 Shane Jette OutReach.
Shane and Tara are wonderful people and have amazing kids, just saying. Anyways, it’s hard to have a great opinion of what Shane is like for a speaker just because it’s only half way through the week, but also because of the topic for the week it must be hard to bring new information. What I mean is, Shane is the last speaker and is talking about Outreach prep, therefore lots of the information the he could be talking about has already been said by many other speakers... which does make it somewhat hard to listen to in lecture just because we’ve heard a lot of it before... Not saying that Shane is a bad speaker, it just must be really tough for him is all.
OutReach Team... Team KiwiFiji!
Ok, so for those who don't know I'm on a team of 5, 2 staff, and 3 students. Really exciting news, Matt is actually one of my leaders! Crazy right?! I really didn't think it was possible for us to be on the same team because we were close friends from back home, so I'm really stoked about this! So there is Matt(SK. Canada) and Katie(WY.USA) as our leaders, then Kristoffer (Norway), Derek(NH, USA), and of course ME! Our team is pretty awesome, however it's kinda hard because none of the students I got close to while being here are on my team. One of them is on the Australia Fiji team, so there is a chance that our team will be able to meet up with them but that's it. It's been a hard process because when the teams were picked I saw all my friends with at least someone else that they are close to on their team. Yes, Matt and I are close, but at first I was frustrated thinking "But I can see Matt whenever I want at home, where I won't get to see my other close friends because they are so far away". After thinking about this for awhile I realized how selfish I was being, and didn't actually realize what sort of blessing God had given me. Yes, I'm not with any of my close friends studentwise which is rough, however when I go home and I'm having a rough day and need someone to talk to that has been through the same things as me and was there with me I can call up Matt and be like "Hey, you busy? I'm having a rough day can we hang out? Yes? Great! I'll be there in 15 minutest!" How special is that?! Really April wake up, can't you see that this is a rare occasion and it's a huge blessing to you!! So yeah that really woke me up.
Plans for our team... Well the rough outline for our teams travels go kinda like this... We are first going to travel about 6 hours to go and do the Kepler Track, which is a four day hike. Unfortunately we will not be going on this track because 2 weeks ago I tweaked a ligament in my ankle. So instead we are going to this amazing camping spot though I forget the name of it so I'll keep ya'll updated :) Alrighty! after the awesome camping experience we will head over to Queenstown which is in the southerner part of the South Island... confusing eh? haha! We will spend about a week in Queenstown and will be there over Christmas. We'll be staying in a hostel and will be working at a church! The next week we are going to go to Wanaka which is close to Queenstown and we will spend about a week there as well. After Wanaka we are going to head north up the west coast, possibly stopping at Fox Glacier, but our destination is the Able Tasman. The Able Tasman is a 3 day track that we will be doing! At Able Denver (school leader) will be doing a pastoral visit before we start, and he's going to be bringing the bases kayaks so that we can kayak and hike the Able!! Should be lots of fun! Apparently near the Able there is this bay where lots of penguins, seals, and dolphins go, and you can kayak in there and they'll come right up to you!! Its said to be a haven for them there, and there are so many dolphins that after awhile its like "oh, there goes another pod of dolphins over there..." I really hope we can go see that!! After we are done our 3 day track we will head to a spot called Hang Dog, which is suppose to be every climbers dream... The lifestyle of Hang Dog is camping, climbing, chill.... camping climbing chill... camping, climbing, slacklining, chill... hmmmm :) So we will be hanging and Hang Dog for a week. After hangdog we will head back down south along the east coast to Lyttelton for a day to have debrief for the NZ part of our trip. Then we will meet back at the base drop off the van then fly over to Fiji for 3 weeks yay!!
Highlights of the Last month.
1.We hiked Louis' pass which is a track up a steep mountain and it's suppose to take you 4-5 hours round trip and we made it up the mountain in less than an hour and a half... and then perhaps going down the mountain it was a lot faster due to running because we were soooo cold at the top. I only stayed at the top for about 5 minutes because of how cold it was! After Louis we went to a hut on Daniel's Lake... but little did we know we thought was a close by campground turned into an 8km(one way) track. So in one day we did a hike up a mountain and an 8km track, it was intense! On the way back the next day, near the end of the track there is this bridge... and perhaps a bunch of us might have jumped off of this bridge into the coldest mountain water of life!! It was awesome!!!!
2. Cave Streams!!! So about an hour away from Oxford there is a cave that has a mountain run off going through it. It takes about an hour or so to go through the cave and you're in at least knee deep water the whole time. It was soooo cool!!!! I went twice in one week I loved it so much. Unfortunately the cave streams is where I wrecked my ankle.
