Sunday morning was pretty fun. Four of the kids in our group decided to try and swim out to an island in the middle of the lake, while five of us stayed behind. We were sitting on the grass, when we noticed there was a bike race going on in the street next to the resort. So we thought we would go cheer them on! With signs made from torn apart frozen pizza boxes, we yelled and screamed and played the guitar for all the bikers that passed. We also offered them water bottles, but we didn’t get any takers. The reactions were very mixed. While the majority of the bikers kept their game face on, some laughed, some responded very enthusiatically, and some were a little annoyed. It was good times.

The weekend ended with us spending some time hangin out in Rotorua. It was very chill and relaxed. It was funny, while we were looking in a souvaneir shop, Emily got what she called, a “Jesus discount.” We had been talking with the owner and it came up that we were with YWAM. So when she went to pay, the lady knocked off a few bucks from the total. Pretty sweet. And our time there ended with us getting kicked out of Robert Harris (NZ coffee chain). We had agreed to meet there before we left for home, but we had gotten Starbucks a few minutes before. So we were sitting there with our Starbucks cups, and the barista told us we couldn’t do that. Awesome. So we left and blasted Swtichfoot all the way through the NZ countryside on our way home.

These last few days have been quite good too. We had an apologetics speaker named Dr. Steve Kumar speaking to us Monday and yesterday. Steve is a brilliant guy with a lot of good stuff to say. It is always very reassuring to know that our faith is actually very rational, especially when measured against many other popular world views. The material was good, but I think my favorite part of the lectures was his style of speaking. He is definitely quite the nerd, and is a very well-humored one. So he would crack these awesome wordplay jokes every few minutes or so(“I love fundamentalists, they are very fun and very mental!”, stuff like that). It was hysterical.

Aside from a few cool things, almost all of our free time has been occupied by practicing the songs we wrote for the cd we’re recording tomorrow. I think all of us could use another week of practicing, but whatever. I think it is going to be really fun working in an actual studio. I’ve never actually done that before, so I’m really looking forward to it. Some of the kids here wrote some freaking good stuff, so it’ll be cool to have it on a professionaly recorded cd.

Well that’s it I think … please pray that we don’t mess up too much! peace

So exactly two weeks ago four of us were supposed to go skydiving. We signed up, got our money together, drove 2 hours to Taupo, and were told we couldn’t go up because it was too overcast. We hung around Taupo for the day in hopes that the skies would clear, but they never did. Bummer. We stilil had a pretty good time in the city though. We spent a lot of time in Coin-Save (exactly the kind of shop it sounds like) gearing up for our 70′s/looking ridiculous dance that night. Good times.

The next day was probably one of my best here. We did absolutely nothing. Four of us just sat on the roof of our cabin doing our book reports that were due the next day. There were several times when I would look around and think “Wow … I am in freaking New Zealand. I wish everyone back home could see this.” It was almost surreal.

Oh and by the way I played in the worship band for the first time ever … I was rockin the keys. It was pretty cool, especially because the other musicians were great and everyone here gets really passionate about worship through song. Some of my favorite times of the hour were when we would stop playing and everyone would just be singing. Playing was good too, and I don’t think I screwed up too much so hey, I guess it was a success.

This last weekend was a good one. There were a few firsts for me. The first one happened on Friday night in Hamilton (city about an hour from the base). It was there that I was introduced to street evangalism. I had always had a fairly negative viewpoint of street evangalists. I thought of them as impersonal salesmen who don’t give a crap about the people they talk to. I thought (and still think) that the best way to show Christ’s love is through actions rather than words. But for the Christian, there is no denying that there are thousands if not millions of people who are going to heaven because of street evangalists. This is the fact that prompted me to volunteer to go that night. Overall, it was an awesome night. Nobody fell on the sidewalk worshiping Jesus, but I felt like we had some really good conversations. And when one college girl learned we were foreigners she invited us to go club hopping with her and her friends. Unfortunately we had to leave in a few minutes, so we couldn’t. But it was good … the natives are very friendly and open people so they are very easy to talk to. The next first happened the following day at the base. Us music people divided into two groups of 8 and we each made a music video with an original song. We only had one day so I thought there wasn’t much chance of anything quality coming out of it. Our videos turned out pretty freaking good though. I don’t know how funny ours would be to someone not living on the base, but to us it is hilarious. And the song is quite good too in my humble opinion, although the recording quality is obviously not the greatest. The other group’s song is amazing. It is really catchy and the singing and music is pro. The video is really good too. Hopefully we’ll be able to get them up on youtube at some point.

