Week 1

Wow! I’ve already been at The Crossing for a week. It seems to have flown by, and yet I am also amazed at how it seems like we have all been here for so long! Everyone is super friendly! The weather here is surprisingly cold. I had always assumed that New Zealand was always warm and tropical so this comes as a shock to me (and to many of the others here as well). I have had to go out shopping for a warm blanket and hope to purchase some slippers, gloves, hat and a new wool sweater. Since there is no central heating, we heat with wood fires in the student lounge and the formal lounge. We also have heaters in our beds that we turn on half an hour before bed so that it is nice and toasty when we get in. We have had off and on sunny weather for most of the past week, although it rained yesterday and is overcast today.

The house we are staying in, which was until very recently a bed and breakfast when there was no school, is beautiful. As one of the students put it, it looks ‘antiquated.’ We love to hang out in the formal lounge (which is basically our living room) and play card games (such as king’s corner and UNO), talk, read, and laugh. There is usually someone playing the guitar or the piano (sometimes both) which makes for a very nice atmosphere. It is not rare to have a large group of students and staff huddled around the fire where it is warmest. I share a room with the four other girls (Amber, Cara, Kelsey, and Cameron). I sleep on the top bunk above Cameron. We have decided to decorate our room with pictures that we have placed all along the ledge of the crown moulding all around the room. At the moment, I only have one picture (so if anyone feels like including a photograph with a letter, that would be awesome!).

Meal time is quite fun. We make a point of changing tables at every meal so that we can have a chance to talk with different people and get to know everyone. The food is delicious: Sheryl is an awesome cook! Every Saturday, there will be a different pair of students cooking the meal and desert. We still don’t know who we will be teamed up with, but I am already thinking of what I would love to make (something Québécois, like ‘pudding chomeur’).

To make the school run more smoothly, we all have duties. I am on breakfast clean up as my daily duty and I vacuum and clean the dining room/formal lounge and student lounge/classroom as my weekly duty. We also have a work day on Wednesday afternoons where we get split up into teams to do stuff like clean the kitchen, weed the gardens, mow the lawns, sweep, vacuum, etc.

Every Friday, there is a free trip into town so that we can stock up on necessities such as chocolate, toiletries, food (we have a fridge in the student lounge where we can store snacks and stuff), stationary, stamps, etc. We have to pay for any other trips, but they are not too expensive. On Monday (the first day we were here), a bunch of us decided to walk into town. Dale had said that we could actually walk along the riverbed since it is so low. We ended up having to cross the river several times since it crisscrossed back and forth along the riverbed. I managed to cross on rocks for the first bit, but eventually, we all had either waded ankle high with our shoes on or were walking barefoot through the freezing cold water. It was tons of fun!! I can’t wait to do it again, although this time I will wear flip-flops or crocks so that the rocks won’t be so painful.

The more intense classes will begin tomorrow and the guest speaker for the week will be arriving tonight for Sunday night fellowship. This week has been mostly orientation and getting to know each other. It has been really fin, but I can’t wait to start classes!

Next week, we will be going to help at two different camps, probably as counsellors, with kids aged 8 to 12. I had to buy a sleeping bag for this (I actually found a small one for only 45NZD!). Apparently it will be cold and I have been advised to bring a hot water bottle to stick in my sleeping bag to keep warm. Please pray that we will have patience with the kids since we will likely not be getting enough sleep and that we will be able to be effective witnesses to the kids.

Many of the students have taken up running in the morning before breakfast. I tried running the first morning, but had to stop half way. I now plan on walking in the mornings, this way I can bring my camera to take pictures of the postcards from God.

If you would like to pray for us here at The Crossing, here are the names of the students: Cara, Kelsey, Cameron, Amber, Jordan, Adam, Ben, Robert, Michael, Bryan, Joel, Joel B. (who is still waiting for his student visa so that he can join us), and Jonas. The staff are Hanna, Sheryl, Dale, Patti, Joseph, Colin, and Justice (5 yrs old) and Isabelle (8 yrs old) (Dale and Patti’s kids).

I would love to hear from you! My address here is
124 Woodbury Road
R.D. 1
Geraldine
New Zealand