Hey. So here I am again. Kind of sitting here thinking... "I really should blog about something... but I don't know what...." Not because there's nothing to talk about but because I'm not sure what I want to tell you about. This last week has been pretty intense.
Last week we took a road trip to Tauranga, about five hours south-ish of here. The national leaders of YWAM NZ were having a three day gathering thing, and our leaders were supposed to go, so they dragged us a long. Apparently I'm actually a YWAM-er now that I'm in a DTS... according to certain leaders and whatnot... that's cool. Anyways, so while the leaders were having meetings and other leaderly things we got to go whitewater rafting. I've now officially gone down the biggest waterfall in the world that it is legal for an amateur to go down. 7 meters. It was cool, but I hit my face on Skywalker's helmet. Really hard. And it hurt a lot. Went down the Kaituna river, our route was a grade 5. And it was gorgeous. And fun. Our guide was about as cool as it gets. This coming weekend we're going canyoning, and I'm super stoked. I'll tell you about it after.
Rafting was only a small part of the week. Wednesday night we got to be a part of a worship service with YWAM NZ. It was the most passionate worship I've ever been a part of. That's saying a lot. The worship team was one dude with an acoustic guitar and a mic and another dude with a djembe. So rad. I was really impressed with the national leadership, they all seem very willing to recognize their own need for Jesus in a very real way, and talking to them doesn't make you feel like an insignificant discipleship student but like a part of what God is doing with and through YWAM in New Zealand. It really got me pretty excited about being a part of it. There's a lot more to tell about that night... but maybe we'll talk about that another time.
This week the topic has been identity. Talking about learning how to just be who God made us to be.... kind of big stuff.... not sure how much of it I want to plaster all over the internet right now...
I came here with the intention to grow closer to God. I came here with the intention to learn more about who I am and who He wants me to be. I came here to break out of my freaking box and reinvent the wheel when it comes to my relationship with Christ. I know I talk a lot about all the cool fun stuff we do, but I did NOT come here to go on vacation. Let me tell you, I'm not on a vacation. However I'm having the time of my life. I actually thought this thing might really suck in some ways but I'm loving it here. It's hard sometimes, but I planned on being challenged. That being said, I had no idea how God would work in me. What I'm saying is that even though I knew this was going to be a time of growth, I didn't really know deep down how deep that would go. There's a lot at this point that I'm still trying to figure out how to articulate, even to myself. Basically what I'm saying is that God is working in my life in ways I never predicted. When people send me notes about being excited to see what God does with me, I'll be honest.... the thought "you have no freaking idea..." runs through my head. I believe you will see a difference in me when I come home.... in the the things I do but more importantly in the state of my spirit. So to those of you who have been praying for me: THANKS. I've no doubt that it's helped. I feel like a different person than I did 6 weeks ago. And we're only halfway through the lecture phase, and the outreach phase is gonna be off the hook. The fact is that I'm not comfortable at this point spilling my heart and soul about these things on a blog. So that's why my blog entries come out seeming a little superficial. So I hope you haven't gotten the impression that I'm just frolicking through the daisies down here. God is working in my heart and my soul in a huge way. And.... I want more. So again thank you. I know I'm not necessarily awesome at replying to little notes and things. Access to the internet here is a little bit limited and my head is so occupied with what's going on that I have a hard time keeping up on those things. So for that I'm sorry and thanks for your patience.
So on the topic of outreach. They're splitting our DTS up into two outreach teams. One is headed to Vanuatu, which is the location they've been talking about since I first pursued this idea. The other is going to Guam. Yours truly is headed for Guam. And He's stoked. We'll be heading there right after Christmas and will be there until the end of February. We'll be staying on a brand-spanking new YWAM base. By that I don't mean new buildings.... I think you know what I mean. It should be cool. We don't really know yet what all of our outreach time will be spent doing, but I'm sure it will be great.
Quick note: I'm supposed to have some funds coming in, but as of right now I still need to give the organization about $1800 NZ. About $1300 of that is for a plane ticket, which we need to get..... YESTERDAY. So.... that's out there. I know a lot of you have already supported me financially so far, and that there's no way I'd be here without that, and thank you so much. But I do need to make the need known so you have the opportunity if you so desire. You can find me on paypal, my email address is chargrove217@yahoo.com. Or drop me a line and I can tell you where to mail it.
So anyways, I think that's all I have to say for now. Cheers.
12.11.08
2.11.08
I'm still alive!
