To Life

So on my last night in Altoona, Rachel, Ashley, Valerie, Kirsten and I did some art...
All we knew is that we wanted to create something that showed a journey, something that had a part of each of us in it...sort of like life. But what started as a fun art project became worship and what emerged was something beautiful and somewhat sacred.
These women have become so special to me over the past few weeks and it was such a blessing to have been able to spend this time together. I cried a lot at the airport when I had to say goodbye.

But as always, my home lies in Christ...when I know this, I am at home wherever I go in the world. And I will live in this truth even when everything else is changing.

Goodbye Altoona

It’s time now for the second set of goodbye’s...something we were not created to do.

I believe that soon there will be a time when Jesus returns to complete His kingdom, and then there will be no more separation and no more saying goodbye to the people we love. But until then, I wait.

I’ve been in Altoona now for 13 days, staying with my friend Rachel and her house mates, Valerie and Ashley. This has been a LOT of fun and I’ve experienced lots and learnt lots and made memories.

I thought I would share some of the highlights... (I know my friends at home like this game)

We went to see a real baseball game...Pittsburgh Pirates vs the New York Metz...everyone expected the Pirates to lose, but they pulled through! I felt like I was in a movie or something the whole time. We just don’t do this stuff at home! Especially when everyone stood up and started singing ‘Take me out to the Ballgame’

Another night I went quad biking in the dark and sat around a campfire with some new friends...that was fun.

And going out to Canoe Creek (A state park) with Rachel and talking at the edge of the lake...I enjoyed that a lot...

Tackle Frisbee in the park...

Hair drying crayons so they melt...

Story time at night...

Attempting to cook dinner with Ashley...

Show and Tell at Val’s school...

It’s been a good two weeks.

And now I am moving on up to Canada, to Pioneer camp where I will be living until the end of January, it’s been great to travel around and see my friends and do things, but it will be nice to get somewhere and be able to unpack and begin to build into some friendships and find my place there.

God has been so so good to me and I have felt His hand over every part of this journey so far.

When everything else is moving and changing, He remains the same, but everyday He changes me and loves me further into the person He has called me to be.

Surrender

God is using this time to teach me so much about myself and about other people, which is sometime a little bit painful and always it's humbling, which is something I need a lot.
I'm learning that I am full of pride and believed that I can change things and fix things and help people on my own... but then God reminded me that I am nothing on my own and the people I want to help don't need me anyway, they need Jesus. He whispered that the best way to love is to surrender them to Love Himself.
Even so, I keep realising how little I know how to love people well and how blessed I have been to have been given friends who hang in there with me.

Life in Altoona

 It's hard to write a blog post when there hasn't been one main thing happen, instead there have been lots and lots of little things which have made up my life this past week and it is so hard to try and condense that down...but because I promised I would tell you what I experience, I'll try.

Cleaning the maple leaf seeds off the roof

 I'm in Altoona now, which is about 5 ish hours away from where i was last week...Its a small city, bigger than Nelson, but smaller than Christchurch. I'm staying with my friend Rachel and her housemates, Valerie and Ashley. Its been a lot of fun just trying to fit into their lives and do the things they do and meet the people they love. I've been to a few volleyball games  that the some of the youth group were playing in and got to cheer for them and wear shirts and sit in the bleachers...I felt like I was in American high school. And I've been at the church a lot because Rachel is a youth pastor there, so we went to bible studies and clothes giveaways and kids programmes...stuff like that, which I've enjoyed a lot because i love people and there are always lots of them there!  We've visited a nice park and talked lots and there has been yummy American food and bedtime stories at night with the girls which is always fun and climbed on the roof and painted pictures.
Its been a funny thing, coming over here where only a few people know me and meeting everyone else new, because whoever I am to them is how they know me. No one knows what I was like as a kid or when i was really shy or anything like that. To them I am simply whoeever I treat them. So I have been thinking a lot about being real and not pretending with anyone but living openly, so that people might be able to see what Jesus is doing.

Squirrels, Soggy Boots and Dead Presidents.

Washing my face in Shenandoah National park

All 169 metres of the Washington Mermorial...

