Limiting factor

TIME.

In Chemistry, we were learning about the limiting factor. The chemical which you have least of in the reaction, so when it gets all used up, the reaction stops. Even if there is plenty left of everything else, the reaction is stopped by the lack of the limiting factor.

So far this year, time has been my limiting factor.
This city is amazing, the people I've met are fascinating and I want to know them. There are so many clubs and sports teams I want to join... and every church has incredible ministry opportunities that I want to get involved with. Then of course there are all my lectures and tutorials and labs and study work that I need to do....
I have energy and want to do all these things but the time is not enough to fit everything in.
But above all of it, I know that to meet with God daily, to be intentional about the word, about prayer... that's more important.
So I take an hour everyday to rest in Him, to not be consumed by a life that is so full and busy and colourful and noisy. And in turn, my God who is outside of time allows me to fit the things that are important into my day, even when its seemingly impossible.

Aside from the busyness, I am loving heath science... it's a course that challenges me mentally everyday (especially after taking a year off!) and the content is so captivating, I see the incredible complexity and design of God in the way the human body works and defends itself. I see His attention to detail in the microbiology of cells and see the logic and order of God in physics.
I am so aware that barely any of His children get these opportunities I have.... to live in a wonderful campus, to study at a prestigious university, learning about the body and how to care for it. I am so blessed to be here and I want to keep a spirit of thankfulness about it all, in a student culture that seems to swing between being stressed and worried to not caring about anything at all.

Here are a few shots that have been snapped at various times in the past few weeks....

This is my wonderful room! The orangey object in the right is actually an old fire place!

At any given time, you'll be most likely to find me here...

Bridget taking over my room.... love it

This is Mackenzie and Chloe, the girls who live in my house (there are more but I barely ever see them) we decided that Friday night was not okay for studying... so we got sundaes instead!

Skype!

Skype is a wonderful thing.
Today I talked to a few really special people and felt so blessed to be able to connect with them and see their faces even though we are so far away.

I look forward to the day when all of God's kids will be in one place and time zone!

Scarfie City

After a wonderful year of playing everyday all day, apparently it's time for me to go to school and be serious again... that's unfortunate.    No, I lie, I'm really excited to get back into study and school and libraries and nerdy things like that.
I've been down in Dunedin for almost a week now and am loving it (for those of you who are not familiar with the term "Sacrfie" it's a name for  student who studies at Otago)

Here's a quick summary...

Things I love about this so far:
1) My room is bigger than texas and has a big ledge up by the roof which I can climb and sit on.
2) My house is on a hill so I'm going to get fit walking back and forth from classes all day
3) There are students EVERYWHERE and everyone seems pretty friendly for the most part
4) I met other people who love Jesus within a few hours of being here and it really encouraged me
5)Dunedin is full of wonderful quaint old houses which are now dirty breaking student housing which no one looks after.... the irony and contrast in this fascinates me and I would love to photograph them sometime but have to try and do it while people aren't watching... apparently its not okay to take photos of other people's places
6) I've got to reconnect with friends from my school year who I haven't seen in a long time

Things about this which make me a little nervous:
1) My house is on a hill so I'm going to get fit walking back and forth from classes all day
2)There are 2000 students doing health science and only 200 places for them to fit into med
3) Alcohol runs like a river through these streets as soon as dark hits and it sort of breaks my heart seeing people lying in the gutters too wasted to move


It's been interesting coming back to the school environment after being away...  Last year I worked full time and was so far removed from the school scene. I grew up and stopped caring what people thought of me, and for the most part lived and worked with other people who felt the same. Now coming back into an environment of 17 year old freshmen who just desperately want to fit in and be okay, it's exhausting. But I understand. Because I was the same, completely.

I start class officially on Monday and will write more about that once it gets underway :)

Summer: [noun] warmest season of the year

Summer is defined by the dictionary in probably the most boring way I can possibly imagine to write... if I were to define it, it would include things such as...

Smelling cut grass, Leathery feet from walking in bare feet all the time, permanent red shade to exposed body parts, constant thirst, rough salty hair from being in the ocean lots, waking up to the sun and birds, barbeques at 9 at night because it's still warm, lying on the grass reading a book, washing drying in 20 mins on the line, sleeping with just a sheet.... something along those lines anyway.

This summer has been very short for me, just over 3 weeks, but I've appreciated it more than ever after coming from the constant sub zero temperatures of Canada! These are just a few photos which I feel sum up this summer the best, because pictures speak thousands of words and take much less time to blog about!

I've been blessed to have spent time with good friends and family, with quality conversation in beautiful places... couldn't ask for more!

Kaiteriteri beach, the day after I got home... I missed the smell of salt!

Windy beach time. The wind on the beach makes me so joyful!

Wild flowers on Teapot Valley road, love biking up here

Lake Rotoiti! The classic shot that exists in everyones summer album

Sunrise over Marahau, the glory of the Lord shines upon us!



Rabbit Island....

