Edge Hill - Groove Armada

MONDAY MAR.14

Well i just had a really cool experience.....with stars. I really don't feel like telling you it now...I"m having a sappy-ish moment right now. So maybe I"ll tell you about the stars later...

TUESDAY MAR.15

Well here's what happened to me last night:
I was just laying out in under the stars and just kinda praying to God. Asking Him things like "Where do you want me to go after here? Do you want me to stay another 6 months? Who should i like now? Why can't guys seem to like me?" plus other things that have been running through my mind. When i first layed down in the grass there were only a few distinct stars out in the sky. As time went on ( a few minutes) slowly there were more stars that came out and they became clearer. I could really feel God was telling me something: "Over time, i will make things more clear to you. All you need to do is focus on me, read my word and I'll
reveal all these things to you" Even though I was still confused about all these things, I felt a peace about them that I haven't felt since my Quiet Day a fw weeks ago. So it was just nice to have God quietly remind me about these types of things :)

Well as i said before I've been asking God whether or not I"m supposed to stay here for another 6 months or not. I know many of you that are reading this are thinking "No! You can't stay there, we miss you too much". I know you miss me, i miss you guys too. However i need to do what God wants. I LOVE it here at bible school, i mean i love the whole atmosphere of it here. It's just so awesome! I'm just confused because i dont' know if I'm supposed to stay here to learn more or if I"m supposed to go home and encourage my Christian friends/be a witness to my
non-Christian friends. I'm learning so much here, and it's only been 7 weeks!!! So if you could all pray for me and making this decision that would be awesome! Plus i feel like i should wait and see if I"m accepted into music education at U of S, but i don't find that out until May! So it's just having the patience to wait for that. I just want to see if that door is open to me or not. But please still pray for me and my desicion to stay or not.

Fun fact: I'm listening to "Faith Like A Child" by Jars of Clay.....i thought that was a cool fact because I need faith in finding out what God wants from me here.

Funny Story: So i went skydiving a few weeks ago (check the blog if you want more details) and about a week ago mom e-mails be complaining "why did you do that? How could you do that? you're worrying me". Blah blah blah,...you know my mom. So then i e-mailed her back say something about how she can't stop me from enjoying New Zealand and that she should just stop worrying already! Then dad e-mailed me yesterday telling me that mom's willing to go skydiving if dad's willing to pay. That'd be pretty funny, cause then she'll know how safe it really was, I'm sure she'd enjoy it however I don't think she'd actually go through with it cause she's my mom. So ya, that's my funny story of the day.

If you're wondering what I"m up top "educationally speaking"...here's the scoop:
Well we don't really have "final exams" here @ Capernwray. Each week we have only 1 assignment, plus a weekly ministry. This week our assignment is reading a book about discipleship and writing about a 3 page review on it, plus we do our weekly ministry, plus this week it's prep week for Ministry week where we actually get off campus to teach the word of God. I"m actually going to Totara (I think that's how you spell it) Springs Camp which is only about 40 min. from school. I"m assuming it's going to be just like Junior Camps @ Stoney but smaller setting and less kids. So that'll be fun :)

FRIDAY MAR.18

Well i don't really know what else to say about what's been going on this week. Lots of ministry preparation and getting ready for next week. Most groups either leave today or tomorrow, however our group doesn't need to be @ Totara Springs until next Thursday. So in the mean time we're having team building @ the Adventure Bible School Lodge and then maybe helping out at another camp.

Oh cool story, if you like D&D and Lord of the Rings you might enjoy this, my friend Jake is writing up a fictional story about...um it's really hard to explain. I'm hoping to post the story on my blog when it's all done so that you can read it. Here are the characters, a description of them, and who they are based on:

Jakob= a powerful preist, no color in his eyes, just white glowing orbs, black hooded robe, servant of the One God =Jake

Captian Mattberg= the Captain of Daranei’s army, master of two weapon combat, doesn't know if he can trust Jakob in fighting for God=Matt

Rick= Mattberg's friend and part of the army, loves good food=Erik

Sta-sae= a clumsy but vicious Ranger, she has 3 daggers as weapons,=Stacey

Wrath= a very strong Ranger (only women can be Rangers), helped train Sta-sae, was evil yet became good= Ruth

Aerlen= an acolyte (the preist's apprentice), she doesn't have any white in her eyes, it's all black, she wears a brown hooded robe, when she attackes people she can blur in and out (like that character off of X-Men 2), she has "shadow sight" which is where she can see people lurking in the shadows, and she can also sense evil presences and when that happens her eyes turn blood red= she's based on me :)

So if i ever mention any of these characters, then you'll know what I've been talking about :) I even drew a sketch of what Sta-sae and Aerlen look like. They're pretty cool. I might even attempt to draw the guys's characters but we'll see.

MONDAY MAR. 21

Sorry I haven't really written much this week. Now that I have time I can bring you up to date on some things.

Since it was Ministry prep week last week, we had some drama presentations on Friday. I got videos of all the dramas except two. They have some really awesome messages behind them so I"m hoping to show you them and maybe you can use them for whatever purposes you want to. They're really awesome drama! I loved them.

So most of the groups either left on Friday or Saturday except Hayden's group (that's the one I"m in) and Dave's group. So on Saturday most people from both groups all went to Mt. Maunganui to have some "bonding" time. It was awesome! I've come to the conclusion that I LOVE New Zealand beaches. Just love them! I even got a darker tan than before!!! Now i
actually have distinct tan lines! Yay for me! Then all of us went to the hot pools, aw man, that felt really nice after a long day of being lazy at the beach!

Last night (Sunday) we had a surprise birthday party for Bianca at Hayden's house. It was so much fun, and it was just move "bonding time" between our two groups. We also played a "Get To Know Your Teammates" type game too. I'll have to show you sometime.

Today both teams went up to the Adventure Bible School Lodge for some team building activities. Our task was to build a raft, take it on the river, over and through a small path on an island and take the raft back to shore. Our team made our raft big enough to let those who couldn't swim on our team would just sit on it and the rest of us would push/pull the raft along. I'll be sure to show you pictures of our raft and Dave's team's raft. It was tons of fun building it, it reminded me of Survival training @ camp. *sigh*I miss camp...oh and Melissa sent me a
postcard today, so that made my day too.

Um what else happened. Oh our team went over to Finlay park to work a little bit on an isalnd that's there and cut off some vines that have been wrapping around the trees there. It was so crazy to see all these vines. I mean they were everywhere!! All of the paths that were on the
island were made entirely out of vine roots, NOT tree roots. Some of the trees were completely covered in the stuff. So it was cool that we got to help out with that.

TUESDAY MAR. 22

Today wasn't too bad because orginally we were supposed to help someone paint their office but then that didnt' work out for him so we helping him fold some Youth Group posters and letters and he was sending out. It really wasn't too bad.

In the middle or working we stopped to have lunch and then a Starbucks break. You can just imagine how happy i was when that happened! :) We also had a few minutes to just shop around, so guess where i went first....MUSIC STORE!! I really couldn't help it, I was just drawn to it ;) I
ended up getting 3 soundtrack CD's:
Austin Powers in Goldmember
Lara Croft Tomb Raider
Sister Act
So yes, even though i already have a few of the songs off the CD's on burnt CD's, i still bought the really CD's. Mostly because they were at a pretty decent price and it's always nice to look at a CD liner when you're listening to a movie soundtrack CD. Plus I'm somewhat addicted to music

When we got back to school we cut up some ingredients for some pumpkin soup that we're going to send to some elderly people. It's just another nice thing we could do while waiting until Thursday to pack up and go to Totara Springs.