Wine Gums Anyone?

Kia Ora! (Maori for pretty much every greeting) I hope all is well for everyone! I want to give a shout-out of congratulations to my sister for recently landing a mega sweet full-time job with a local dentist--GO KRISSY!
Well it's been awhile since I've posted, but with good reason. I am happy to say I have just survived a legendary component of all discipleship training schools called "Faith Week!" And yes it is as scary as it sounds: 7 days with one sack lunch and ten dollars and two friends to make your way around New Zealand. I had the privilege of going with a totally stoked skater boy from Canada named Tyler and a delightfully hilarious university grad from England named Becky. On this trip we met tons of incredible people, experienced both feast and famine, comfortable beds and hard ground, nice cars and hippy vans, walking in the cold rain and sitting in a hot tub above a coastal town. It's safe to say the entire spectrum was ranged this past week! If you want to read of our adventures, they are posted below. But it's pretty long so only read it if you have nothing better to do! But it's pretty funny so you should really check it out.


FAITH WEEK!!!!
We started by riding with a local surfer named Andy down to a beautiful coastal college town called Dunedin. We then found ourselves enduring a two-hour anglican easter service that night before roaming the streets until 1 am when we found our savior for the night: a fabulously flamboyant young law student who didn't mind taking in 3 random travelers and sharing toast, tea, hot cross buns, easter eggs and a non-fiction literary classic entitled "He died with a falafel in his hands" with us.
We then had the pleasure of re-uniting with a kiwi friend John Deniston and I made when we went canyoning on the north island by the name of Janine. She took us on a tour of Dunedin and to the end of a surf competition. We then got to eat dinner at one of the university cafeterias with some wicked cool students. After spending another night at Richard's beautiful bachelor pad, and being sent out with a "hitch-hiking essential:" a NZ candy called wine gums, we made our way up to Frans Josef Glacier by way of a key character of our trip we came to call "Auntie Suzy" with her hot green car and leopard print jersey and her sidekick foreign exchange student from China named Zoe. Dynamic duo does not begin to describe the hilarious chemistry of these two. Suzy also purchased some wine gums for us for our journey. It was this night that we barely managed to sleep in the tv room of one of the hostels in Frans Josef. The next day we had the privilege of taking Zoe to see the glacier. BEAUTIFUL!
After Frans Josef we found ourselves in a little mountain town called Wanaka where we found no place to stay. So we wisely decided to set up camp by a random catholic church on one of the busiest streets in town! Only to be awakened by drunk people in the night and to gawking passers-by in the morning. Becky did not miss the opportunity to make a real scene by stretching obnoxiously for all to see just how red-neck we really were--in case they had any doubt!
It was from Wanaka to Queenstown, aptly nicknamed the "Adventure Capital of the World" that we rode with Carl, the x-mormon missionary who now distributes porn around New Zealand. You can imagine his excitement to hear he had picked up 3 Christian missionaries!!! He did not stop laughing for at least half an hour. He took us to the first bungee-jumping spot ever on the way into Queenstown and everywhere we needed to go!
We found ourselves a bit disheartened in this town as it was money-obsessed and not about to put up 3 backpackers with some crazy faith week story for free. This was probably the maximum point of faith for us as we had NO CLUE what to do and just began walking aimlessly. Little did we know the divine collision we were walking into! We talked to the lovely people at the Salvation Army who hooked us up with a 2-night stay at one of the nicest Bed and Breakfasts in Queenstown run by two pastors! We were thrilled beyond words to have all the food we could imagine and amazingly soft beds and unbelievable views of the mountains, lake and town. Turns out we were a tremendous answer to their prayers as we got to help garden and clean like crazy.
As the week drew to a close we figured our luxury lifestyle was over as well until we got picked up by Clayton on the way back to Dunedin who offered for us to stay with him and have dinner. We ended up having New Zealand's largest barbecue complete with hamburgers, lamb, sausages and steak right before soaking up the lifestyles of the rich and famous in the hot tub overlooking the whole town of Dunedin!
And then the top two highlights were still to come with less than 24 hours of the trip remaining. That night I got to talk to a Fijean dental student by the name of Abnar who was raised Muslim about God and he was way excited about it. Then the next day we were driven to Christchurch by Mark, who basically made us swear we would not say a thing about God or Jesus once he learned we were Christians when we got in the car. He ended up asking to know more about the hard times in my life, and much to my surprise I got to spend one of the four hours it takes to drive the distance sharing my story more powerfully than ever before only to hear him respond by saying that no one had ever shared Christianity as clearly as I just had! AHH!

THE END!!!


So returning from a week spent with no money, no food, no guarantee of shelter and hardly any belongings has completely changed by outlook on life. I looked around our room at the stuff that supposedly belonged to me and felt absolutely no attachment to it And getting in line for dinner that night felt way too easy. Living life without knowing where our next meal was coming from forced us to live only for that day and not worry about the next or anything else we could have worried about. Everything was so spontaneous and has refreshed my inspiration to live every day by faith and in anticipation of what God has up His sleeve. This experience has also dissipated my need to know what I will spend the rest of my life doing! I am also excited about how this experience will help me relate to homeless people in the future!
We also met three different people who were kicked off their farms in Zimbabwe. Hearing about the horrors of what is really going on there and how deep-rooted, complex and inter-connected the issue is has also had a really deep impact on me. I'd love to talk about it with anyone who is curious.
This week we are studying the Father heart of God and it's affecting a lot of us deeply. And our outreach team starts Arabic lessons on Friday! AH! And even in light of seeing so much beautiful New Zealand last week, I actually find myself missing Colorado and everybody I love a ton! Heaps of love!