3. Last weekend! Alrighty, so on Saturday I got to go on a trail ride through some amazing scenery!! We took our horses into a river and it was so awesome cuz they started playing in the water and we got soaked! Anyways Sunday was killer awesome! After church I went with some of my buddies (Wyatt, Jonathan, Philip, and Nate) who are really awesome, and they took me to this waterfall. Well we didn't go to SEE the water fall we went tracking through the streams and climbing on smaller waterfalls! it was so sick awesome! We got to the big waterfall we couldn't climb it because it was to high up, however we did climb the cliffs around it and jumped into the pool at the bottom of it. The pool was about 20ft deep, and we jumped from about 10-15ft up. It was so awesome! Later that day all us girls had planned a surprise for the guys. We blindfolded them and took them to a river where we had a fire and had a wiener roast. Well Philip and Wyatt, who are always crazy decided it would be awesome to go a floating in the water. The river wasn't deep, but it was pretty fast moving... Normally I would never do anything like this, but they convinced me to go with them, even though we had no towels, change of clothes or anything... so we jumped in with whatever we had on... and it was fantastic!! It was such a great day!
Anyways all that's about it for now. I head out on Outreach tomorrow so if you wanna know what the team is up to our blog is teamkiwifiji.blogspot.com and it should also be connected to this blog. Love you all so much and thank you for the prayers! I'll update you as much as I can during outreach... which at this rate should be better than I have been so far!
Much Love!
April
Plans for our team... Well the rough outline for our teams travels go kinda like this... We are first going to travel about 6 hours to go and do the Kepler Track, which is a four day hike. Unfortunately we will not be going on this track because 2 weeks ago I tweaked a ligament in my ankle. So instead we are going to this amazing camping spot though I forget the name of it so I'll keep ya'll updated :) Alrighty! after the awesome camping experience we will head over to Queenstown which is in the southerner part of the South Island... confusing eh? haha! We will spend about a week in Queenstown and will be there over Christmas. We'll be staying in a hostel and will be working at a church! The next week we are going to go to Wanaka which is close to Queenstown and we will spend about a week there as well. After Wanaka we are going to head north up the west coast, possibly stopping at Fox Glacier, but our destination is the Able Tasman. The Able Tasman is a 3 day track that we will be doing! At Able Denver (school leader) will be doing a pastoral visit before we start, and he's going to be bringing the bases kayaks so that we can kayak and hike the Able!! Should be lots of fun! Apparently near the Able there is this bay where lots of penguins, seals, and dolphins go, and you can kayak in there and they'll come right up to you!! Its said to be a haven for them there, and there are so many dolphins that after awhile its like "oh, there goes another pod of dolphins over there..." I really hope we can go see that!! After we are done our 3 day track we will head to a spot called Hang Dog, which is suppose to be every climbers dream... The lifestyle of Hang Dog is camping, climbing, chill.... camping climbing chill... camping, climbing, slacklining, chill... hmmmm :) So we will be hanging and Hang Dog for a week. After hangdog we will head back down south along the east coast to Lyttelton for a day to have debrief for the NZ part of our trip. Then we will meet back at the base drop off the van then fly over to Fiji for 3 weeks yay!!
Highlights of the Last month.
1.We hiked Louis' pass which is a track up a steep mountain and it's suppose to take you 4-5 hours round trip and we made it up the mountain in less than an hour and a half... and then perhaps going down the mountain it was a lot faster due to running because we were soooo cold at the top. I only stayed at the top for about 5 minutes because of how cold it was! After Louis we went to a hut on Daniel's Lake... but little did we know we thought was a close by campground turned into an 8km(one way) track. So in one day we did a hike up a mountain and an 8km track, it was intense! On the way back the next day, near the end of the track there is this bridge... and perhaps a bunch of us might have jumped off of this bridge into the coldest mountain water of life!! It was awesome!!!!
2. Cave Streams!!! So about an hour away from Oxford there is a cave that has a mountain run off going through it. It takes about an hour or so to go through the cave and you're in at least knee deep water the whole time. It was soooo cool!!!! I went twice in one week I loved it so much. Unfortunately the cave streams is where I wrecked my ankle.
3. Last weekend! Alrighty, so on Saturday I got to go on a trail ride through some amazing scenery!! We took our horses into a river and it was so awesome cuz they started playing in the water and we got soaked! Anyways Sunday was killer awesome! After church I went with some of my buddies (Wyatt, Jonathan, Philip, and Nate) who are really awesome, and they took me to this waterfall. Well we didn't go to SEE the water fall we went tracking through the streams and climbing on smaller waterfalls! it was so sick awesome! We got to the big waterfall we couldn't climb it because it was to high up, however we did climb the cliffs around it and jumped into the pool at the bottom of it. The pool was about 20ft deep, and we jumped from about 10-15ft up. It was so awesome! Later that day all us girls had planned a surprise for the guys. We blindfolded them and took them to a river where we had a fire and had a wiener roast. Well Philip and Wyatt, who are always crazy decided it would be awesome to go a floating in the water. The river wasn't deep, but it was pretty fast moving... Normally I would never do anything like this, but they convinced me to go with them, even though we had no towels, change of clothes or anything... so we jumped in with whatever we had on... and it was fantastic!! It was such a great day!
Anyways all that's about it for now. I head out on Outreach tomorrow so if you wanna know what the team is up to our blog is teamkiwifiji.blogspot.com and it should also be connected to this blog. Love you all so much and thank you for the prayers! I'll update you as much as I can during outreach... which at this rate should be better than I have been so far!
Much Love!
April
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Long time No Blog?? OOPS!
Hey All!
First off I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY sorry I haven't blogged in an Uber long time!! So I guess this one is going to be uber long!!
