K so... I might have a story to tell. Or a few. Dude my mind is so engaged right now it's crazy. Crazy awesome. Anyways I'm exhausted right now so I don't have a lot to say except... I'm pretty sure God healed my hip. Today I walked at least 40k and every single part of both my legs hurts... except my left hip. Yesterday I walked 15 and it was hurting like crazy. I'm so exhausted. Remember how that hip was jacked from skateboarding wrecks? Yeah... it feels totally normal right now. Unbelievable. Anyways, going to go to bed but I'm kind of excited about that. That and I might... just maybe.... might be writing a book. Don't get too excited because I'm not making any promises. But maybe. Anyways. Quite a day.

I've come off the "transition high" in the last week. I don't know about you but it happens to me all at once. One moment I'm walking around looking around saying "hum-de-dum" the next I'm standing staring saying "frick...." But it's good eh, to hit the ground and find my feet in reality. It rained hard all last week, kind of made me pine a little for the northwest. I can't say my time here is always easy. I'm definitely out of my comfort zone trying to learn how to cope. Learning how to interact with people in another culture is... interesting sometimes. People in my own culture can be scary enough. It's a totally different ball game than YWAM... there we were all learning how to interact with individuals from a whole spectrum of different cultures. Now I'm in the middle all alone... thinking "you do... what?" Not alot of internationals in Tauranga. At least not as far as i can tell. The large majority of people I meet are born and bred Kiwi. A few English. I met an English chap yesterday who just moved here a week ago and I could hardly understand what he was saying. Unbelievable. I don't even notice how New Zealanders talk anymore. The other day I was informed that my accent comes through really thick when I sing. Someone even described it as a "twang." Yeah buddy, true to the Central Oregon cowboy roots. Even though I've never been a cowboy or liked country music... except Johnny Cash. Funny.

Our youth group trip is on schedule. It's going to be a lot of fun. Just praying for good weather, we're headed up to Mt Ruapehu and what I hear is that like most mountains... on a nice day it's amazing but on a bad day it's really bad. That'll be the 10th through the 12th of July. I'll take my camera. We're going up Friday afternoon, going sledding on Saturday, and coming back midday on Sunday.

My social life is picking up, which is nice. I'm still going to City Church on Sunday nights, probably will just keep that habit up. Got invited over for dinner at some girls' house on Saturday night, had a grand old time. One of them is from Canada, and was in a DTS at Faith Bible College when we camped on the front lawn and turned it into the third world. Hilarious. Last night after church a large number of us went out to kick it. It warmed my heart to have hangout time after a Sunday night church service, reminded me of so many great post-journey evenings. As people trickled out I lost count of how many "text me let's hang out this week" comments I got. Which is awesome... but I do have responsibilities... on that note... people do the sms thing to death here. It's a lot cheaper than calling on a cell. I'm not really a fan of text messaging in the first place, but a lot of them abbreviate the life out of the ol' sms. So sometimes it takes me a while to decode. But hey that's cool. The only thing is that the buttons on the phone I have don't exactly "work" in the traditional sense. It's one of those old nokias with an antenna! Oh man it's awesome. Except for the text messaging with "special" buttons. So I'm sure you can imagine what it would be like to watch me try to write a text message... concentrating very hard, and anger mounting with each button malfunction. I haven't thrown the phone yet but believe me..... there have been a couple of close calls. I played foosball yesterday. People seem to find it amusing when I yell incoherently in frustrated competitive rage. I don't find it so amusing.

K gotta go. Things to do.

Nothing really to report except I LOVE MY LIFE!!!

Man it's awesome. Plural even.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=116721&id=589982541&l=25c3614d9d


Youth group went pretty good! Played some games and stuff. 5 kids showed up. After the fun stuff we spent a solid hour having a discussion about the future of youth group and stuff. I was stoked that they're willing to voice their opinions. They want rock n roll church. I told them I could work my butt off and do everything and give them rock n roll church but it would be better for them to fight for it and do it if they want it. I think they just need a chance to serve. I'm actually pretty stoked that we got the engine started on that. So we'll see what youth group turns into. In some way it depends on how much initiative they're willing to take. I told them the whole point to me of the group is that we grow closer to God together and maybe have some fun on the way. (Of course... they always come together but you know.) So... cool.

