Alrighty, here's the epic tale of Faith Weekend... dun dun dun
Thursday -
Well, Thursday we had lectures until 1pm and then we went got in vans and they dropped us off at various spots around the area of Oxford to depart on our "Faith Weekend."
Oooh - what a weird feeling! Not a feeling that I want to have again thats for sure. Watching the van drive away I had a split second thought of maybe I should've opted out of this... but I had Devin on one side and Abby on the other so there we went!
haha we actually started in the wrong direction and an old man turned around after seeing our sign for Picton and told us to get on the other highway. He was thoughtful! SO 15 mins later we get picked up by a lady I had met at the farmer's market that previous Sunday. She took us to Woodend, about 45min ride I guess? We go from there catch a ride to Waipara, after stopping to ask a cute old farmer man if we were aloud to hitch a ride on that road and what Motorway meant haha! He was chatty. The next right we got was from a kid with a bunch of raw sausages in a bag beside him so Abby got to side all cozy with that in his tiny car. Little did we know that he dropped us off in the middle of Vineyard land! It's beauitful country with lots of vineyards..and its rural... but we were talking about lectures and walking with the sun at our back and wondering what the heck the thumbs up or left or right or shurgg of shoulders we were getting from drivers meant! Well, an hour and a half later we see a nice Mazda pull off and a buisness man get out and rearrange the stuff in the back seat... trying not to look desprate we decided to jog instead of sprint up to him. :) He was very friendly and was going home to Blenhiem which was maybe 20/30mins south of Picton. Sweet! Well, Abby and I discovered that Devin is a fabulous conversationalist with Buisnessmen so we chatted and napped as we drove through mountains covered in bright yellow flowering bushes and started winding around the coast of Kaikora.
Its a beautiful drive, although it was cold and windy and I was praying he wasnt going to drop us off there. Instead he took us to this road side spot where you hike for about 5mins to go to a small waterfall/ pool area where there was 20 baby seals! They were so cute! And they blobbed up onto the rocks that were a foot in front of us and just stared a posed and looked like the most adorable babies with giant brown eyes EVER! ahhhh, I was so mad I didnt have my camera with me! Well, it was dark and I just prayed he would offer us his living room floor or something - but i snoozed. When I woke up he had stopped in Blenhiem for an errand and Devin told us he offered us his guest room and sofas! Yessssssss! We get to his house and Abby and I conk out on the guest bed after reading some of John out loud and praying.
Friday -
Well, lemme tell ya - waking up in a total strangers house is really really weird! ACutally pretty draining too. Plus, Simon had gone to work and his wife Michelle greeted us with her 1 yr old and 3yr old. She was very friendly and gave us toast for breakfast and we really had been sent out to bless people as much as we could so Abby babysat her kiddos while she went to the store, Devin mowed her lawn and I vaccumed her house. Okay - what the heck?!! She left her kids with 3 complete strangers?! It was fun beacuse those kids were cuties! But still, weird!
She got us some morning tea snacks and also let us fix a sandwich for lunch. She then drew us a map of the best spot to hitch hike out to Picton.We find that spot across the bridge and pop out our little paper sign and eat some cheesy chip things we had and smiled at the super big vans zooming by with plenty of space for us in the back. Right as I took a picture of Abby and Devin this dude pulls over and takes us right to downtown Picton. Oh! Picton is a beautiful nautical harbor tourist town. I really would love to go back and visit again. WE sat down for a minuet to "relax" and I was praying God secretly to have some nice old couple walk up to us and invite us home for the night. NOPE. We find information building and with no luck there we went to three hostiles and asked if we could work in the morning and stay the night in exchange. NOPE. Ahh, so our next plan was to go find a church and see if there was any work there or an open chapel to sleep in.
