Shine Your Light

    

    My grandma was recently relating to me her troubles with texts. She has a flip phone still so of course it takes a while compared to our modern I-phones but she is more able to cope with it. However, she was a little exasperated when I talked to her because someone had been asking her questions via text which she had taken a couple hours to think over before responding. 

    "What kind of questions?" I asked. 

    "Oh just everyday questions, but they threw me off guard," she laughed. 

    What she said didn't make sense. How could normal polite questions befuddle you? But then it got me thinking. I used to be that way. When I had a few precious contacts in my phone, I thought of a text as a letter, something to be considered on both sides when actually, a text is often used as a thought, sometimes even partial and flippant. You could be asking a question out of curiosity, mere politeness, a bridge to another question, etc. The receiver can make their answer calculated or quickly make up an answer that doesn't provide a ton of details. Ma Glo was slightly confused with the questions because she didn't know in what context to answer them. Were they actually caring - like, did they want to know her whole history of how her day was going? 

While Grandmas still have a full set of attention span brain cells (mostly), we are a generation of attention span deficiency - thought provoked, yes, but only for a second. I deal with this often myself as I jump from one thing to the next in rapid succession.  Messages often zip through our phones and computers constantly as we send out fragments of thoughts through the air to end up miles away. 

In 1986, the Telegraph UK magazine estimated we sent out – mainly by post, telephone and fax – around two and a half pages of newspaper each day. By 2007, this estimate had increased to six full newspapers thanks to email, digital photography, Twitter and social network sites. Twelve years later, Pintrest, Instagram, and Snapchat have all joined the ranks. How many newspapers does your brain give out now? I assume more than six. Unfortunately, no one has time to do the math. 

One site I visited showed a study in 2018 has calculated that on average, Americans send and receive about 94 text messages per day. To check out this interesting article, head to: https://www.textrequest.com/blog/how-many-texts-people-send-per-day/ While this is only in the text sphere, imagine how much information we give out between all our connections with the world. We need to be mindful that we are the light of the world according to Matthew 5:14. As candle bearers of God's flame, we have a very important responsibility to hold to the Word with truth. If we send messages or pictures that do not show the light of Christ then we are not being good stewards of the light He has entrusted in us. When we are solely focused on God alone, then He will be able to send out emanating powerful beams for others to see even through hardship. But if we are self-focused, his light will be faded for we are putting our own dusty filter over his purity. 

The devil tries to imitate Christ's light as warned in 2 Corinthians 11:14. Think of a tanning salon versus the sun. The sun is Christ. It warms the earth and us. Powerful and bright, it can hurt our skin if we're not careful. But it still is the sustainer of life on our planet. Without it, we would wither away. However, the tanning salon was made to copy the sun for the sole purpose of enhancing the UV radiation rays onto our skin. It does not cause life to grow. In fact, it roasts our skin to a rich shade of brown to look like we've been in the sun for our whole life. Over time, if a person continues to us tanning salons, it will lead to skin cancer, premature aging, eye damage, immune system suppression, etc. The devil takes something good like the sun's rays and twists them to work for his own devious purposes. People go to him for their "tan" because it works better and faster. But the consequences are not worth the risk. 

Out of the many texts, posts, stories, etc. that come from our creative brains, remember to take time to think this week. Are we allowing the devil to roast someone's heart, to cause anger or hurt through what we advocate for? At the same time, are we consciously mindful of how we demonstrate Jesus to others? Do we  need to reduce our overload of newspapers to others in order love sincerely? Let Jesus shine through you out of love, not obligation. 

“For to speak the truth, there are but few that care thus to spend their time, but choose rather to be speaking of things to no profit.” 
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

Splash of Summer

SO last time I wrote was getting back from New Zealand. And now it's been a little more than a month and a lot has happened. 3 weeks after I got back from NZ, my family headed to Iceland for 3 days then Scotland.

 Iceland was so crazy! Dad had booked tours for our two full days there - the first one was 8 hours long but the second one was 15 hours long. Most of it was spent in the 15 passenger van. But the parts where we got to stretch our legs and hike was beautiful! Glaciers, Icebergs, Waterfalls, you name it. Oh and did I mention Icelandic horses? Purest breed - they are not allowed back onto the island once they have left. No other horse breed has had the honor of stepping onto this cold viking land. Also, Iceland only has 300,000 people but shows off 10,000 waterfalls!