Ice cream on the road side by the dairy.... couldn't get more kiwi than that!

Off the rope swing and the rocks into the river, could do this all day!

New Zealand. How I love camping.

Abel Tasman.... I live in the most beautiful place on earth

My friends. I love them.

Beginning of the journey...

I am the Ocean said God.

This weekend I went to Marahau with Jeremiah and his awesome family, it was a wonderful weekend... volleyball with a net made of sticks and tow rope, exploring the rocks and coming face to face with the rising tide, extreme currents and stingrays the size of hula hoops! Too much food all the time, magic tricks where everyone else is just watching me be duped because they all know how he does it, kayaking down the stairs, tackle football in the waves.... all good stuff with good people.

Marahau has an incredible tidal shift where at high tide there is barely 2 meters of dry sand but then at low tide, you can walk out almost a km through ankle deep water till you get to where the waves really start. On Saturday I walked by myself out to where the ocean really began and was standing there enjoying the spray and salt and wind.
I was praying about how I wanted God as Lover, as First Importance... that I wanted to know Him and recognise His voice and for my love for Him to pour from my lips because that's what I think about and my words are an overflow of my heart.
As I was praying, God gave me this beautiful image and I heard His voice deep in my heart calling me deeper... deeper into Him, deeper into knowledge and understanding and intimacy with Him. Deeper out like the ocean I was looking out over. He is calling me further in and further out into the waves than I've ever been.
 I looked out at some of the boats way out in the distance, and I thought, deep like them? No came the answer. Not like them. They are far out but they are on the surface. I want you to be deep below the surface, surrounded by Me. I am the ocean said God.

He is calling me deeper. So it's time to walk into those waves.

Not so Solo anymore...

I started this blog when I left to go overseas by myself last year, hence the name Solo Kiwi.
However, this obviously isn't so appropriate since I came home again as I'm no longer solo at all!

So I've been thinking of what to rename this, since I decided to continue writing instead of finishing off after coming home.

Life as a Sojourner.
This will be the new name.
Let me explain...

The word Sojourner is defined as "A temporary resident."

 I belong to Christ, He is my true home and I am a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. This isn't my permanent home and I'm not a permanent resident here.

So I'm living here on earth for now, but I'm not a visitor either.... Visitors don't have to think about how much water they use or what food they eat or whether the basement has a leak or about the neighbours dogs which are always barking. The role of a visitor is generally one of consumption.
But this is not true of the children of God. He has given us beautiful things in creation and told us to look after them, to cultivate the earth and care for it. He's called us to look after our neighbours and make sure they're not hungry or cold or lonely.
He's given us creativity and ideas to make things and change the world to make it better...
A visitor doesn't have to think about these things.

This is why I like the word Sojourner.
I am a temporary resident... with a call to care for this place and look after my neighbours, but with a promise of another home coming soon.

This is who I am.

Airport Adventures

So finally I have a chance to sit down and catch up with this...
I wanted to share with you some of the interesting things about international travel and some of my specific adventures and things I noticed as I travelled back last week.

I visited 4 international airports within the space of 27 hours and there are a few things that are the same about all of them...

1) Everyone is either hurrying somewhere or waiting for something.
    
Hurrying generally takes the form of people awkwardly running while trying to look at Gate numbers and dragging their bags behind them and half trying to keep an eye on their kids who have normally become distracted by a vending machine or something else sugary.
Waiting generally takes the form of people tying themselves to their bags in an attempt at solo security and trying to sleep but not being able to because of the first group of hurrying people who continually almost step on them.

2) Meal times lose all meaning

International airports have a huge range of food available... Chinese, Lebanese, Japanese, Indian, American, Mexican, Moroccan.... pretty much every nation. I can only assume this is to make people coming from these nations feel at home when they arrive. Being n international airport, people are constantly time travelling arriving from every time zone and leaving to every time zone... therefore its normal to see an Indian family buying dinner next to a Australian family buying breakfast next to a Canadian family trying to sleep. There isn't such a thing as a "breakfast menu" because breakfast exists for 24 hours a day to match the people coming through....
This is a beneficial thing for people like me who sometimes likes to eat cereal for dinner but can't because usually its socially unacceptable. not here.

3) Its okay to do embarrassing things

Maybe this isn't a rule for everyone... but I figure that since I'm never going to see any of these people again after a few hours, its okay to do things like walk past the same restaurant 10 times looking at their menu board cause I can't decide. Or crawl under chairs to reach the floor outlets because the people sitting in the chair don't speak English for me to ask them to move over.
Or talk to the same security guy three times, each time in a different accent just to confuse him...

4) People make a home wherever they can

A lot of people are in an airport for a good many hours as they wait for their layover to end... You can identify these people by the tell tale signs of their entire bag content being spread out on the floor around them in their corner that they staked out. This could be a result of going through everything they own in an attempt to combat airport boredom or it could be their way of marking out the territory so no other weary travellers try to invade their corner.