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So far TEA has been going for 5 days. We have already done a day tramp and spent 2 nights in a bush hut up at Sonshine ranch. I know that during the next 2 and half months I am going to be really stretched, especially during the tramps. But hopefully during this time I will learn to depend on God so much more because I know during them times he will be the only one strong enough to push me on. We are now doing our Evangelism training. It looks like it will be an intense study week, but I am looking forward to learning new skills. We have been doing so much this week. George and Shirley have been teaching us simple techniques to use in starting a general conversation with a stranger, and how to lead that conversation onto Jesus. It’s been great, we’ve been practicing with each other, they even took us to Te Awamutu one afternoon and said ‘go and have some conversations’ – it was so scary, but it was also a great experience. Haruko and myself ended up talking to one lady in a shop, it didn’t lead onto anything deep really, but it just felt good to use the new things we had learnt and actually have a conversation with a stranger. We're off to the South Island - I'm quite excited, but also a little nervous - not sure what to expect - but it sure will be an adventure! Ok, so we have been tramping for 2 days now, the views have been spectacular, the team is great, but the tramping has been hard! At times I have cried because I did not feel like I could carry on and every bone or muscle in my body hurts – a lot! But I have never depended on God so much in all my life, I have had to throw myself onto him asking him to carry me through the tramps, giving me times to rest and renew my energy. We have been learning in our discipleship manuals today about prayer. It was all about how we should tell God everything and how we should not be afraid or worry but trust God to put peace in our hearts. So yeah, it’s been a hard couple days but a great time of growth! We stayed in the same hut as a French man for the last two nights, we all were really nervous because we knew that we were here to talk to people about God in these very circumstances, and we were all like “you go first’! So eventually George just asked him if we could practice what we had been learning on him!! The French guy was totally fine about it, but we certainly felt a bit silly – but we went on to have quite a long conversation with him, which was really great. On our way out of the tramp we saw a dead cow on the track, it was pretty disgusting because it was all bloated and really fat. As we were walking past it George suddenly picked up some rocks and started throwing them at the cow – I was shocked just thinking ‘what is he doing’, then I knew when one of the rocks finally hit the cow on it's stomach and bounced straight off making the loudest “boing” noise I’ve ever heard! George thought it was hilarious of course because we were all in shock from what he had done and the noise that came from the cow! It was definitely an interesting finish to our first big tramp in the bush! We went to the beach for devotions this morning - it was so beautiful. We watched the waves and sang songs and then shared thoughts with each other. I shared my favourite verse at the moment - Joshua 1:9, 'I have commanded you to be strong and brave. Do not be discouraged, for I, the Lord, will be with you wherever you go.' Then we headed off to Christchurch, we went to the town centre where Shirley told us to think of a way to talk to some people there. Of course Christchurch being the unique place it is, you can do almost anything in the town centre and it is accepted! So three of us decided to do something unique of our own. We made a sign that read ‘free 5 minute shoulder massage’! And we sat there hoping that people would actually take us seriously. One man was sitting near us, and although he didn’t take up our offer of a massage he was very intrigued as to why we were doing this, and we had two other men who were wanting a massage as well, and of course their first question was ‘why are you doing this’? Which was perfect because that led us straight into a conversation about Jesus. It was so much fun to do something so bizarre and see God use it. We went to Mt Cook today, very beautiful and we also heard an avalanche, which was cool. Now we are staying in Glentanner in a room with two other guys, one from Texas and another from Switzerland. We had so much fun tonight, we invited the guy from Texas to play cards with us, and he lost so badly! We drove to Queenstown today – we are staying here for 2 nights. We met a cyclist from Switzerland who’s camping here too. We adopted him into our group and even made him dinner! It was great, one of the girls spoke with him for a long time about Christ and eventually she gave him a New Testament to take with him on the rest of his trip – it’s truly amazing to see God at work in people’s lives. Drove to Milford Sound, it’s so beautiful here, New Zealand is so beautiful! Today we climbed what I called a mountain but Shirley called a hill!! It was called Key Summit and was a walk of 400 meters up! Was tough but worth it. The view at the top was incredible – just amazing. And we had such good fun making crazy photos of us all jumping off rocks and things! Definitely worth the sweat to reach the top. We also met a man from Israel who saw us on the track and thought we were tramping nuns – totally bizarre to hear what some people’s first impressions of us are! I jumped out of a plane at 9,000ft and I’m alive!! It was awesome. I can’t describe the feeling. The best bit was the actual jumping out of the plane – all that was going through my head was “Lord help me” and then “Argh”! We then went on to the glaciers and we met a girl at our holiday park, who stayed with us in Milford Sound. It was really great to see her again because some of the girls had been chatting to her, and discovered that she was soul-searching but hadn’t found anything, so she was just going to take bits from each religion to make a one that suited her. The girls shared their stories with her and she seemed a bit interested, but then she left. So when we saw her again at the holiday park we just knew that God must be working. So we spent some time with her and took her out