I've survived the week so i assume I will do okay from here on in! I have been doing and seeing and hearing so so much and at times it seems pretty overwhelming but I will try to describe some of it. These past few days I have been down to Washington DC to see some of the more touristy type stuff then went hiking in Shenandoah (For you kiwi's who, like me, will never say this right... its pronounced Shannon-dough-ah) national park for a few days. DC was a cool experience, I hate being labelled as a tourist but it was pretty fun to be one just for a few hours. We took the metro in and walked around the mall (another translation... Mall means a grassy strip, not a shopping complex) to see the monuments and reflecting pool, which wasn't reflecting because they were doing maintenance! Checked out the museum of natural history, and saw dinosaurs! But I have to say one of the best moments of the day was feeding this crazy little tame squirrel Cheetos from my hand...amazing.
Then the next couple days we hiked into Shenandoah national park and dissapeared into the wilderness for a while. I was hoping so much to see a bear but I guess that will have to wait till another time....
BUT I saw some incredible creatures that are semi common round here but I thought were freakin awesome... like deer (cute bambi ones, not boring NZ ones) chipmunks, squirrels, cardinals, blue jays, wood peckers, bunny rabbits, giant millipedes...
Something that was very different to tramping at home thought is that everything has to be done considering the bears that live in the park. For instance, we had to cook and eat far away from the tents, not leave food lying around on the ground and tie the bag that had any food, deoderant, smelly anything, up in a tree far away from the tents...so that was a pretty different experience.
I went with Kiri, Brian and their friend Lisa, which made for a super educational trip because Kiri is an ecologist (plant expert) Brian is a entomologist (bug expert) and Lisa is an ornithologist (bird expert) so there was Latin words and scientific names and taxonomy refrences flying all over the place! Was fun though, I enjoyed seeing all of that stuff in a way I havent before.
We were planning on going for two nights, but the first night it rained all night the most of the next day so everything was wet and we were all cold and soggy so we decided to walk out all the way the second day. After a quick wet dinner under a tree, we donned head torches and wet packs and tramped out to the car in the dark....and went to Brian's parents place for a spa!

Yellow buses and fire hydrants

So in America there are a LOT of weird and wonderful things that us kiwi's would find quite fascinating... just little things that people take for granted but seem strange to me. I thought I would tell you about a few, mostly for my kiwi friends... my American friends would probably find this post super boring.
For starters...I got fingerprinted and photographed when I arrived in the States, which I thought was actually pretty funny, like in a movie, but the man was carrying a really big gun so I didnt want to laugh to much...He was getting quite annoyed because the machine didnt seem to be working but then we worked out it was because I had a band aid on! funny stuff.
And get this, they actually have fire hydants like in kids books! The ones that dogs can pee on and everything. So far no red ones, these ones are yellow and green..pretty awesome I think.
The power lines here are stacked vertically rather than horizontally like our ones are.
I feel like, in general everything is just much bigger. bigger buildings, bigger roads, bigger cars, way bigger houses, bigger people, bigger food.... Can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.
A lot of houses have flags outside them or little American symbols, lots of people are quite patriotic I think. Which makes me laugh, because in NZ, we think that if we like beer and watch rugby then we're patriotic. Nice. Not many houses in this area anyway have fences, and they have quite large sweeping lawns. It looks nice, but I never see anyone outside playing on them which makes me a little sad.
Everyone I've met so far (apart from airport officials!) seem really friendly, which Kiri pointed out is probably just because they like my accent and want me to keep talking! But I've appreciated it anyway :)
Something I've found out is that people here honestly have absolutely no idea about NZ at all! If they know where abouts in the world it is...they're doing well. Like yesterday... "Isn't there a bridge that goes from NZ to Australia.." Um, well, that gap is about the size of your whole country, so it would be a pretty long bridge. Or.. "Do you know what a chicken is..?" Oh, yeah, in NZ we have them too, but they're 7 feet tall and we call them Moa.  I'm kidding, I didnt actually tell her that.
I saw a squirrel yesterday! And then another one,dead on the road but it was still a squirrel!
My friends Kiri and Brian, have been so good at translating and interpreting things for me though! Yesterday I was in church and the pastor was talking about putting up Guard rails in our lives to help us be intentional, but it sounded to me like he was saying we need to put up "Gargoyles"... which had me pretty confused until Kiri translated for me.

I'm sorry Ma'am, you aren't booked on that flight...

