Time for some new jeans, without holes...

So, the funny thing about being gone from home this long is the wear and tear it has on your things. My shoes are wearing thinner each day. My jeans are the saddest for me to look at. All of my jeans have holes in them and they didn't before I left. There are also a few more stains, either from paint or charcoal from our wood stoves. I am a pro at lighting fires now because I am always cold here. It is just funny to see how a small wardrobe is affected by life. 
It is not something I have ever had to think about before. At home I usually have a closet and dresser full of choices, though I tended to stick to jeans and a t-shirt. Sidenote: My friends here have my outfits memorized. Now, I am not complaining by any means and am well looked after, blessed beyond much of the world and richer than more than half of the human race. That's all on a missionary budget too, which is also known as faith. Hear me, I am exercising faith in God with money in a way I never have had to before, not that I have more faith than you or the person sitting to my left. I do hope to earn some money in the North Island when I move there next week for 3 months. That shall be a feat in itself, so if you think of me, shout out a little something to the Father ( Who is the provider...I say that mostly for myself). I like that Paul was a tentmaker. He worked with his hands and also let others invest in him and what Jesus did using him. 

Here is a tangent thought, one of my favorite things in life is when I am introduced to a neat coffee shop (like I was today). To qualify as neat to me: they must have free Internet, have an atmosphere that allows me to sit for a long while, is furnished with old, but loved things, and has a good vanilla latte with baristas that know what's up. After I judge it worthy, I enjoy sitting with a friend, drinking said vanilla latte and journaling/blogging or people watching, while listening to a good playlist. If I were stateside I would get the Coldplay or Norah Jones Pandora radio station going. My coffee shop playlist is good enough here in New Zealand. 

What is something that gets you thinking about life? Either reflecting or dreaming?

Chris Guillebeau's recent blog post...

Below is a post from an author's blog that challenges and encourages me. Enjoy! To see the article on his blog click on THIS.


Every Sunday morning that I’m in town, I head out for a long run. Two weekends ago at the waterfront, the weather was glorious. The whole city of Portland took up jogging or cycling.
Last weekend at the waterfront, the weather was more to our usual end-of-Spring form… rainy and gloomy. The whole city of Portland stayed indoors.
On the sunny day, joggers and cyclists smiled at each other with a mutual appreciation of our good fortune. The implied message was, “It’s good to be alive!”
But on the rainy day, a much smaller crowd of amateur athletes nodded at each other with mutual pride. The implied message was, “Nice job. Glad to see you made it out while other people are sleeping in.”
If I don’t feel like running one weekend, I go anyway. It’s not just out of duty—nine times out of ten, I’m glad I went. The days I feel bad about my writing aren’t the days when I’ve written poorly. It’s the days where I’ve done everything but write—those days are killer.
If you base your workout schedule on the weather, you’ll never build a habit of exercise. The same is true for writing or any other creative practice: base it on anything outside your control, and good luck getting anything done.
In a creative practice, waiting for “inspiration” is the worst. I follow the Somerset Maugham school of inspiration: “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately, it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”
It might not be every morning at nine o’clock sharp for you, but the point is that inspiration shows up when you have a deadline to meet. If you don’t have a real deadline, better make one up.
***
I always like to hear about other people’s goals and projects. One interesting way to find out what motivates someone is to ask:
“Why do you get out of bed in the mornings?”
Sometimes the answer is “school” or “a job,” and that’s fine—I don’t think everyone should walk away from schools and jobs without a plan. But the obvious follow-up is, what if you didn’t have the obligation; what would you get out of bed in the mornings for if it was completely up to you?
I get up to run on Sundays, rain or shine. I’d rather it be shining, but regardless, the shoes are by the door the night before. The other six days of the week, I get up to write. I’m working toward something; I’ll put the miles in.
How about you—why do you get out of bed in the mornings?

Say Goodbye.

One of the coolest parts of YWAM is getting to know people from all over this huge world. I know countless in Europe, Stateside, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. No matter where I go, there is a couch for me. I wonder if I know at least one person from each state. The thing with making good friends though is saying goodbye. These are two of my friends from the school. One from Cali and the other from Oz (Australia).