So this last week. You know what, I think I still have to process what exactly happened. So I’ll tell you in a few days. God is good … that’s all I got to say for right now.

So the school functions and content these last couple days have been quite interesting. We officially kicked off our small groups and one-on-ones. Both look very promising. Just in our first small group time I heard some of the finniest stories I’ve heard in my life. We got an awesome group of guys so it should be good times. Also my one-on-one guy Jeshie is pretty cool, and we had a good talk. To give an idea of what he’s like, he’s the type of guy who gets chased by a pack of monkeys while he’s in India. No joke … amazing.

But the teaching these last few days has been very thought-provoking. The subject has been authority and submission … not something I’d heard a lot about. The general idea of about 10 hours of teaching has been that submission is an attitude we must have toward every authority, and it doesn’t necesarily lead to obedience. So you can be submissive towards someone and disobey them at the same time. I didn’t buy it at all at first but after some thinking I have concluded that I agree. Here are some other one-liners that intrigued me enough to write down: submission releases freedom; relationship with God can always be measured by relationship with people; lots of what God plans doesn’t happen; your gifts and callings were given to you before you were born (we just need to discover them). Pretty good stuff.

Oh and we music/worhip kids just got our first assignment. We have a couple options but I’m going to try and write a Psalm and put it to original music. It’ll probably be ridiculous but hey, it should be fun.

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Sunday night …

So these last couple days have been pretty interesting. Saturday morning everyone in the music/worship camp played there stuff for each other. There is a lot of talent in our group. Some people put psalms to original music and others, like myself, wrote original psalms and put it to music. It was a really cool 2 hours … there was a lot of good stuff that was clearly from the heart.

But the better part of the day was spent climbing to the base of a 300 ft waterfall. About 3/4 of a mile below the falls, a few of us left the trail and hiked straight up/through the river. It was rocky and slippery, and the water was going pretty good, so it definitely seemed a little dangerous at times. But it was unbelievably beautiful. Hopefully I can throw some pics up when we go to town on Friday. But anyways after we got to the base of the falls, a couple of crazy guys went swimming and most of us turned back. Only Josh and Jeshie (dts leader, staff guy) stayed behind, with the intention of climbing up the left side of the falls. The next time we saw them, they were running to our vans an hour after we planned on meeting. Josh was visibly shaken as he said “that was the dumbest thing I’ve done in my life, we almost died.” Apparently there were times while climbing where they were hanging on to roots, dangling over a fall to certain death. And the roots felt like they were coming out. Haha pretty crazy but hey they made it back all right.

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Right now …

So on Sunday we drove an hour to go to a church in Hamilton, then spent the day there. The church was somewhat big and had an youthy feel to it. The service was good but my favorite part was right after worship, when the pastor announced they were going to have a ten minute break. Haha I guess this is really common in NZ and also in the UK, but I had never heard of the concept of a break in the middle of church. It was pretty sweet. But afterwards we grabbed some lunch, then spent a few hours at a place called Hamilton Gardens. I’m usually not the type that’s into gardens, but this was incredible. They had whole different sections for different cultures, such as the Italian Renaissance, Japanese, Chinese, English, American, etc. I think I took about a hundred pictures there. They were all amazing, except the American one was a little insulting. There was just a giant painting of Maralyn Monroe and a pool with a few beach chairs. And that is what New Zealand thinks of us … pretty accurate actually haha.

Monday and today have been cool. Nothing super interesting except for our small group running around in the woods by the falls last night (by the way glow worms are really cool, especially when there’s tons of them) and shattering the back window of a van with the front part of a small trailer today (unintentional). Also I’m fasting for the day for the first time in my life. I’ve heard of guys who have gone 40 days with zero food, so I can’t be too proud of just going one, but hey it’s still good. I’m actually really hungry right now, which I think is the point. Only 14 more hours till breakfast. Oh and we may go skidiving on saturday. I am pumped … and really hoping it actually happens.

So these last couple days have been … interesting. Actually I think ‘crazy’ is more honest word. They definitely do stuff differently over here.