Ok, 2md week of lectures we had our first speakers Jamie and Kim! Jamie is from Sydney and Kim is from Brisbane, and they came and taught us about the Reaching Backpackers, and oh my goodness I learned so much (ok lets get this right I've been learning a freaking alot everyday). I went from thinking backpacking is just something people do for fun, to knowing that it is a lifestyle that people choose and there are different types of backpackers; and all of them come down to people searching for something. This week was so amazing for me just because my perspective on backpackers as well as the ministry that I'm going into got turned around (for the good), and now I'm super excited! On Wednesday, all our small groups got divided and sent out to two different places; each girl small group was partnered up with a guy small group and we stayed in a hostel! Yup that's right folks, April experienced her very first hostel! We went down to this beautiful peninsula and went to a town called Akaroa! Akaroa was amazing! Sunny and warm, beautiful ocean, and beautiful mountains! When we got to the hostel there wasn't very many people around, so we decided to tour around the town then meet back there for supper (or should i say dinner they don't call it supper here). So that's what we did, when we came back for "dinner" there was a lot more people around which was awesome. we talked to people ate food, and then ended up playing pictionary with some backpackers all night! It was fantastic! The next morning we got up made pancakes, shared them with some of our friends from the night before, then packed our stuff up and headed out from the hostel. We stayed in town we just had to have our stuff out. Our team then met down by the pier to do some recap and prayer time, which ended up being super awesome because instead of praying together we all partnered off and did a prayer walk through town. So Katie and I started out on our adventurous prayer walk! What was a prayer walk through town turned into a prayer walk through town and up a mountain! We got to this bridge and then saw that there was a paved road going up a mountain so we figured it was still apart of town (which it was), but shortly going down this road i saw this narrow walking path so of course me being me was like "dude! we gotta go down this!" So that's what we did, and oh my lanta I'm so glad we did because it was BEAUTIFUL! We ended up hiking to the top and were in awe of God's creation. That day, we ended up just hanging out in Akaroa until about 3 in the afternoon. When we got back everyone was super excited to see each other and share their stories, it was so awesome! Friday was our first actual Friday Night Evangelism, and I'm on a team for the Beach/Park! And we gotta sick team! So basically we hit up the beach or park looking for people. So that Friday we hit up a park that had some people throwing a frisbee around and then there was two other people doing something with a rugby ball i think; so we were like sweet and started throwing a frisbee with eachother right close near by and with in about 5 minutes we had both groups come together and had a game of Ultimate going down. Freaking awesome right?! My fave game ever while evangelizing! It was a great time, and we met some really awesome people. That weekend I was a weekend warrior so I didn't get to go on the weekend trip, but stayed back with a team and cleaned and kept the base going; it was a fantastic time!
Third Week of lectures we had a lady named Mandy come and teach us about the Holy Spirit. This week was super super crazy awesome for me spiritually. I'm not going to share everything that happened because I'd be writing a book. But basically I was stressed about finances, stuff to do with home, and a few other things and everything on my list that I was stressed about God gave me reasons to not be stressed. A lot of healing for me happened through learning about the Holy Spirit. You know it's God when, someone prays for you about something that you've never told anyone about and have been struggling with since a child... When this happened I completely broke down before God, the Holy Spirit and everyone in the room. It was so amazing, and tremendous healing came from it! This didn't just happen to me but to a bunch of other people too. Holy Spirit week was amazing!
That Friday we hit up a different park and put on a sausage sizzler and went and gathered people to come! nothing better than free food right?! well we didn't get as many people as we hoped to but it was still awesome! The next day I did something completely new... I climbed my first mountain! I know i know i said Katie and hiked one in Akaroa, but that was nothing compared to Authors Pass! It was a 3 hour hike up, and about a 2 hour hike down. I don't think my muscles ever hurt so bad hahaha! Katie and I hiked just the two of us up to the hut which took about and 1 and 45 minutes. and we were pretty speedy. Once everyone got to the hut we had lunch then kept going. This time I hiked with some stellar guys named Erik who is from Sweden, and Evan who is from Colorado. It was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done! I wanted to give up so many times, but they guys wouldn’t let me, they were great because they totally could have kept going at their own speedy pace but they stuck with me which was so awesome! When we got to the top of the peek it was soooooo amazing!!!! Such Beauty! Evan soon had this fascination with making a snow ball and rolling it down the peek. It was pretty awesome because it’d get bigger and bigger as it went down... Soon enough all three of us were making snow balls. Once the group was together we were taking pictures, Erik made a snowman named Swen, Even was being crazy, then we all started having a snow fight which was awesome! Then we headed back down the mountain and Erik and I had a blast, he taught me Swedish, I was a hopeless case... I learned how to say skeet shooting, I love you, count to seven and.. “Mata mig jag vill ha oxfilé, klyftpotatis och en stek till” which means “Feed me a steak, some cut potatoes, and another steak” Yup that’s right folks, I am set for when I travel to Sweden.
Fourth Week of Lectures,
For the forth week we had an awesome speaker named Dalton... Well I can’t really say much of about what he talked about because it was so crazy and he went super fast so I’m still processing what he all said.