They took us up to the hills of Iceland and let us gallop around on their calm and gently horses of ice. 

Black sand beach made from rocks.

It was freezing and rainy at Diamond beach. 

Then 10 days in Scotland - where modern people live in a culture steeped full in legend and ruins. Our first stop was in Loch Lomond. Here we stayed in a castle backed by public gardens. We went on bike rides, explored the thriving plants, and created a haunted video starring us as the victims one dark night. After the castle, we drove to Edinburgh (pronounced Ed-in-burrow). We no longer each had a bedroom to ourself but instead slept on little beds and couches in a flat high above the city. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there! We didn't use a car but walked about 7 miles a day to the different sights and shops. After Edinburgh, we drove 2 hours to a beach and then to a little town called Lundie. Here we went on lots of walks and browsed antique stores. The last day, we went to the biggest grocery store we'd found in Scotland so far (about the size of a Safeway!) and found a huge gluten free aisle. They are so good with gluten freers here! All the cafes and restaurants have gluten free food and it's way better tasting than in America.

We hiked admist sheep till we reached mass amounts of heather.

This is the castle we stayed in! And yes, there was a tower room and a terrace on the roof and a spiral staircase and a dining room table that fit 18 people and chandeliers and sheep skins and everything you could want in a Scottish Castle.

Dress up at Scone Palace.

We were home for a full day before heading off to La Pine, Oregon to spend some much needed time with the cousins. We went to Crater Lake and took a boat ride to Wizard Island. My phone chartered off the wall ratings of how many "floors" we hiked in a reasonably small amount of miles. We dove into the icy water which felt so refreshing after the hot hike. The next day, we rented a giant paddle board at Twin Lakes and did a full out war of who could stay on the thing the longest with everyone else jumping on it and trying to out-balance each other. The last war was the most epic. Everyone got up and started (you weren't allowed to touch each other) but before it really got going, Dad just ran and swept everyone off in one fell swoop. Daaaaad! 




All in all, it's been a really good summer. Looking forward to some more hot days, berries and whipped cream, friends to laugh with, and hikes to walk on. Lets go. 

Our Paddle Boat

 Icelandic Scenery:

Ahem....unedited.

Whoops, rule of thirds disappeared in this fog.

Geyser.

Home. For. Good.

Last Saturday spent in Auckland scooting around town.

I'm home finally! This year has been crazy - the whole year at Capernwray went by so fast! I have learned so much: be it the academic side of writing 8 page bible studies to growing closer with God. Some ways of this is through multiple discussions per day with people who are actively striving to follow God as well as spending quiet times with God going over different incidents in the Bible as well as in my life. I also learned to get out of my comfort zone in multiple things from deep talks to speaking in front of schools about God. Relying on Him no matter what was really important - to have that indwelling of Christ consistently.

Remembrance back to Fiji ziplining upside down. Not pictured here are the poor orphans, the destitute shanties, and the places no tourist would think to enter. Helping in those places meant a heap more to me than being in the air for a minute. 

At the close, we have a big party dinner where everyone dresses up and does a dance for a certain theme the night before Graduation. My family group was randomly selected to do Greatest Showman! Leonie and I choreographed a super fun dance to the opening song. We had acrobats, bearded lady, tall man, fat lady, tatoo guy, muscle girl, lion, and more! Everyone did awesome:)

The end was hard to say goodbye. We'd all gotten so close to each other. We will always be friends though and there are already reunions being planned!

This semester was famous for injuries and relationships. So many people were taken to the hospital over the two terms. Good thing we're required to have insurance. Mitchell started the season off by dropping weights on his toes, followed by a concussion performed by Grass. Then Leonie dropped glass bowls and shards of glass cut open her hands. One bounce at a trampoline park brought Dylan down with a dislocated arm which Sadie preceded to copy! Finally to top it off, Jaedyn sprained her foot badly while playing smash face and got taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Any more? I probably missed a couple. Speaking of couples, this is quite a semester for that as well. About 30% of the students went back home with a new boyfriend or girlfriend. Every couple weeks, a new pair would pop up and everyone would add them to the growing list. Because we're from all over the place, it was interesting to see which countries matched up. One night, a kayaking trip turned into pretty much only couples going so a singles group was held in the homestead. After a fun devo, we were presented with a power point with multiple slides on ways to get out of our singleness. It was all a big joke and a big success. Half way through a phase of speed dating questions, one "couple" left. We cheered them out the door. So there you have it - our semester also grew a lot closer spiritually to God. It was so cool to see the hunger that arose for more of Him and less of ourselves. There were intentional conversations about questions or thoughts about the Bible outside of lectures, book group, family time, etc. where we dove into God's word already. In fact, injuries and relationships only increased our dependence on Him. 

