the week of my life!
man, i have been here 2 and a half weeks and i have grown so much more than i could have imagined. Allow me to back up a little and talk about my trip to Akaroa like i mentioned in my last blog. well me, along with 7 other people made our way to Bon Accord hostel in Akaroa. it was this really cute little hostel right across from the beach, and it was a beautiful sunny day. So our drive provided some of the most incredible views I have ever seen. When we were there, we went for a walk on the beach, before making dinner, and just soaked in the sun. However, it was after dinner that the real fun began. Kristoffer, the Norwegian in my group, had found a bay, we there was supposed to be penguins, so after a little more investigation on my part, we headed off in our 1980's van, up a steep mountain to find this beach. We got to the top of this mountain just as the sun was setting, and had a spectacular view of God's creation. I was utterly blown away. After some time in prayer we descended down the back of the mountain on a steep turny gravel road. More than anything we were praying for safety. But our fearless leader Ben eventually got us there safely and once again we were blown away at the Lord's creation. Once at the beach our quest to find penguins began. We didn't want to scare them, so when we did spot them, we stayed back and watched as they came on shore. We had a small run in with the owner of the land behind us, but we some christian kindness he ended up showing us a penguin that was sitting on its eggs, he was right below me. it was soo cool.
so now as I promised my team i will share about our drive home. it isn't anything to spectacular, but as i mentioned we have this really old van that we travel in, and it has 3 sun roofs, so when we were on the front side of the mountain, on paved road again just for clarification, we opened to roof, to amazing stars above and city lights below us, and stood out of them and sang and shouted! (ben was not in approval, just for the record) It was liberating and beautiful, and almost worship like, just dwelling in the Lords beauty.
the next day, still on our penguin high, we set out to see some of the area, and to hike a little. so we drove up another bit of a mountain, and found a good way to hike to the peak. It was tough but amazing, and i'm proud to say I'm the only girl who made it to the top with the boys :)
we headed home later that afternoon, after a fair bit more prayer because our brakes gave out. no one was hurt, just a little shaken up. But Gods hand was with us the whole time, and i saw him so much in the beauty of creation around us, and the spectacular views, and various wildlife we saw in those 27 hours.
the rest of the week went on as most others do. we had a few more lectures, which i am LOVING! and friday night we went into christchurch. I was doing square ministry that friday. which, to say the least, i was not looking forward to. i have this idea in my mind of some one standing on a podium yelling at people to be saved, and that was what i was faced with when i got there. not by anyone in my group allow me to clarify, but by a man who was already there. His logic was a bit skewed, and his tone was not something that would bring me to repentance, but to each his own. so i ended up hanging out with 3 old men watching them play chess for 2 hours, and freezing. then proceeded to hide out in starbucks and warm up. haa. this week will be better.
saturday. now this i'm excited about. Castle Hill! For those of you Narnia fans, it is where the battle scenes take place in the first one. It is stunning. absolutely amazing, and a climbers dream. Now i'm not a huge climber, but there are a lot of them in my group and they were in there glory. We lucked out yet again and got beautiful weather! (for those of you wondering, the mornings here are usually between 0-6 degrees until about noon) so we were really happy it wasn't really cold. so it is tough to describe exactly what castle hill looks like, so i'll put some photos up below. but it is basically a lot of really big rocks. everywhere. with grass and hills everywhere else. So i climbed for a bit and explored, and held my breath as some of the crazy guys climbed and repelled off of rocks i was sure was going to kill them. but they were fine.
after lunch Malory and laurie and i felt like exploring a little mountain behind castle hill. So malory put on her shoes, laurie and i went bare foot because it was grass and sunny, and there is nothing better. and went off onto what turned into a 3 hour hike/exploration of the hills around. It was amazing. we got up onto this one hill and you could see all of castle hill, which was huge, and the mountain behind it, and the ones behind us as well as the lake below. it was beautiful. we also found some other great rocks to climb, and sang and worshiped God, and just soaked in his presence. it was such a liberating feeling, standing on top of a huge hill, wind blowing, sun shining, singing to your creator. Joy overflowed from us as the spirit was there with us.
heading back we met up with the other climbers again, and started back to the vans.
where i proceeded to smash my toe into a rock, and sprained it. At first we were sure it was broken, but i gained mobility back to it fairly soon. However, 4 days later and its still purple. the swelling has gone down and it doesn't hurt to walk anymore, but that was the bummer of the day. but other than that it was absolutely incredible. i love it, and i felt so much joy in being in the lords creation and nature.

some of the guys bouldering

castle hill

this is my house, from the back, the porch is right off of my room, and the bit of the red building beside, is our kitchen, dinning room and classroom.

I realized I dont have any Akaroa photos on my computer yet, but i will get some and put them up.