Friday night we ended up going to the big mall in Christchurch because it was raining. At first I was quite frustrated with myself because I found it really difficult to just go up to a person and start talking to them. So for an hour I was bummed. After an hour I had to go pick something up from a grocery store, no body else needed anything so I just told them I’d be right back, well Mary Loyd followed me in and as soon as we were outta ear shot from the group she was like “ok April what’s up.”... It’s crazy how well a person can know you after only a month! Well I told her what was going on and she was ok lets pray, so we did, and then we set off out on our own. So the first thing we did was go and find the coffee shop that we were going to meet the team at later on, and it was an amazing thing we did. We walked in there and there was no one there except for the girl working, so I swallowed my fear and walked straight up to her and started talking... Well 45 minutes later we were laughing and having a great time. I felt like I should do something nice for her, and since I found out that she doesn’t get to eat anything that they sell I asked her what her favourite thing to eat was and bought it for her. She was speechless, and had no idea what to do. So then she gets her cake thing out that looked amazing, and then she told me that she wanted to show the same kindness to me by giving me a coffee on the house. I was like “No its ok, cuz then it kinda defeats my purpose.” And then i got “no no, its ok, its not coasting me anything cuz its on the house.” Well people I had the most AMAZING coffee I’ve ever tasted! After that Mary Loyd and I met 4 other people and had great conversations with them!
Saturday for the weekend trip we headed out to a place called Kiakoura! When we first got there we went for a hike along the coast looking at the beautiful Turquoise Ocean and seals! On the first hour of the hike Matt and I hiked together and got to have some great catch up time... Life at the base is super crazy and since Matt is staff his schedule is even crazier than mine so we hardly get time together so it was really nice to talk with him! After the hike we headed to our campsite which was pretty much right on the beach! My van team made super that night, and then later on we had a HUGE bon fire on the beach!! The next morning we woke up had breaky, packed up our stuff then hung out at the beach until lunch... Had lunch then headed home! Weekend= Success!
First off I'm REALLY REALLY REALLY sorry I haven't blogged in an Uber long time!! So I guess this one is going to be uber long!!
Ok, 2md week of lectures we had our first speakers Jamie and Kim! Jamie is from Sydney and Kim is from Brisbane, and they came and taught us about the Reaching Backpackers, and oh my goodness I learned so much (ok lets get this right I've been learning a freaking alot everyday). I went from thinking backpacking is just something people do for fun, to knowing that it is a lifestyle that people choose and there are different types of backpackers; and all of them come down to people searching for something. This week was so amazing for me just because my perspective on backpackers as well as the ministry that I'm going into got turned around (for the good), and now I'm super excited! On Wednesday, all our small groups got divided and sent out to two different places; each girl small group was partnered up with a guy small group and we stayed in a hostel! Yup that's right folks, April experienced her very first hostel! We went down to this beautiful peninsula and went to a town called Akaroa! Akaroa was amazing! Sunny and warm, beautiful ocean, and beautiful mountains! When we got to the hostel there wasn't very many people around, so we decided to tour around the town then meet back there for supper (or should i say dinner they don't call it supper here). So that's what we did, when we came back for "dinner" there was a lot more people around which was awesome. we talked to people ate food, and then ended up playing pictionary with some backpackers all night! It was fantastic! The next morning we got up made pancakes, shared them with some of our friends from the night before, then packed our stuff up and headed out from the hostel. We stayed in town we just had to have our stuff out. Our team then met down by the pier to do some recap and prayer time, which ended up being super awesome because instead of praying together we all partnered off and did a prayer walk through town. So Katie and I started out on our adventurous prayer walk! What was a prayer walk through town turned into a prayer walk through town and up a mountain! We got to this bridge and then saw that there was a paved road going up a mountain so we figured it was still apart of town (which it was), but shortly going down this road i saw this narrow walking path so of course me being me was like "dude! we gotta go down this!" So that's what we did, and oh my lanta I'm so glad we did because it was BEAUTIFUL! We ended up hiking to the top and were in awe of God's creation. That day, we ended up just hanging out in Akaroa until about 3 in the afternoon. When we got back everyone was super excited to see each other and share their stories, it was so awesome! Friday was our first actual Friday Night Evangelism, and I'm on a team for the Beach/Park! And we gotta sick team! So basically we hit up the beach or park looking for people. So that Friday we hit up a park that had some people throwing a frisbee around and then there was two other people doing something with a rugby ball i think; so we were like sweet and started throwing a frisbee with eachother right close near by and with in about 5 minutes we had both groups come together and had a game of Ultimate going down. Freaking awesome right?! My fave game ever while evangelizing! It was a great time, and we met some really awesome people. That weekend I was a weekend warrior so I didn't get to go on the weekend trip, but stayed back with a team and cleaned and kept the base going; it was a fantastic time!
Third Week of lectures we had a lady named Mandy come and teach us about the Holy Spirit. This week was super super crazy awesome for me spiritually. I'm not going to share everything that happened because I'd be writing a book. But basically I was stressed about finances, stuff to do with home, and a few other things and everything on my list that I was stressed about God gave me reasons to not be stressed. A lot of healing for me happened through learning about the Holy Spirit. You know it's God when, someone prays for you about something that you've never told anyone about and have been struggling with since a child... When this happened I completely broke down before God, the Holy Spirit and everyone in the room. It was so amazing, and tremendous healing came from it! This didn't just happen to me but to a bunch of other people too. Holy Spirit week was amazing!