I will miss New Zealand. It's roses and ripe lemon trees in winter continually remind me that even though it should be dark and cold, life still produces a harvest. No matter what low times should come, God will still make roses and lemons out of the mess if we surrender the dark and let in the light. 

3rd and Final Ministry Week in the Kiwi capital of the World where we served coffee in the rated best cafe in all NZ!

This ministry week has been amazing. We went to the Orchard church in Te Puke, NZ, which is the kiwi capital of the world. God has taught all 9 of us so much. In Bible in Schools, I taught on Perseverance and then various students implemented that important concept into the story of Paul and Silas for the kids. While we taught on perseverance, it was ironic that we actually were thrown into practicing perseverance ourselves by relying on God’s strength throughout the week. We would have fallen apart if we hadn’t persevered with God’s strength this week due to a number of incidents that happened. At the start of the week, we had Jaedyn and Brodie who both were pretty sick. We managed to do morning tea for oldies, Sunday school, college youth night, dismantled a kiwi orchard, and more. We were playing smash face with the youth for youth group on Friday night when Jaedyn’s foot decided to sprain/fracture itself. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital while the rest of us which had shrunk to five to carry on the night quickly readjusted ourselves and led games, worship, testimony, and swing dancing. Later on at about 11, we learned she was ok but has the crutches. Some new things for me that I experienced was being so close to such a bad injury and feeling helpless because you can’t take the pain again but you can turn to God and I really felt thankful that He can be there always. 

Another new thing was a Progressive dinner. The first house was appetizers, second house was main meal, and the third was dessert. I’d never heard of it before so it was really fun to try. The only stressful thing was a game that we played in which you start out with 5 clothespins and if you say yes or no or nod your head then you lose a clothespin to the person who made you say or do the taboo. I’m a very verbal empathetic to people talking so my talking was very stilted and my neck got stiff from not nodding at every word. The worst trap was I’d be talking and then they’d say, “really??” How do you answer to a question like that without saying yes or no or nodding the affirmative!? 
We also worked at the voted best cafe in New Zealand which was an amazing opportunity. They are Christians who got together a couple years ago and decided to start a cafe for the community. They love volunteers and do free pizza nights with about 200 people coming to that now. Also when you buy a cup of coffee, they donate part of the money so you’re actually buying clean water for folks in Cambodia.

Jaedyn (pictured above) and me cut up kiwis and bananas for smoothies and had the opportunity to serve coffees, yes!

A tea for FairHaven schools on a sprightly afternoon. 

GF Waffles topped with butterscotch syrup, walnuts, bananas, and cream at the Daily. This was the morning. Little did I know I'd be back 2 more times that day for more! (Not Waffles - other yummy goodness) 

 Our billet hosting Corina and I was super nice and I loved being in her home. We were only a 2 minute walk from the church and there were kiwi orchards all about the place. She made it so cozy to come back from busy days to a warm atmosphere of fire and tea and conversation.There was a piano there with vintage sheet music that we rummaged through. I played select Sound of Music songs while Corina sang. Good days. It's actually not quite cold for winter or rainy. We've had beautiful sunshine and short sleeves - a good old sixty degrees about every day. In the back yard of our billets Karen's house were mandarin, lemon, and persimmon trees ripe with fruit. So good!