I don't have much time, only a few minutes till internet curfew, but I've been getting lots of "are you still alive?" type messages and emails lately so I'll try to drop you a little tidbit.
Just finished up the week on relationships. Not just boy/girl stuff (though we did discuss it) but just relationships in general. Took some personality tests and whatnot. Discovered that I'm a.... (surprise surprise...) phlegmatic. The real surprise was that I was a very close second as a choleric... weird indeed. I don't know how much stock I put in that stuff but it's intended more as a tool to help you learn about yourself than anything. Our speaker was a freaking firecracker, by far the most entertaining we've had yet. It was a fun week. Yesterday we had a party for the leader of the base, who's stepping down at the end of the year. It seemed kind of like a who's-who of YWAM NZ. It was quite a partay.
Last weekend we hosted a dance party in Maungutoroto. Matt, one of the leaders here is really into t-t-techno. He D-jayed. It was something else. I can handle some techno for about 3 hours and then I about blew up. But it was pretty fun.
Today right after dinner I went for a little exploratory stroll. Walked down the road for a ways, then took off into the fields. I thought I got lost for a little bit. I was imagining myself having to spend the night in the NZ bush fending off possums. But I made it back ok.
Speaking of possums.... the ones here are brown and have bushy tails. They're an import from Australia and are considered a pest, and the government encourages killing them. The other night my roommates and I got to go to dinner at the Blythen's (the folks who we helped with docking there sheep, if you recall) and afterwards Grant took us out possum hunting. After 4x4-ing through his farmland in a '78 land cruiser for a while, we hopped on the heel-toe express with a marlin 22 rifle and started picking off possums. I know the technical word is Opossum, but everyone here says possum. I took down three, no misses. Really fun... but it brings me to a story:
So it's gonna be hard for me to tell good stories on this blog because a good story is about good characters and it's so much easier to tell a story about characters you're readers already know. The fact is none of you know the characters in my current story at all, so this is going to be a little bit more of an undertaking. So let me paint you a picture: Manuel. Manuel is from Germany. He's also one of my current roommates. A bit smaller than me, brown hair, dark eyes. Plays the violin real well and the piano pretty good also. I really like him but he suffers from.... clulessness. I mean when it comes to things like chopping wood, climbing things, jumping off things, and..... shooting things. I mean this boy has never held a gun before. To add to this picture, you should know that these "possums" we speak off are notoriously hardy creatures. So we're tromping through the fields and the mud and the forest and the herds of sheep. Grant is spotlighting the possums in the trees and the idiots just sit there staring at you. The man turns hunting possums into something like a video game.
So we track down a good possum for Manuel to shoot. It's in the top of a medium-size tree, spotlighted by our intrepid guide, Grant. Manuel is about 3 meters from the tree in question. All in all, we're talking about a pretty close-range shot. Good for Manuel right now.
He lines the possum up in the scope, as the tension mounts. Grant gently talks him through the shot, explaining how the scope works, to relax, and all that good stuff. The rest of us are silent, content to let Manuel have his moment. His finger squeezes the trigger, and the shot rings out.
Direct hit. To the possums's torso. However this little guy isn't going down without a fight. He almost gets knocked of his branch by the impact but manages to hang on. At Grant's instruction Manuel lines up another shot. Crack. At this impact the possum falls but manages to catch another branch a bit lower down, and remains in the tree.
Then it happens. The screeches ring out. I don't even know how to describe to you the sound that a possum makes. Hoarse, screeching, rasping...... in short, absolutely hideous and unnerving. The screeching makes all of us hope for Manuel to kill this possum off quickly. He lines up another shot. The possum again falls a few feet, catches again, and continues it's hideous objections to the abuse it's recieving.
Three...... four...... five........ six shots in all is what it takes to knock the possum to the ground. As it writhes and screeches on the ground, something unexpected happens...
Grant picks the possum up by the tail, and as another screech rings out, he swings and the possum's head arcs with a crunch into the trunk of the tree. He drops it, fully expecting it to be dead.... but the writhing and screeches continue...... then the knife comes out from the holster at Grants back. The point drives through the possum's throat then comes out with the slash.
Don't ask me how a possum can still screech and twitch after that, but it finally did die after a point blank shot to the back of the skull. Manuel was a bit truamatized by the whole affair. I thought it was pretty entertaining.
Anyways. So I gotta go. I know the story was a bit gory but I hope you enjoyed it. There's more to tell but I don't have time right now, I'll try to get back on here sooner rather than later.