Going to Auckland for a second time this week on Saturday. Cruising up on Saturday with some dudes from City Church to just kick it for the afternoon. Should be choice.

It's cold. Going home to start a fire.

Just got back from Auckland, went up yesterday. Quick trip. Went with one of the youth kids to patch up his relationship with his pops. I didn't do anything, just along for the ride. It was fun. Their cat spewed on me. Disgusting. It wasn't bad though just kind of gross. I hate cats.

This guy moved in with me for a bit. His name is Sam.

We have our first actual youth meeting tonight. It's been a little slow getting things off the ground because of some communication snafues. But that's okay. We'll see how it goes. I think the kids all like me pretty well. Planning a weekend retreat in July. Just locked down the dates, hoping to find a place to go play in the snow. You know, maybe a cottage or something with a good woodstove so we can go without the proper snow gear, play in the snow and get all wet then go inside to drink tea and warm ourselves by the fire. Hoping. That would be rad. Also if it was free that would be rad.

The worship part of things is getting interesting. Singing songs is easy, working with dynamics of people not so much. I almost got in a fight with this big Maori chap over a stupid little technical detail. It was unbelievable. I didn't do anything but he blew up and said some things to get at me and I wasn't backing down. Fortunately the pastor walked in and diffussed things pretty well. I had a long talk with Barbara, one of the women who leads the second service and she reckons it was a bunch of frustrations he had that finally boiled over and I just happened to be in the path. I don't know though... we'll see. We've patched things up and we're all good but it's kind of crazy. There's other interpersonal dynamics going on also that are challenging. So... you can pray for that, that would be cool.

I haven't really looked into another job yet. I'm making enough right now to survive so the pressure's not on and I've been doing this that and the other thing. I went on a 20k walk the other day. My left hip hasn't been the same since certain "events" involving a "longboard." It doesn't usually bother me any but after about 10k it starts hurting like crazy. So I was limping for a full day afterwards. I'm going to start training, hopefully it will strengthen up and stop doing that. In summertime there's a backpacking DTS run on the south island and I think it would be cool to stop in there in January and go on a couple of backpacking trips. That's what the training is for. I'd like to get up to where I'm comfortable with a 50lb pack for 40k. I figure I should be pretty well set with that. The only thing is training for that takes so much time. My walk the other day was a 3 hour excursion. But if I start hiking up hills and in soft sand with a pack that should be pretty good. We'll see how that freaking left hip does.

Read this book, "the Barbarian Way." Erwin McManus I think was the guy's name. It was pretty good. Talked about how we "civilize" our faith. How Jesus is the ultimate example of "alternative lifestyle." We hide Christ in programs, orders of service, songs even. Church can be such a business. I get frustrated with all that crap. I certainly take it too far you know... I have a pretty unstructured personality so going where the wind blows is easy and fun for me. Some people need structure though. Like these guys who are playing with me... they want to know exactly how the song will go, exactly what we'll be singing next, to have an "arrangement" for the song. I appreciate the reason behind that but honestly it's been driving me nuts.

I've gone to this church across town for the last couple of Sunday nights. It's big and loud. I've met some friends there. Which is good. It's a little ways out but it's been cool to kind of get away, where I have no responsibility beyond myself. WBCC is an awesome church, but there's always something, you know? Always something I have to remember or plan for or call someone about. So it's cool to go on Sunday night and just be. I've come off the transition high pretty well I think. Recovering now. The first night at City Church was actually really good. They open up the altar at the end and this cat Logan prayed for me and I dropped quite a bit of stress. Good stuff. Refocusing on Christ is like a breath of fresh air you know?