That Friday we hit up a different park and put on a sausage sizzler and went and gathered people to come! nothing better than free food right?! well we didn't get as many people as we hoped to but it was still awesome! The next day I did something completely new... I climbed my first mountain! I know i know i said Katie and hiked one in Akaroa, but that was nothing compared to Authors Pass! It was a 3 hour hike up, and about a 2 hour hike down. I don't think my muscles ever hurt so bad hahaha! Katie and I hiked just the two of us up to the hut which took about and 1 and 45 minutes. and we were pretty speedy. Once everyone got to the hut we had lunch then kept going. This time I hiked with some stellar guys named Erik who is from Sweden, and Evan who is from Colorado. It was probably one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done! I wanted to give up so many times, but they guys wouldn’t let me, they were great because they totally could have kept going at their own speedy pace but they stuck with me which was so awesome! When we got to the top of the peek it was soooooo amazing!!!! Such Beauty! Evan soon had this fascination with making a snow ball and rolling it down the peek. It was pretty awesome because it’d get bigger and bigger as it went down... Soon enough all three of us were making snow balls. Once the group was together we were taking pictures, Erik made a snowman named Swen, Even was being crazy, then we all started having a snow fight which was awesome! Then we headed back down the mountain and Erik and I had a blast, he taught me Swedish, I was a hopeless case... I learned how to say skeet shooting, I love you, count to seven and.. “Mata mig jag vill ha oxfilé, klyftpotatis och en stek till” which means “Feed me a steak, some cut potatoes, and another steak” Yup that’s right folks, I am set for when I travel to Sweden.
Fourth Week of Lectures,
For the forth week we had an awesome speaker named Dalton... Well I can’t really say much of about what he talked about because it was so crazy and he went super fast so I’m still processing what he all said.
Friday night we ended up going to the big mall in Christchurch because it was raining. At first I was quite frustrated with myself because I found it really difficult to just go up to a person and start talking to them. So for an hour I was bummed. After an hour I had to go pick something up from a grocery store, no body else needed anything so I just told them I’d be right back, well Mary Loyd followed me in and as soon as we were outta ear shot from the group she was like “ok April what’s up.”... It’s crazy how well a person can know you after only a month! Well I told her what was going on and she was ok lets pray, so we did, and then we set off out on our own. So the first thing we did was go and find the coffee shop that we were going to meet the team at later on, and it was an amazing thing we did. We walked in there and there was no one there except for the girl working, so I swallowed my fear and walked straight up to her and started talking... Well 45 minutes later we were laughing and having a great time. I felt like I should do something nice for her, and since I found out that she doesn’t get to eat anything that they sell I asked her what her favourite thing to eat was and bought it for her. She was speechless, and had no idea what to do. So then she gets her cake thing out that looked amazing, and then she told me that she wanted to show the same kindness to me by giving me a coffee on the house. I was like “No its ok, cuz then it kinda defeats my purpose.” And then i got “no no, its ok, its not coasting me anything cuz its on the house.” Well people I had the most AMAZING coffee I’ve ever tasted! After that Mary Loyd and I met 4 other people and had great conversations with them!
Saturday for the weekend trip we headed out to a place called Kiakoura! When we first got there we went for a hike along the coast looking at the beautiful Turquoise Ocean and seals! On the first hour of the hike Matt and I hiked together and got to have some great catch up time... Life at the base is super crazy and since Matt is staff his schedule is even crazier than mine so we hardly get time together so it was really nice to talk with him! After the hike we headed to our campsite which was pretty much right on the beach! My van team made super that night, and then later on we had a HUGE bon fire on the beach!! The next morning we woke up had breaky, packed up our stuff then hung out at the beach until lunch... Had lunch then headed home! Weekend= Success!
Monday, October 11, 2010
Prayer Note
Just a Small Prayer note...
Ok so me and a few girls from my room are in some need of prayer. When we got here the financial costs for our DTS stage was higher than was first expected, so now getting enough funds for our Out Reach stage is quite a bit tighter. If you could pray for Malory, Laurie, and I that we would have peace about this and know its in Gods hands, as well as for the right amount of funds to come in according to where God intends us to go. Thank you so much for all your support :)
Blessings
April
Ok so me and a few girls from my room are in some need of prayer. When we got here the financial costs for our DTS stage was higher than was first expected, so now getting enough funds for our Out Reach stage is quite a bit tighter. If you could pray for Malory, Laurie, and I that we would have peace about this and know its in Gods hands, as well as for the right amount of funds to come in according to where God intends us to go. Thank you so much for all your support :)
Blessings
April
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Penguins in New Zealand?
Yes Mom, there are penguins in New Zealand I looked it up; apparently there are 6 different kinds of penguins so tells me the trusty internet. With the weather being how it has been these last few days I definitely do believe there are Penguins! It snowed here yesterday, not enough to leave anything on the ground but its still bitter cold. I hear that at home is nicer than it is here... Oh well.