Our YWAM base has different DTS's running year round. The one I staff happens to be in the Spring (or Fall in the States), but we just said goodbye to the school called Around the World in 80 days. The students buy Around the World tickets and head out to experience the lives of missionaries in different parts of the world. Let's see, there are five teams, they are headed to Africa, S.E. Asia, Africa-Asia, Turkey-Asia, and South America. The teams will meet together in Israel for their graduation on the Mt. of Olives. Pretty sweet! For those of us that stay here, we will not see them again, unless they decide to finish their around the world ticket here. Oh and after they graduate they backpack the Middle East and Europe; then home. It is such a cool deal. If I had $13,000, I would think about doing that school. Money well spent, eh?

So to my new friends I say, “May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain fall softly on your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.”

What's next for me? Sealing my time here and off to the North Island of New Zealand to a town by the beach, where the water is warm, the coffee plentiful and the surf is good. Oh life.

A picture

New Zealand is stunningly beautiful. It never fails to impress.

Hope you all have an awesome Mother's Day! I send my love.

An update of sorts.

Life in New Zealand as of recent has been mostly uneventful, but nice. There is a fun picture above with a few friends. We have fun doing nothing, because it rarely happens that we all have nothing to do. We have had an awesome three day weekend. That's right, New Zealand has Good Friday as a national holiday. Nothing is open, nothing. Even the grocery stores, big ones, were closed.

I just wanted to update friends and family to what I am doing. We finished with the Backpacker Discipleship Training School (DTS) in February and have finally said goodbye to all our awesome students. We are already starting to prepare somewhat for the next Backpacker DTS . It begins in October, with people coming from all over the globe to small town Oxford, New Zealand. Out in the middle of nowhere, sheep country. I am currently in Oxford working on the maintenance team. I paint, fence, roof, clean, build, pound, and shovel. We are still cleaning up after the earthquake in February that demolished our beloved big city, Christchurch. There is always work to be done here in Oxford or there.
Until September, when I have to be back here for staff training, I have decided that in between the Backpacker DTS, I am going to be headed to the North Island to live with a wonderful Kiwi family. The city is by the beach and has a House of Prayer. Ever heard of IHOP? Yeah, it is another one of those, Kiwi style! My plan is to get a bike and a job and hopefully earn some money until the school.

I ask that you would please begin to pray and consider supporting me financially for this next school.

It is humbling to ask for this kind of support from others. I know I am supposed to be here in New Zealand until next February and not getting to come home will be tough at times.

Well, I hope you all are doing great. Go eat some Mexican food and enjoy a giant Dr. Pepper from the fountain for me.

A few quotes I enjoy...

"You were loved because God loves, period. God loved you, and everyone, not because you believed in certain things, but because you were a mess, and lonely, and His child. God loved you no matter how crazy you felt on the inside, no matter what a fake you were; always, even in your current condition, even before coffee. God loves you crazily..."
Anne Lamott

I am inspired by Anne Lamott. She is real. I sometimes think we need more people in this world that are just real. That people need to realize that you can not earn God's love and to just be all you are. All you are in the good and the crap.

"Hope is not about proving anything. It’s about choosing to believe this one thing: that love is bigger than any grim, bleak shit anyone can throw at us."
Anne Lamott

jackhammers are child's play

As some of you have seen already, I got the opportunity to work with a jackhammer. It really isn't too tough if you know how to hold a trigger. The hard part is lifting it. Those things are heavy! It has been quite the week in Oxford, but mainly Christchurch. Every year around Easter New Zealand has what they call "Easter Camp" in every major town (or not so major town). Christchurch has a big one with about 4,000 kids coming for a four day retreat. From what I can gather, there are concerts and speakers and booths. Some spend the night and others come for the day stuff and go home. So this week the maintenance crew helped install in huge tent. I felt like I was helping get ready for a circus.
We also are still digging people out of their homes. When the February 22nd earthquake demolished much of the city, the sewage systems either filled with silt or ruptured. Either way it smells like poo in most of the city, with porta-potties on every corner. Can you imagine using one of those everyday? They are worse than the so called "bathrooms" in Thailand, by far! One of the guys on the maintenance team got pink eye from shoveling silt that has mixed with the ruptured sewage systems. It is a mess here still.
I have also said, "farewell for now," to my friend Scott who is headed to Tauranga, which is on the North Island. He is doing an internship for two months with a non-profit called Christian Surfers. Yeah, he is a surfer from Michigan. Apparently they surf on Lake Michigan. Who knew?
Well, you all want and somehow enjoy my updates, so here is some more rambling for you. I shall end with another quote from Anne Lamott. Oh, and another book suggestion, "The Art of Non-Conformity," by Chris Guillebeau.
here's his website http://chrisguillebeau.com/

"I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us."