Not to say that I think it’s bad. Monday and Tuesday were almost completely taken up with Life Stories. Everyone came up front and gave the complete, totally honest story of their lives. It was an awesome time … many people gave accounts of awful pain they had gone through, and it seemed like there was a lot of healing during this time. Before each break we prayed over the group of people that had just gone. This is where it got a little strange (and by that I just mean different from what I’m used to). First, we all pray out loud at the same time, which I think is really cool. Then after that we would just do what we felt God was leading us to do. Sometimes this meant people praying individually, or once we started singing to guitar music, and almost every time there were people crying. The overall intensity of these times was staggering.

This was nothing compared to community night on Wednesday however (this is a time where members of the community are invited to join us for a service). The message was good, but I could not shake the thought of how funny it would be if something like this happened in the megachurch I was raised in in California. It’s a fairly mainstream church, and this was anything but mainstream. The speaker was a very no-nonsense, “you need to listen to me or you’re going to die” kind of guy, and the topic was spiritual warfare. Aside from a few trips off the deep end (“the free masons are all satan-worshipers, it’s on the internet”), he did make some very good points about a very serious topic. The sermon itself was different, but it’s not what freaked me out. Afterwards, he and the staff asked for those needing prayer to come forward. People did, and the speaker did his best to cast out demons by loudly rebuking them and praying to God for deliverance. There was music playing and the mood was very interesting. He had lots of stories supporting the power of this method, but it still made me really uncomfortable. Ever since then, I’ve been questioning my initial reaction to this (this is insane). While it’s true I’ve never seen this before, I can’t find many logical reasons for why it is a bad thing. God wants us to pray, and evil spirits are very real. So maybe this kind of behavior makes an impact. Some food for thought.

Anyways these last couple days have been good. We had an older guy named Maynard giving lectures for a few hours wed, thurs and today. He was a little slow but overall had some good things to say about the nature and character of God. The free time’s been pretty cool too. We’ve had some intense games of Ultimate (10 vs 10 … crazy), and volleyball. It’s also been really neat getting to jam a couple times a day. If that keeps up I’m going to be a freaking amazing musician in 11 weeks. Me and a couple guys actually just decided that we are going to play Sadie Hawkins Dance by Relient K at the weekly Open Mic next Sat night. It should be awesome.

All in all, I think it’s going to be a great 11 weeks. I feel I’ve made some great relationships already, and I know I’ll make many more as time goes on. Tomorrow we’re going to some mountain in Tauranga. Should be beautiful!

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So we went to that mountain yesterday. It was amazing. It was right on the beach actually, and I don’t think I’ve seen a more beautiful beach in my entire life. When we go into town I’ll try and throw some pictures up. I also got to try surfing. I have just one thought on that … surfing in freezing water – wet suit = bad idea. Coldest I’ve been in my entire life. But it was a really fun day.

I’m definitely thinkin this is going to be an awesome group to spend 5 months with. Only half of us are here so far, but everyone’s been really chill so far. We all went into the heart of Auckland today, and it was a lot of fun. Come to think of it, we didn’t actually do a whole lot besides just walk around, but I can’t imagine a better first day in NZ. We came back a few hours ago and have just been hangin out at the base since then. I’ve been fighting sleepiness for awhile, and I’m thinking I might concede any second now. Oh I almost forgot … I had my first full beer today! ‘Twas a Corona. It wasn’t spectacular but head and shoulders above white wine. Ok that is all.

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It is now about 7:30 in the morning (Sunday). I am in the rare position of wanting to get up early, so I decided to go ahead and do that and write about this last day. We left Auckland at about 2:30 and drove two and a half hours through the amazing North Island countryside. It was incredible. I think the most incredible thing about it is the vibrant greenness of, well, everything. Eventually we arrived at the base and found the places where we would be staying for the next 3ish months. It is really nice here. The homes we’re staying in have two rooms, holding four people each, with a central kitchen, bathroom, and a room that was intended to hold a washer and dryer, but it is just empty. Also there is a seperate room for our leader Jeshie. After getting unpacked, the 4 guys in our room played the 4 in the room opposite us in some intense Ultimate, then we headed off to dinner in the “A-frame.” Not long after some amazing nachos, we headed back and got some sleep. Not before a few of us got some jammin’ in at “the gap” though. It was a pretty cool first day at our new home.

I gotta go right now, and I’ll write more about this later, but I gotta say … meeting foreigners is awesome. It is just freaking fun. All right peace