Friday afternoon the whole group of us headed in to Christchurch to do Friday night Evangelism! But of course the first Friday night is different the then regular routine... I was so excited to go! When we got there we got sent out into teams of 4 to do a scavenger hunt around the city. It was such a fun time, it really helped us get to know our way around the city, and come closer to the people in our groups. We had to do a bunch of crazy stuff, Like find someone to sing Jesus loves me and record it... So April being the most brightest crayon in the box decided to ask everyone on the street that was coming our way... Well unfortunately I went up to this sweet little grandpa guy and asked him if he knew the song Jesus Loves Me.... and well this is what he said... " I'm sorry darling, but I'm completely deaf, were you asking me for directions?" Well I was completely stunned and felt absolutely terrible and all I could say was "I'm so sorry!!" meanwhile the rest of my team is trying so hard not to laugh. When we came back to the base a bunch of the guys were playing some instruments in the classroom, and of course me being me who loves music decided to go check it out... Well what went from a random jam session, ended up to be a few hours of worship! It was so awesome, and such an amazing time! Friday night= Success!!
Saturday we were suppose to go on our trip to Castle Hill which is on a mountain right behind our base, AND is where part of Narnia was filmed. But unfortunately it was a rainy day that was suppose to snow so the trip got canceled. So Mary-Loyd, Ryan, Issac, Phillip, Wyatt, Johnathan, Luca, and myself grabbed some instruments and decided to go to Christchurch to play on the streets! It was a awesome time! We played with a random boy and helped him make some money, and then we headed to the Botanical Gardens and played music in the most awesome tree I've ever seen. Picture this... a gigantic ever green but on the inside it was like a huge tent! Yup it was the coolest spot! And then some Asians really liked our music, so they came into the tree recorded us a bit then started taking their pictures in front of us... Kinda like how people do at Disneyland with the characters. so Saturday= Success!
So my weekend has been pretty awesome! yesterday was a pretty slack day, went to church did some slack lining, and read a book by the fire. Oh! Slacklining! Hey Scott and Adam! Yesterday I went all away across the slackline, turned and went all the way back! AND I can take a few steps backwards now!! I'm so stoked! I guess that's what happens when I slackline everyday here.
Well that's all for now, I'll write you guys again soon!!!
Blessings!
Friday afternoon the whole group of us headed in to Christchurch to do Friday night Evangelism! But of course the first Friday night is different the then regular routine... I was so excited to go! When we got there we got sent out into teams of 4 to do a scavenger hunt around the city. It was such a fun time, it really helped us get to know our way around the city, and come closer to the people in our groups. We had to do a bunch of crazy stuff, Like find someone to sing Jesus loves me and record it... So April being the most brightest crayon in the box decided to ask everyone on the street that was coming our way... Well unfortunately I went up to this sweet little grandpa guy and asked him if he knew the song Jesus Loves Me.... and well this is what he said... " I'm sorry darling, but I'm completely deaf, were you asking me for directions?" Well I was completely stunned and felt absolutely terrible and all I could say was "I'm so sorry!!" meanwhile the rest of my team is trying so hard not to laugh. When we came back to the base a bunch of the guys were playing some instruments in the classroom, and of course me being me who loves music decided to go check it out... Well what went from a random jam session, ended up to be a few hours of worship! It was so awesome, and such an amazing time! Friday night= Success!!
Saturday we were suppose to go on our trip to Castle Hill which is on a mountain right behind our base, AND is where part of Narnia was filmed. But unfortunately it was a rainy day that was suppose to snow so the trip got canceled. So Mary-Loyd, Ryan, Issac, Phillip, Wyatt, Johnathan, Luca, and myself grabbed some instruments and decided to go to Christchurch to play on the streets! It was a awesome time! We played with a random boy and helped him make some money, and then we headed to the Botanical Gardens and played music in the most awesome tree I've ever seen. Picture this... a gigantic ever green but on the inside it was like a huge tent! Yup it was the coolest spot! And then some Asians really liked our music, so they came into the tree recorded us a bit then started taking their pictures in front of us... Kinda like how people do at Disneyland with the characters. so Saturday= Success!
So my weekend has been pretty awesome! yesterday was a pretty slack day, went to church did some slack lining, and read a book by the fire. Oh! Slacklining! Hey Scott and Adam! Yesterday I went all away across the slackline, turned and went all the way back! AND I can take a few steps backwards now!! I'm so stoked! I guess that's what happens when I slackline everyday here.
Well that's all for now, I'll write you guys again soon!!!
Blessings!
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Sunshine and Daffodils
Alrighty everyone bare with me because this might not make a whole lot of sense..
This week has been a week of orientation, we've had classes on what worship is, what devotions are, on hear God's voice, and what bible study is all Key classes that we need to begin with in order to carry on throughout the rest of the DTS. I really enjoyed the lecture on Devotion, it was super awesome and straight to the heart!