Well! We're wandering around the restaurant shops area of the town and as Abby and I go to the supermarket to ask for the closet church, Devin approached a few ladies outside. We go out and walk up and these ladies knew of YWAM and considered ywamers like family The only problem was that they didnt have room at there homes so they called a little pastor man from one of the churches - Ron. Ron pulls up in a van and swaggers up to us as a sarcastic, good natured 70 yr old Kiwi man who shook our hands firmly asked what we thought we were doing and nodded to the van for us to hop into. He proceeds to drive us up to one of the very hostile's "The Villa" who had turned us down. Ha! He marched us right in, so GENEROUSLY paid for three beds for the night and told us to go up to the Retired Veterans club in half an hour and he would arrange for dinner for us. AHHHHH! We were totally blown away! haha! I wish he could've joined us but his sister was coming into town so with a hug he left. We sat down in the room we were in with three bunk beds and a big bay window and just sat in awe. We were safe an warm and food was on the way and a complete stranger just showed us amazing Christ like love and generosity. I will never forget that lovely old Kiwi man.
At that point I wasn't peaceful at all, but I felt secure in the moment to think I had dinner and a warm bed for the second night of faith weekend. haha, we walked up to the retired veterans club and were the youngest people in there by at least 30 years! Oh, it was priceless. haha. The amazing thing was he had a pork tenderloin dinner waiting for each one of us. It was a feast!
At this point I realized the New Zealand culture has still managed to hold onto being a friendly, hospitable, trusting nation. They still take into consideration your outward apperence I won't pick up sketchy looking hitch hikers, but with regular back packers and travelers the overall feeling is - you are trust worthy until proven differently. Whether this is good or bad - it's the reality over there and so that was the only way we were able to survive the weekend! Thank God for hospitable friendly Kiwis!!
I Went to bed sort of early that night praying the Lord would continue to hold me in that safe peaceful spot close to Him.
Saturday -
Oh! It almost felt like home stretch, one more night before we got to go back to base! Well, we took showers and went on a short hike up to the Harbor Bay lookout. It started to rain so we went to the edge of town held out our sign and thumbs and sort of thanked God for the rain to provoke the drivers going by to pick us up sooner! haha. Well and big van picked us up and a nice Christian family took us back to Blenheim to the best spot to be picked up when trying to go South. It only took maybe 10 mins before a guy pulls over and tells us he's going all 4 hours to Christchurch that afternoon. Sweet! Destination accomplished! He was a winery manager who was very knowledgable and interesting to hear him talk about all the ins and out of making wine and bear and managing a vineyard. He was, like the other Kiwis I've talked to, eager to engage in conversation and talk about what ever you want to talk about. Like I said, these people are friendly and amiable and not hard at all to get along with. However, small talk is very draining to me if its not mingled with deep topics about God and such. Anyway Abby and I both got naps this ride south which was nice! So, 4:45 we get dropped off at Hagley park in Christ church and its cold, foggy and drizzling outside. The dude said his friend didnt have any room for us and we walked away hungry because we hadn't had any lunch.
We wandered around the park talking and praying and at one point we three are holding hands outside the public washroom praying. Abby starts telling God she's hungry and says it would be really nice just to get some food. I said NO! Be Specific!!! What kind of food?! What kind of food do you really want?! Abby beautifully said "Chocolate Cake." Yesss, that always hits the spot! Well, we felt a little more encouraged after that prayer pow wow and we start searching for a church to go work for the night in exchange for a place to stay. We walked around where there was still a lot of earth quake damage so we ended up walking through Hagley Park to an area of town called Riccarton. We needed to ask for directions for sure, and the question was who were we going to ask?