I don't have much time, only a few minutes till internet curfew, but I've been getting lots of "are you still alive?" type messages and emails lately so I'll try to drop you a little tidbit.
Just finished up the week on relationships. Not just boy/girl stuff (though we did discuss it) but just relationships in general. Took some personality tests and whatnot. Discovered that I'm a.... (surprise surprise...) phlegmatic. The real surprise was that I was a very close second as a choleric... weird indeed. I don't know how much stock I put in that stuff but it's intended more as a tool to help you learn about yourself than anything. Our speaker was a freaking firecracker, by far the most entertaining we've had yet. It was a fun week. Yesterday we had a party for the leader of the base, who's stepping down at the end of the year. It seemed kind of like a who's-who of YWAM NZ. It was quite a partay.
Last weekend we hosted a dance party in Maungutoroto. Matt, one of the leaders here is really into t-t-techno. He D-jayed. It was something else. I can handle some techno for about 3 hours and then I about blew up. But it was pretty fun.
Today right after dinner I went for a little exploratory stroll. Walked down the road for a ways, then took off into the fields. I thought I got lost for a little bit. I was imagining myself having to spend the night in the NZ bush fending off possums. But I made it back ok.
Speaking of possums.... the ones here are brown and have bushy tails. They're an import from Australia and are considered a pest, and the government encourages killing them. The other night my roommates and I got to go to dinner at the Blythen's (the folks who we helped with docking there sheep, if you recall) and afterwards Grant took us out possum hunting. After 4x4-ing through his farmland in a '78 land cruiser for a while, we hopped on the heel-toe express with a marlin 22 rifle and started picking off possums. I know the technical word is Opossum, but everyone here says possum. I took down three, no misses. Really fun... but it brings me to a story:
So it's gonna be hard for me to tell good stories on this blog because a good story is about good characters and it's so much easier to tell a story about characters you're readers already know. The fact is none of you know the characters in my current story at all, so this is going to be a little bit more of an undertaking. So let me paint you a picture: Manuel. Manuel is from Germany. He's also one of my current roommates. A bit smaller than me, brown hair, dark eyes. Plays the violin real well and the piano pretty good also. I really like him but he suffers from.... clulessness. I mean when it comes to things like chopping wood, climbing things, jumping off things, and..... shooting things. I mean this boy has never held a gun before. To add to this picture, you should know that these "possums" we speak off are notoriously hardy creatures. So we're tromping through the fields and the mud and the forest and the herds of sheep. Grant is spotlighting the possums in the trees and the idiots just sit there staring at you. The man turns hunting possums into something like a video game.
So we track down a good possum for Manuel to shoot. It's in the top of a medium-size tree, spotlighted by our intrepid guide, Grant. Manuel is about 3 meters from the tree in question. All in all, we're talking about a pretty close-range shot. Good for Manuel right now.
He lines the possum up in the scope, as the tension mounts. Grant gently talks him through the shot, explaining how the scope works, to relax, and all that good stuff. The rest of us are silent, content to let Manuel have his moment. His finger squeezes the trigger, and the shot rings out.
Direct hit. To the possums's torso. However this little guy isn't going down without a fight. He almost gets knocked of his branch by the impact but manages to hang on. At Grant's instruction Manuel lines up another shot. Crack. At this impact the possum falls but manages to catch another branch a bit lower down, and remains in the tree.
Then it happens. The screeches ring out. I don't even know how to describe to you the sound that a possum makes. Hoarse, screeching, rasping...... in short, absolutely hideous and unnerving. The screeching makes all of us hope for Manuel to kill this possum off quickly. He lines up another shot. The possum again falls a few feet, catches again, and continues it's hideous objections to the abuse it's recieving.
Three...... four...... five........ six shots in all is what it takes to knock the possum to the ground. As it writhes and screeches on the ground, something unexpected happens...
Grant picks the possum up by the tail, and as another screech rings out, he swings and the possum's head arcs with a crunch into the trunk of the tree. He drops it, fully expecting it to be dead.... but the writhing and screeches continue...... then the knife comes out from the holster at Grants back. The point drives through the possum's throat then comes out with the slash.
Don't ask me how a possum can still screech and twitch after that, but it finally did die after a point blank shot to the back of the skull. Manuel was a bit truamatized by the whole affair. I thought it was pretty entertaining.
Anyways. So I gotta go. I know the story was a bit gory but I hope you enjoyed it. There's more to tell but I don't have time right now, I'll try to get back on here sooner rather than later.
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