Week 22

Two more weeks till Easter break! Please pray that plans will come together! So far, I am looking forward to touring for a week with Bryan, Cara, and JB before spending a week volunteering at the Easter Te Mapua camp in Christchurch. We have to be out of the house on Thursday afternoon (April 1st) and we are allowed back Sunday afternoon, two weeks later.

This week, it really hit me how little time we have left in this beautiful country. It made me realize that I really need to be faithful with what God has given me here and now. It’s been really neat to see the relationship here evolve over the last semester. We are all becoming more real with each other. This means that conflicts are arising, but it also means that friendships are growing deeper.

Highlights from this week include a youth service in Geraldine, a rugby game in Christchurch and star gazing.

This week saw most of us scrambling to get our final Bible study of the semester finished. We got to study the passage in John 4 about Jesus healing the nobleman’s son. Since our afternoons were filled with ministry prep and practices for the youth service, this meant several late nights.

On Tuesday for family night, my group went to Dale and Patti’s for supper and and evening of games. Patti fed us scrumptiously, as usual, with pasta, bacon-wrapped chicken, barbequed corn and carrots, and two delicious salads. For desert, she made us white chocolate panacota with raspberries. Mmmmmm...

On Wednesday evening, I got to share my testimony at the youth group in Timaru.

Friday evening, half of the Capers put on a youth service in Geraldine for teens from all around the area. Michael gave a really good talk on apathy, Cara shared her testimony, and Adam, Cam, and Joel shared a bit about what they have been learning this year at The Crossing. I preformed in one of the skits. All of us here at the crossing would greatly appreciate your prayers for the youth in Geraldine. Some of the regular youth group attendees are starting to get excited about their faith and are wanting to take it to a deeper level while others don’t even know the difference between the old and the new testaments. It’s really exciting to hear how the God has been using the Capernwray students through the youth group and to see the youth group start to come alive.

After getting home from the service, a couple of us headed out for a walk. The stars were beautiful so we lay in the middle of the road (only in New Zealand!) for at least half an hour watching the sky and seeing the occasional shooting star and marvelling at God’s awesome creation.

On Saturday, we packed up the van and the flower power car and headed into Christchurch for a Crusaders (rugby) game. They were played the South African Lions and, of course, the Crusaders won! We all painted our faces red a black and waved flags and swords to cheer on the home team.