The weather this week has been quite chilly, except for yesterday... For the majority of the week we were bundle up, wearing layers, mitts, and toques! Everyone here seems to get a kick out of the words "toques" and "bunny hugs" maybe its because Matt and I are the only ones from Saskatchewan. Yesterday on the other hand was beautiful! Lots of sunshine and heat! I think it got to be like 23C maybe? It was sure warm! SO we put some sunscreen on, headed out on a walk to find the Tulip field, which ended up to be a HUGE garden of mostly daffodils, and had some tulips in it. However we didn't enter the garden because there we're signs about dogs... my favorite was "Beware of dogs, Do not leave your vehicle!" after that we headed back for supper and some fabulous slack lining and Frisbee!
Well, there are 9 girls, 11 boys, 4 girl leaders, and 5 boy leaders. and yup, I do know everyones names! I live in an old school house called the Main House, on the lower level its the student lounge with a computer area, and on the upper level is where us girls live. I share a room with three other girls, all of them from the states! There's Laurie from Montana, Mary-Loyd from Louisiana, and Malory from Oregon. Mary Loyd has the coolest accent! My roomies are so awesome and a lot of fun so it's a great combination! Our room is decently large, with a lot of space to put our stuff, so we don't feel cramped at all.
This weekend we are going to Castle Hill, which I think is on the mountains behind our base so it's quite close. I'm super excited to go! As well as tomorrow we are heading into Christchurch to do Friday night Evangelism! Everything is so new and so exciting!
However I'm running out of time to keep typing, I have class in about 5 minutes so I should probably head out. I'll most likely give you guys another post after this weekend when I have more exciting stories to tell you about.
Thanks for all the Prayers!
Much Love!
April
This week has been a week of orientation, we've had classes on what worship is, what devotions are, on hear God's voice, and what bible study is all Key classes that we need to begin with in order to carry on throughout the rest of the DTS. I really enjoyed the lecture on Devotion, it was super awesome and straight to the heart!
The weather this week has been quite chilly, except for yesterday... For the majority of the week we were bundle up, wearing layers, mitts, and toques! Everyone here seems to get a kick out of the words "toques" and "bunny hugs" maybe its because Matt and I are the only ones from Saskatchewan. Yesterday on the other hand was beautiful! Lots of sunshine and heat! I think it got to be like 23C maybe? It was sure warm! SO we put some sunscreen on, headed out on a walk to find the Tulip field, which ended up to be a HUGE garden of mostly daffodils, and had some tulips in it. However we didn't enter the garden because there we're signs about dogs... my favorite was "Beware of dogs, Do not leave your vehicle!" after that we headed back for supper and some fabulous slack lining and Frisbee!
Well, there are 9 girls, 11 boys, 4 girl leaders, and 5 boy leaders. and yup, I do know everyones names! I live in an old school house called the Main House, on the lower level its the student lounge with a computer area, and on the upper level is where us girls live. I share a room with three other girls, all of them from the states! There's Laurie from Montana, Mary-Loyd from Louisiana, and Malory from Oregon. Mary Loyd has the coolest accent! My roomies are so awesome and a lot of fun so it's a great combination! Our room is decently large, with a lot of space to put our stuff, so we don't feel cramped at all.
This weekend we are going to Castle Hill, which I think is on the mountains behind our base so it's quite close. I'm super excited to go! As well as tomorrow we are heading into Christchurch to do Friday night Evangelism! Everything is so new and so exciting!
However I'm running out of time to keep typing, I have class in about 5 minutes so I should probably head out. I'll most likely give you guys another post after this weekend when I have more exciting stories to tell you about.
Thanks for all the Prayers!
Much Love!
April
Friday, October 1, 2010
Touch Down
Well I made it to New Zealand, and its a beautiful day here in Oxford... But lets start from the beginning...
On September 30th at 10:00 my mom, sister and I arrived at the airport. We put my lougage through and found out that was the last that I'd see of it until Christchurch which was a huge relife! Taryn showed up shortly after that and we all had breakfast and coffee and hung out until I had to leave. With a few tough goodbyes I was on my way, and at 12:20pm my plane took off. It was probably the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to do. With a short two hour trip I was in Vancouver. As easy as the Vancouver airport some how I managed to get lost while trying to find Ashlynn. Finally I found her, and we spend the whole afternoon talking and cathching up. at 6:00pm I went through customs which was surprisingly quick, then went and waited until 7:30 to board my plane. Still however quite emotional I wasn't the most chattest person on my flights. at 8:30 we finally took off and we were New Zealand bound. It was a long 13 hour flight to Auckland... I watch a few movies, listened to some music, and slept pretty little. My seat was 3 rows behind the wing so it was quite loud which made it hard to sleep. at 5:55am We touched down in Auckland, we weren't in Auckland very long, we were off the plane through security then back on the next plane and off to Christchurch.. Oh! For those who don't know I'm not the hugest fan of airports, I get quite nervous and stressed if I'm under a time limite. So off to Christchurch which was another hour and a bit. Finally we landed at 8:30, and I was more than anxious to get off the plane and to be done with Airports. But the fun didn't stop there. going through customs in Christchurch was quite the time consuming event. I had to wait in line for quite awhile to get my passport and visa cleared, then pick up my bagage(my duffle bage is ripped all along the top and is usless, my backpack is fine though) and wait in yet another long slow moving line up to get my bags checked, then finally I was out. I was so exhausted by this point that when I came out I forgot to look for my team picking me up! Good thing Matt was there though cuz he called my name and started to run towards me and with a huge sigh of relife i dropped my bags gave Matt a hug, and of course started to cry. Finally the long journey was over. So Matt and Rebecca picked up me and another Rebecca and we set out to find us some food. They gave us a short tour of Christchurch and found us a muffin, then we were off headed to our new home in Oxford. We got to the base where the rest of the team was to meet us at about 11:00am which to me felt like 3 in the afternoon. Matt gave me a quick tour I changed into some fresh close brushed my teeth and unpacked a bit. At 1:00 we had a delicous lunch, and now we are all just haning out and relaxing. I've played a bit of volleyball and have slack lined a bit and now i'm feeling even more exhausted.