Three girls were walking towards us but they were in a hurry so we approached an older couple. We asked them for directions to the closest church and ended up telling them honestly our situation and that we didnt have money for the bus to get to where they were trying to send us to. Ah, cute Mr. Ian said well, just come home with us and I'll just drive you over to the Baptist church or something. So Barbara and Ian walked us to there precious park side house and ushered us into there cozy living room. At this point I was so happy to be with a cute, comforting old couple that I was feeling chatty. Barbara starts fixing us "Lunch" because we hadnt had any lunch. However it ended up being lunch and "Tea" (which is what they call dinner.) She heated us up some sausage rolls. While we ate those she chopped up a tomato, sliced some cheese, spread some Tartar sauce on white bread and layered the ham on top of it all. Hahaha! Oh! That was the best ham sandwich I've ever had! Oh, but it didn't stop there! nope! She heated us up Slavoes or something like that which is the Kiwi version of a hot dog, and we HAD to have one each since they are so New Zealandish. Yummy, I didnt complain a bit! Okay well then she sets out a apple for each of us and then the slammer happened: she casually placed Ians favorite dessert on the table... CHOCOLATE CAKE. What in the world?!! Thank you Jesus! Look at that! Abby and I just looked at each other and I almost lost it laughing at how crazy the whole thing was! Of course since Barbara had brought out Ian's favorite dessert she wanted to bring out her favorite dessert which was like a chocolate oatmeal cookie. So I stuffed that into my face too:)
The whole evening she had been on and off the phone which a lady at her church who was sympathetic to our situtaion and eneded up announcing Devin would be sleeping in their guest bed and Abby and I were going to their fellow church members home. What a glorious home it was! Laurainne was a lovely half scottish half kiwi lady who took us into her home and made us feel right at home! Two complete crazy young people strangers and she willingly shows us her guest room with a full size and twin size bed connected to a shower room. Oh! Heaven! She had turned the electric blanket on and set towels out for us and everything. Again, I just laughed - how are people so open and generous like this? WOW. Needless to day I slept like a baby that night under about 5 cozy comfy blankets warm and cuddly! Thank you Jesus - now I really was able to relax.
Sunday -
We had been showed around the kitchen the night before so we fixed ourselves breakfast that morning and waited for Devin and Ian and Barbara to pick us up for church. I wrote them thank you notes at that point because I had to do something even that meager to tell them how much we were SO blessed! Well Ian and Barbara go to very charismatic, enthusiastic, hip young church and I loved it! Non of the stoic hymn singing organ playing worship - Ian and Barbara where clapping loudly, dancing and raising their hands up so freely! Oh by the way, Ian has the sweetest sense of humor and laughed so lovingly at/with us the whole time we were with them - I really appreciated that.
During the church service we were told to turn around and greet someone new. I turned around and met Rissa and Jenna. Two cute girls who we, for some reason went right into it with and told them straight away that we were with YWAM. No biggie, we made a little more small talk and continued with the service. After the service ended we turned to go and Rissa said she lives a few minuets from Oxford and wanted to take us three out to lunch! WHAT? So Ian and Barbara stood in the parking lot with us in a circle and we all prayed for each other. That was a very precious, totally meaningful, amazing moment to hear that couple talk to Jesus for me and about us. My heart was touched. They were amazing and we are totally going back to visit them! They're so close by and they almost feel like grand parents to us now!
Well Rissa and Jenna take us to lunch and for me we had the most refreshing conversation of the whole weekend that afternoon. We just talked about our weekend, and about YWAM and encouraged them in their walk with the Lord. This was the cool thing though: Rissa told us on the way to lunch that she thinks we're a total answer to prayer bc on the way to church she asked God for a sign and asked Him if she should go for YWAM once she got done with highschool. HA! SHe sat directly behind 3 ywamers in the middle of there faith week - can't get much closer to signing up for a DTS then that! hahaha
She was so fun to talk to and she took us all the way back to base and got a short tour - hopefully she'll pursue it!
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And now i'm back safe and sound! I have to be honest and say it wasnt that much fun until we were with Ian and Barbara and oh, this is my favorite! haha - so right before we went to the other lady's house for the night Barbara insisted that we have a cup of "Milo" with them because it is totally New Zealandish and we can't leave NZ with out trying it! It tasted a lot like Ovaltine so I like it. The best part was that she brought out some TimTams, which are recglangular, chocolate covered wafer cookies. Abby was so cute and told Barbara about our TimTam Slams that we do here - which is bighting off the ends of the cookie and using it as a straw to sip up your Milo/ hot cocoa with and then slurp up the warn melty cookie before it falls into your cup! Barbara insisted that she and Ian try it so we showed them and then all five of us did a Tim Tam Slam! Ahahahahaha - it was SO great! So funny:)
That's the epic tale folks. It's been an overload of information about God and the Bible the past 6 weeks and with this weekend squished in between I feel overwhelmed and ready to leave "Faith Weekend" in the past. What an Incredible God adventure it was!