with us to go and see the glaciers, it’s not only amazing to see God working, but it’s amazing to feel God working through you. Had to get up at 5 this morning – crazy! But we had to get to Nelson as early as possible to pick up George, We are preparing for our big 7 day tramp, a little scary, also a little exciting! This is our first day of our 7 day tramp – crazy! Today was only 3 hours long; it was quite easy, flat mostly along the lakeside, which was really pleasant. In the study today we have been learning about servanthood – it’s really good to just be reminded to not want glory and praise for your actions, but instead send the glory on to God – the one who deserves it. Why is the second day always bad! Well it actually started out ok; it was after maybe 4 hours that I got real tired, and I did not want to continue. But now I am so thankful to God (and the team) for pushing me through, I definitely know that it was God’s strength and not my own that got me to the hut. I was dreading today; I thought it was going to be too hard. But it was actually really cool because we walked up in snow, and the view at the top was just…wow! I’m so glad that I have done this; this experience has been so amazing – even with the tough bits. Today was a good day, a bit of a tough climb but worth it, the hut we are staying in is really cute – it’s small, old and hidden away in the bush. We also found two other people staying in the hut, which was a bit surprising as it’s not a popular hut because it’s off the main route. But it was great to meet the couple there, and George had an interesting conversation with the man about Christ. The huts are such a great place to share the gospel with people because everyone is hanging around with not much to do, so most people really enjoy talking with you, and you find usually they are more interested about Christ than you think. We went up to another little hut today, but this time in crazy weather. The rain is just coming down hard, but now that we are in the hut we are all cosy and warm – although we have to run out to the stream every time we want water because there isn’t a sink in this hut! The sun has been shining all day today – it’s been great, we all just enjoyed the walk today. Although I did stub my sore toe on a rock and that really hurt! I was really touched by the team today; they could see that I was really struggling at the beginning of the tramp this morning so we all stopped and they prayed for me, it was incredible – our team is becoming more of a family, and depending on each other and helping each other out. I’m so glad I’m here with them on this. Today we caught the ferry back to Wellington and met up with Nina. It was great to see her again. We all missed her whilst we were tramping. She’s been telling us all her stories of how she met a girl in Wellington and how it led onto her sharing her testimony; it was a real encouragement to hear that she’s been using this past week for God. Today was great, Nina and me went for breakfast in Wellington and I had pancakes with banana, maple syrup and bacon!! I never thought that combination would work but it tasted so good!!! Today was our first day canoeing – I really love canoeing, especially when the sun is shining! Damaris and I are in a canoe together, it’s so funny, we keep going the wrong way and almost crashing! Day 2 of our canoe adventure! The weather has been so great today, no rain at all. We are staying at a campsite on a Marae; it’s such a nice place. There are a few other people here so we are hoping to talk to them later on. Last night was crazy! We started singing our Maori song that we had learnt to sing to the Maori people who stay at the Marae, a few of the other people camping there came and watched. So then we kind of sang songs from their different countries (Israelis, French, Germans, and Americans) and we sang some Christian songs. Then George and Shirley taught everyone an African song, George was so excited about it that he made everyone get up and dance!! They did the conga and the limbo. It was the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen – crazy! Of course there was no way they were getting me to do that – I just hid myself as much as possible! Well today Nina and me left the group, they are all going tramping. I am quite sad because I don’t like being away from the group and it would’ve been cool to do the tramp – but my foot and knee are just not getting better and it would’ve been foolish for me to try and tramp. Today Nina and myself wrote the puppet show/drama for the evangelism week, it looks like it may be ok! And tomorrow I think we are starting to make the Christmas decorations that we are going to give to people when we go door-to-door – we are baking salt dough! Wow the salt dough was hard to do. We made it and that was ok, but then we had to shape them into wreaths and put berries on them and it was so difficult, it took all day. Tomorrow we drive to Rotorua to meet up with the team; I’m really excited to be back with them again. We went to natural hot pools in Rotorua today, it was good fun. We put mud all over our faces and relaxed, it was very nice, although it did smell a bit! We were split into pairs and put into different holiday parks for a couple of nights because we think that being in such a big group all the time makes it difficult for us to talk to people, so we are hoping that being in smaller groups will help a bit. Damaris and me met a man in the pools at our holiday park today, he’s from Australia. We spoke with him for quite some time, but he wasn’t really interested in religion or anything, he just kept telling us about how his daughter is into all that stuff and that its great for her. Hopefully he will realise one day that it’s good for him too! Started heading back north today and we stopped by the Nikau caves. They are so cool. You have this one bit where you feel like you’re in mission impossible, and then the rest is just walking through and looking at the beautiful caves and seeing the glowworms. We stayed on a Marae last night, it’s such an experience, I love hearing the men speak to us in Maori and tell us about their culture. The Marae we stayed in was called Te Kotahitanga, which means unity. We spent today preparing for our Evangelism week, or E-week. It looks like it’s going to be really