Week 9

It’s good to be back home at The Crossing! This week, Peter Thomas (the son of Major Ian Thomas, the founder of the Capernwray Hall) is teaching on Hebrews. We also had a couple who came in and talked about witnessing to Muslims. Dale has also been teaching on Exodus. I will post my journal in a future post (probably around next Thursday or Friday) since I have not finished typing it up yet.

Monday afternoon, although I had planned to get ahead of some school work, was consumed with researching a concept I had never heard of before: that the speed of light is not constant but that it is in fact decaying over time! Peter Thomas brought up this subject (he has taught on Genesis and is quite knowledgeable in the subject of creation science) at the beginning of his first class. I spent the afternoon researching the concept as proposed by Barry Setterfield. Quite interesting... But it made me realise that I have a long way to go before I understand physics fully!
Tuesday lectures were amazing! God really spoke to me! For family night on Tuesday, we did a photo scavenger. Our families were split into two teams (I was with Cara, Kelsey, and Isabelle (Dale and Patti’s daughter)) who competed against each other, but we will also be competing all together against the other family group. The objective was to go around town getting pictures of as many items on the list we were given in a certain amount of time. The list included “take a picture with as many people on the street as possible” (We asked the people on a shuttle bus to get out and join in out picture and Amber’s group actually went into a restaurant and asked everyone to come out for a picture), “Go white water rafting,” “Take a picture with a Hyslop” (that’s the pastor’s family), “Climb a tree,” “Soak yourself in the river” (the river is still realy cold and jeans take a long time to dry...), “Get a stranger to push you in a cart,” “Push a stranger in a cart,” etc. It was tons of fun!!! My family group then went to Dale and Patti’s for supper (that is a late evening snack) and a few stories from Peter Thomas, our teacher for the week (the best was his story about how he was suspected of being involved in a plot to assassinate Prince Charles and Lady Diana).

On Wednesday, I worked in the house with Hanna. Since it was Cameron’s birthday, we had tiramisu for desert. It was really good! After supper (and after writing a few letters!), Hanna, Michael, Adam, and I read the next two chapters of “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.” I’m really enjoying reading through the chronicles of Narnia! They carry so much meaning and they often spark discussions within our reading group. They also spark fits of laughter! For Cam’s birthday, the girls took all the mattresses off the bottom bunks and pushed beds and dressers out of the way to make one giant bed on the floor. Amber and Kelsey then made a heart on the bed with flowers and made a trail of flowers leading up to the room. All the girls had a sleep over on the floor. Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night in between two mattresses so I had to move, but it was a really neat idea! Since the single bed and two of the dressers were moved out of the way to make space for the mattresses on the floor we decided not to move them back since it gives us much more floor space. The room now feels much bigger!

On Friday after supper, we played a game of soccer in the back field. It was tons of fun (although the sand flies were slightly annoying...). Afterwards, we moved all the couches into the student lounge and watched Amazing Grace.

We had the option of going to a health seminar in Timaru on Saturday but Cam and I decided to get a ride into Timaru but get some much needed shopping done instead. I finally found a nice pair of running shoes!!!!! I also invested in a camping pillow (that will come in handy for out trip to Mount Summers next week). Saturday evening, we were invited to Tanya’s house (a friend of the Crossing’s) for a youth event. We were split into four teams and competed in a number of events throughout the evening. Tanya and James (another friend of the Crossing’s) also hosted a barbeque for everyone who participated. The first challenge was to build a raft that would carry our entire team down a section of the river. We also had to sing our national anthem while ‘floating.’ We were given three or four inner tubes per team, a few boards and several pieces of rope. On my team were Robert, Bryan, Adam, and Amber. Our raft was the best constructed but unfortunately it didn’t float (the largest inner tube was too deflated) and we forgot to sing our national anthems. So most of my team ended up pretty wet! At least we weren’t as wet as Jonas (he back flipped off his raft into the freezing cold water). It was really funny to watch the other teams go down!!

The last event was also hilarious! We were all tied together (in our respective teams) at the waist in a giant knot then we had to find four people who were hiding around the (rather large) property and collect a token from each. But we had to avoid the people with flashlights and, if we saw one, we had to hide under the sheet we were provided with so that they could not tell which team we were. Our team didn’t play quite by the rules, however, since we were all super tired. We did start in the right direction, but we got distracted and decided to all try to get into the back seat of a car that was parked in one of the fields (which was quite a feat since we were all tied together!). After that, we came across a hedgehog which Robert picked up and we carried with us for half the game. We ended up giving it to Tanya (I’m not sure she appreciated it... :P). Our team gave up before finishing but we had a blast!

On Sunday, Adam, Cameron and I walked into town to attend the earlier church service. I really enjoy singing the hymns. We stayed for the worship portion of the second service as well since Ben, Bryan, Michael, and Robert (four Crossing guys) were playing. Sunday evening, after fellowship, Patti invited all the girls up to her house for supper (evening snack) and some ‘girl time.’ The guys stayed at the Crossing to learn a Hakka. Unfortunately, this meant we got to bed really late (again...).

Monday afternoon, we spent most of our time packing and prepping for our hike up mount Summers. Everyone is excited! We are really hoping that the weather is not too cold (or too hot). We will be leaving the Crossing tomorrow (Tuesday) morning and getting back on Thursday afternoon.