Well. Im here! I made it. I didnt get mugged, shot, lost, kidnapped, detained, imprisoned or anything else of that nature... but it came pretty close a few times.
So, I am going to tell you all of the adventure I had just trying to get to the States.
Actually, my Nelson to Auckland flight went well. No trouble. Ha. But then when I got to Auckland and went to check in my bag for the long Qantas flight they asked me if I had my American visa for them, and I said, "Oh its okay Im just visiting for a few weeks, I dont need a visa since Im not staying." No. Apparantly not.  So I filled in a million forms, stood in line with the rest of the population of nz and paid them money and finally they gave me a tiny bit of paper which no one even asked to see after that! Then they had trouble checking my bag in for some reason and the man was telling me I needed to re pack but the other man siad no I couldnt do that and so I just stood there while they had a wee fight about it, but eventually we sorted that out and they took my bag somewhere... i was a little skeptical I would ever see it again but hey. Then on the plane I was sat beside an Italian man who talked the whole time but because he had such a strong accent I couldnt understand a word he said! Which was fine and I just nodded in what i thought were the right places until he started asking me questions and I just kept nodding.... not a good impression of kiwis for him I'm afraid.  Then in LA I managed to find my way to the right terminal which was not easy since the airport is the size of Nelson and Tasman combined! But they wouldnt let me take the shuttle cause my bag was too heavy so I ended up dragging it all the way to the other terminal. I needed exersise anyway. Then I got hopelessly lost in terminal 7 and tried to ask the airport officials (who all had guns too!) directions but it turns out they all speak in a language of grunts and points so I pretty much just wandered around for ages untill I found myself in the right place... only to be told by a man that "Sorry Ma'am, you're not booked on this flight to Baltimore." Uh... what did you say?  And also the next flight there today was full so I couldnt take that. Apparantly my travle agent forgot to actually book the flight, she just gave me the info for it, thanks for that House of Travel. And so I resisted the urge to panic or cry or something and I prayed, thanking God for the oppurtunity to trust Him and I said that i loved Him and that I was okay with however this turned out. Then I manned up and booked a flight to San Fransisco instead which would connect to Baltimore getting in at midnight. Then as I walked away trying to find a pay phone to contact Kiri who was meeting me 7 hours earlier than I would arrive...he called me back saying that they had actually just got one more seat free and would I mind sitting in the exit row? I said "Are you kidding?! I would sit on the roof if you can get me on that plane!" So I did. Not on the roof, in the plane thankfully. I was sitting between two BIG men who both fell asleep so there was no way I could move to go the the toilet or stretch, so that was interesting for 5 hours. I still managed to spill two cups of water on one of them though! That was a little embarrasing to say the least. But I arrived and met Kiri...so its okay. And its so so good to be here and to see these people that i havent seen in so long and to meet new people and see all the crazy little aspects of American life that I didnt know existed, I will probably blog about them later. So for now, know that I am safe and I am happy. And that God was looking out for me the whole way, so I wasnt really scared or worried...just a little puzzled as to how this would all work out.

Fridge Pizza

This post is dedicated to mums' fridge pizza which consists of emptying the fridge onto a pizza base and putting it into the oven. Its everything all over the place but somehow it works and doesnt blow up or fall apart.
On Saturday morning I am leaving everything I know and moving across the world to new friends, new job, and new culture and at the moment I think I'm feeling a wee bit like that fridge pizza would if it could break the pizza language barriers.
I have always loved adventure and experience so I'm more excited than I can possibly write very well....I cant wait to meet some amazing people and do life with them for a while. But this means I have to say goodbye to the people I love so much who are staying here. And for those of you who know me well, you know how much I hate this. But then leaving means I get to spend time with my friends in America, and after not seeing them for a few years...well, lets just say Im a little bit excited about this. In a way, I also feel like this is me leaving my childhood behind and walking through into adulthood, which makes me get all silly and nostalgic, I am more than ready for this though.

But above and beyond all that, I serve a God who is in New Zealand and America and Canada and everywhere else in the world. And I get on that plane knowing that He is my best friend and my Saviour and that He will always be with me. I cant wait to know Him more and more this year and my prayer is that He will use me, that I may be light and salt wherever I go.
In the end, all of that... excitement, nervousness, expectation, confusion, wonder, sadness, last minute packing, freaking out..... all of that is overshadowed by the fact that my God is bigger than oceans and bigger than continents and He loves me.

Oh, and fridge pizza is delicious. So if something like that can work, I know I will be okay too.