I guess I should end my New Zealand blog appropriately: by tying together the loose ends and shoving the clothes in the closet... to“clean up” a bit, organize nine months into a few words - concluding my time which took place way down there.
The chances you will even read this are slim, so maybe this is my chance to talk to cyberspace alone, but you're free to eaves drop if you'd like.
I've had a month to assimilate back into British Columbian culture and already my bare-footed adventures are practically over. (Or kept to a minimum at least, it just doesn't work too well here.)
The time I spent in New Zealand already feels like it didn't even happen. Or perhaps it was just a dream in which I remember all the events and thoughts I had were remembered in impeccable detail. I sure didn't go to Bible School on Earth, that's for sure. I was somewhere else, where implanted in my head in this place was A Relationship, knowledge and memories. Incredibly fond memories of fifteen interesting men and women who came together and discovered Real Life and allowed an all-knowing Spirit to possess us.
In the classroom we didn't only gain “head-knowledge” but a deeper understanding of what it meant to be Christian – something, which was made abundantly clear - was impossible to be without God at the center, living His life through us. So it wasn't so much about knowing events and what He did, as to building a relationship so firmly rooted in love that no matter what happened after we stepped back onto earth, we would long to surrender all power and choices to the Creator of the Universe.
Outside of the classroom, we became a family, united by Christ. On the paddocks there were weekly soccer scrums and made up rugby/football tossing games. In the common lounge there was always a piano or guitar filling the whole house with sound. Those sound waves are still traveling throughout that house today, bouncing off the walls which were dusted weekly on Wednesdays and then through the kitchen where our cook, Sheryl found herself most of the day. Those sound waves will still wisp past the ears of Justus and Isabel who will no doubt continue to jump on the miniature trampoline out back or race down the gravel driveway on their bikes or motorized toy-ATVs while Patti and Dale work in the shed-turned-office near the side of the house.
The vacant room one which was once filled with rambunctious noises from the four inhabitants [Joel, Joel B, Bryan and I] now has a chance to recuperate from the many hardships it had to endure: Joel B. angrily pouncing on either Joel's or my bed - trying to get us to squeal about the mysterious White Man, or from the many rage attacks from Joel and I fueled from an ugly-looking suitcase which was too disgraceful to be living among us.
In town, the library's internet will once again have some free bandwidth as fifteen internet-crazed students will no longer be crashing the systems to get into contact with earth, and SuperValu will go into a depression as the shelves won't be raided by snack-devouring North Americans.
My two weeks of madness traveling alone has almost become a forgotten memory. Memories of spending four days alone in a forest, meditating among half-dead trees and a too-salty-for-its-own good ocean. Hitch hiking, and then miraculously meeting up with Bryan, Amber and Kelsey to travel with them for the last week of break. Phew, a Christmas break in which the bookends were spectacular and the meat was uncooked and trash-worthy. Looking back on it, it was perfect. There's nothing like waking up in a tent by the sound of intense rain pelting the exterior, way up in the northwest 100 km away from a main city, with no electronic device or 20th century technology, with no transportation and knowing that you had to take the tent down in the rain... and then pack it into a bag which then had to be carried down a mountain until some merciful person had enough sympathy to pick you up. Glorious.
And then Easter break. Quiet explosions in the heart of various kinds for eighteen days before settling back into life at The Crossing, where the last six weeks flew by and God was realized even further. A hello/goodbye sequence which was strangely weird on the last weekend in New Zealand and then a plane which transported me back into the world as I knew it.
Here I am, changed inside by an extraordinary amount, yet the outside is completely recognizable. Confused and unsure of this world I now live in again, dumbfounded by the way things are, gazing at the crowds of blind and asleep men walking the streets living it all for nothing [ / themselves], who may possibly never wake up and experience Real Life. But God is at work in every person's life, and that is awesome. Although I am currently completely direction-less. I will hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, The Great I Am, and I know His plan for my life is greater than I can imagine.
Thanks to all who have ever made an effort to read what I've been up to, I appreciate it greatly. Special thanks to Rebekah who always sent me encouraging words via Facebook, all of you who commented on here, and to my four lovely grandparents.