I have no idea what the plans are for the rest of the day or even the weekend, but the next time I have some free time to sit down I'll definitely keep you all updated. Thanks for all the prayers everyone!!
April
On September 30th at 10:00 my mom, sister and I arrived at the airport. We put my lougage through and found out that was the last that I'd see of it until Christchurch which was a huge relife! Taryn showed up shortly after that and we all had breakfast and coffee and hung out until I had to leave. With a few tough goodbyes I was on my way, and at 12:20pm my plane took off. It was probably the hardest goodbyes I've ever had to do. With a short two hour trip I was in Vancouver. As easy as the Vancouver airport some how I managed to get lost while trying to find Ashlynn. Finally I found her, and we spend the whole afternoon talking and cathching up. at 6:00pm I went through customs which was surprisingly quick, then went and waited until 7:30 to board my plane. Still however quite emotional I wasn't the most chattest person on my flights. at 8:30 we finally took off and we were New Zealand bound. It was a long 13 hour flight to Auckland... I watch a few movies, listened to some music, and slept pretty little. My seat was 3 rows behind the wing so it was quite loud which made it hard to sleep. at 5:55am We touched down in Auckland, we weren't in Auckland very long, we were off the plane through security then back on the next plane and off to Christchurch.. Oh! For those who don't know I'm not the hugest fan of airports, I get quite nervous and stressed if I'm under a time limite. So off to Christchurch which was another hour and a bit. Finally we landed at 8:30, and I was more than anxious to get off the plane and to be done with Airports. But the fun didn't stop there. going through customs in Christchurch was quite the time consuming event. I had to wait in line for quite awhile to get my passport and visa cleared, then pick up my bagage(my duffle bage is ripped all along the top and is usless, my backpack is fine though) and wait in yet another long slow moving line up to get my bags checked, then finally I was out. I was so exhausted by this point that when I came out I forgot to look for my team picking me up! Good thing Matt was there though cuz he called my name and started to run towards me and with a huge sigh of relife i dropped my bags gave Matt a hug, and of course started to cry. Finally the long journey was over. So Matt and Rebecca picked up me and another Rebecca and we set out to find us some food. They gave us a short tour of Christchurch and found us a muffin, then we were off headed to our new home in Oxford. We got to the base where the rest of the team was to meet us at about 11:00am which to me felt like 3 in the afternoon. Matt gave me a quick tour I changed into some fresh close brushed my teeth and unpacked a bit. At 1:00 we had a delicous lunch, and now we are all just haning out and relaxing. I've played a bit of volleyball and have slack lined a bit and now i'm feeling even more exhausted.
I have no idea what the plans are for the rest of the day or even the weekend, but the next time I have some free time to sit down I'll definitely keep you all updated. Thanks for all the prayers everyone!!
April
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Support
Dear Family and Friends,
Well another year has come and flown by, I just finished up my 6th summer at Ranger Lake Bible Camp, and my passion for God and the children keeps growing and growing! In the past years a lot of you may know that I was deeply involved with the horse program as a Wrangler and as a Riding Director. This year however I got to experience a completely new side of camp! In the past I’ve had the odd week not at the barn, but this summer I was Program Director and Assistant JC Director. It was an amazing experience, and I loved every moment of it! It was challenging, stretching, and something completely different!
However my mission field does not end there! In July this year I got accepted to go on a YWAM. YWAM stands for Youth With A Mission which is an international, inter-denominational, non-profit Christian Missionary organization. There are over 1000 centers located all over the world that have many different programs in them, and the base that I will be going to is located in NEW ZEALAND!! There are both long term and short term programs. Each program has a Discipleship Training School faze and an Out Reach faze. The DTS faze consist of going to classes/ lectures Monday to Friday learning from a new speaker each week to prepare the team for the Out Reach faze. The Out Reach faze is the part of the program where we leave our base and go to a different part of the world to serve and do missions for God. I am going to be in a short term program, and as of right now I don’t know where I’ll be going, we will decide as a team during the DTS faze.
When being a part of any program to be or become a missionary it is greatly encouraged to build a support team full of our family, friends and community. So think of this as an invitation to invite you to join with me on this adventure that God has placed out in front of me. Support spiritually, and financially are greatly appreciated. And always remember every little thing counts and means tremendous amounts to me. I would love it if everyone could have me in their prayers and I step out into the unknown and walk in the direction God has planned for me.
Thank you so much!
Blessings
April Sawatzky
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