good; I’m excited for the kid’s programmes. We started learning all different sorts of dramas and mimes this morning, and then this afternoon we learnt some rope tricks for when we go to Otara markets. Then this evening our team did a programme at the girls rally at Papakura Bible Chapel. The day started with clown lessons! I didn’t realise there was so much preparing to do for becoming a clown, and it uses up so much of your energy because you don’t speak and you are meant to be quite active, so you get tired really quick. In the afternoon we went to an old peoples home to practice being clowns, it was good fun and some of the old people were so happy to see us. I didn’t realise what just being a clown can do for people. It was great just to share Jesus today through fun, laughter and love. Up early this morning to get out to Mercy Missions where we spent three hours packing food parcels. Then this evening we had a prayer night, which was really good. We spent time praying for different parts of the world and then also singing for a while. Shirley was telling us about the 10/40 window, I had never heard of it before. It was interesting and also a little sad to hear about how most of the people living in the 10/40 window have never even heard about Christ before. Makes you appreciate a bit more of the life Christ has blessed you with. We spent the morning until 3.00pm practicing at Matt’s house the evangelism tool he taught us to use in the town where he lives. We are meant to just walk up to people and start asking them if we can do a survey and that should lead on to the gospel message, it looks like a good technique, but we spent all morning getting really nervous!! Sarah and me paired up as a team for when we went into town, at first we were really scared, but it was so cool! I made Sarah go first, and even though the ladies we spoke to were sarcastic, they listened until she was finished. And then it was my turn to share, so I found two ladies and a kid, and they were really interested and so happy to hear about Jesus and what he’s done for us – it was great! After each person we spoke with Sarah and me said a quick prayer for them, and then moved on to find someone else. We met so many people and heard so many different stories from them; we were so excited to see God working through us today. This morning we went to Otara markets and showed people rope tricks, it was raining really bad so it was quite hard to get people to stop and watch the tricks, but a few people watched and I was able to show one guy a rope trick with the gospel message which was cool. Today was scary time! We went door-to-door handing out the Christmas decorations we had made and doing Christmas surveys which asked people what they thought Christmas was all about. It actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, some people were really keen to talk, one man was even telling us that it was about time he made up his mind about Jesus Christ. Then one lady I was speaking with started talking about evolution and I didn’t have any answers for her, but I discovered she wasn’t really interested in hearing what we had to say anyway. It was quite sad to have that experience, but at the same time I remembered that it’s Gods work not mine and that I’m just here to plant the seeds, it’s God who makes them grow! The team set off on our last tramp this morning in the Kaimais, but 10 minutes into our car journey to the forest park we had car troubles. George was looking at the engine under my seat when suddenly the water exploded like a fountain (inside the car!) it was an incredible sight! So we ended up having to call for someone to come and fix the van. This of course delayed our tramping by a few hours so we had to change the plans a bit and go a different way around the track. But we still had lots of fun – we had to cross a river six times to get to the hut for the night, we got quite wet! Our plans changed again today. We were meant to walk to a waterfall but the weather forecast looks bad for tomorrow and we can’t get stuck on the wrong side of the river, so instead we took the same path as yesterday, which meant that we had to cross that river six more times! We didn’t mind so much because it was fun! I can’t believe TEA is almost over, it’s really sad, mostly because I don’t want the team to leave! The walk today was good, quite easy, although we were all a bit sad to leave the forest because it meant that we would not be tramping together again. But we have a few more days left for some adventures! We are spending some time together just relaxing as a team for our last few days. We went up to Mangawhai heads today to the beach and did a bit of sand boarding. It was good fun, although we didn’t slide down very fast! After the beach we went to a swimming pool and had great fun sliding down the big water slides screaming at the top of our voices! We are spending the night at the beach, sleeping under a shelter we made ourselves with a tarpaulin and rope, it’s quite cool, and you can see all the stars. I can’t believe there is only one night left of TEA! Last day of TEA! We had a nice breakfast at the beach and then we headed back to Papakura to clean up and pack our bags. We also exchanged secret Santa presents that we had got each other, and then watched Lord of the rings number 3! A nice end to a brilliant and exciting 10 weeks, every day has been such an adventure! TEA for me was definitely a time of growth, not just spiritually but also in many other ways. I have learnt practical skills that I didn't have before joining the team (i.e. cooking!), I have grown in my physical ability, I have grown in my understanding of other cultures and I have grown in my love and understanding of the Bible and Jesus. Spending ten weeks with the team was great fun and we had so many adventures that I will be able to cherish forever. The team also caused me to think more of others and their needs, also to respect their cultures and way of life; and helped me to develop my patience because sometimes it can be hard sharing all of your life with seven other people!!! The
study each morning was a great way of re-igniting my passion for God. It
helped remind me of why I was a Christian and what my real aims in life
should be - to live God's way! |
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