I’m officially sad now because we are about to get on a bus and ride overnight from Waikanae to Auckland (about 11 hours). We will spend the whole day in Auckland and I fully plan on doing the Sky Jump or bungee or some kind of craziness! After the fun-filled day we will spend the night in the beautiful accommodations at the Auckland airport and then fly out to Brisbane, Australia. Why am I sad (since this is a wicked way to spend the next couple of days)? I’m going to miss these Kiwi’s!!! One of the hardest parts of spending 11 months in 11 different countries is having to leave people 11+ different times. From the Crystal Springs crew to the Soul Survivor crew to now the New Wine crew…if the next 10 months is anything like this I’m going to have 3000 friends on facebook!!! Below is just a taste of some of the things we’ve done and see in the past month.
Yes, all of this is in the same little island!! We’ve been to waterfalls, mountains, huge hills (climbing the Maori trail was legit), beaches, open fields, small towns, Christian summer camps (with another beach within a 10 min run distance). It’s been so awesome! We’ve had too many laughs since we worked with a lot of teens at Soul Survivor…thank you Caleb for some serious entertainment (he was completely in his element). Caleb challenged all the kids to a light saber war…guess who won the championship…the picture below is the show-down…Tanna vs. Tom. No Mercy!!
This last week we have been in Waikanae (close to the bottom of the North Island) at the New Wine conference. We got to hang out with a lot of the teens from Soul Survivor…love them…will post pics later. Our teams split up to serve in a lot of different places…working with different aged kids and being stewards (answering every question that anybody could possibly think of). We met some incredible people and their stories were powerful. I really feel like a lot of our teams are growing closer together, I know mine is.
Some more of my favorites from NZ are:
1. Hokey Pokey Ice Cream…that’s what it’s ALL about!!!
2. The saying “Sweet As…” which means cool…which I thought was another saying that sounds very familiar for the first couple of days
3. Fandabadozzie – I don’t even know what it means, but the kids (Auston and Eric included) go nuts when this song comes on and Auston has been singing it non-stop
4. The El Rancho staff…amazing!
5. Having my tent destroyed by the ridiculous gail force winds at Soul Survivor…which is why the El Rancho staff is amazing…the girls gave me a place to sleep when my tent died…so now I’m really homeless
Now, we’re off to Australia for some new adventures…stay tuned for stories from Oz!