Breakthrough

Operation 62T8M20TA1.....Decode in 3...2...1.... time's up! 62T8M20TA1 is unscrambled to become Matt. 28:16-20 - the great commission. Every year, Capernwray puts on an event called Breakthrough which is a giant event like a scavenger hunt game of sorts to reach a goal. It ends the night with the gospel message for the kids. This year, we had 12 different countries reaching a goal. Some students were station leaders at the countries while others chose to be guides for the kids. I wanted to be in the country of Egypt and I got put there thankfully along with Ryan and Kyra. All week long we worked on our station. We were the creepy "haunted house" station because the kids had to enter a dark maze with Ryan bonging a drum outside and turning on the smoke machine in the room. They had to decode a laminated hieroglyphics sheet which turned out to be Arabic. Then they'd come to the dark corner where I stood and I'd stand out from the wall suddenly. I got many comments and gasps of "oh I thought that was a manican, statue, etc Nope I 'm real people! The thing that got people was the eyelashes I had on. I had massive fake eyelashes that glued on. Never had fake eyelashes on but the two nights of breakthrough, I spent 8 hours each day from 3 o’clock to 11 wearing those things! After I opened the door to the coffin, they entered the dark chamber to be scared by Kyra in a very scary mummy costume! The first night was middle schoolers coming through and we made 4 kids cry! The second night was high schoolers and we made only one kid cry and another fall to the floor in shock from the mummy. During the two nights, I was high fived and called creepy lady and pretty lady (It was the fake eyelashes). Acting the stoic statue meant I got some interesting comments like, "we should tickle her to see if she laughs." Hmmmmmm no. Typical Kiwi kids. Sunday, we had to take all the stations we had built all week down in 3 hours. Crazy! The students had church service at Capernwray but 5 of us including me had ministry teaching Sunday school. So we got to skip one hour of clean up. Joy drank her morning tea at church very slowly so we'd be late. Oh Joy!

Egyptian Costume - Hair done thanks to Sarah and makeup done by Kyra the mummy. 

Cooking dinner on Saturday with a French cook. Meg the Canadian was making hot chocolate in our preparing space - she's the one in the touque (tuke) (canadian word for beanie). 

France all decorated (This is usually the student lounge)

Second 19 Day Break

  How do I begin to describe this 19 day break? Each day was a mini explosion of gorgeousness and adventure. There were 17 to 19 of us teenagers screeching the corners in 4 cars. We stayed in 9 airbnb's in total - 6 on the south island and 3 in Wellington on the north island. It was always a fun surprise to enter a new house and find rooms for those one to three nights. My favorite house was probably our second house we stayed in. It was a rustic little cottage near the beach. There was a trail only trailblazers could follow and a ravine so like Parkdale that led into a creek. The kitchen and dining room in the house were not wall papered so people were encouraged to write their names as a creative guest book on the walls. Surprisingly, there was already another Avonlea from Washington State written up on the walls from February. Weird.

The guest book wall.

Whararaki Beach - I'm third from left.

     Favorite place that everyone needs to go check out is Whararaki Beach in Nelson/Golden Bay. There are giant rocks, caves, seals, seals in caves, and seal pups. Take a meandering trail through the grasses and sheep to emerge onto a wide expanse of my favorite New Zealand beach ever. Hey, this beat Matapouri Bay that I raved so much about up north last 2 week break. Stay for the sunset. Only four of us did but everyone should have. I wanted to have my finger glued to my shutter button but that wouldn't capture the beauty. 

     One new thing I did was driving on the left side of the road. I don't like driving but I've missed it after not driving in such a long time so I gave it a go for about 2 hours one day. Brodie was having to drive 10 hours all that day so he got a break and I got to drive. Good deal. I didn't expect Brodie to use part of his time in waving his legs out the window to Ryan who waved his legs back enthusiastically in the car ahead of us. Nor did I expect a police car to come cruising up after we stopped for a break about 7 minutes later. "You guys look like you're about 12." - NZ police officer quote. Thankfully he hadn't seen the leg incident and after looking at our licences, he wished us a good day and left. 

     I had my birthday the day after Easter which was so weird not celebrating it with my family. I got to face time them still though and got a box the day after when we came back to Capernwray along with other boxes and cards - so nice! The group was super great and I got to have burgers (easter dinner) and gluten free brownies and ice cream with chocolate sauce. I had to blow out 19 candles with 17 people watching - phew, that was a challenge. We played body body which is a game like Mofia in the dark, and I got killed in the first round. There were pianos in the house and I got to play my heart out. It was a good day.

This picture was the night we stayed in my favorite house. We rode down to the beach at like 10? and made a fire but someone booted us off that part of the beach. We asked later and the locals said their was no fire ban or anything. Just a grumpy man, I guess. So we made a fire further down. I found Makenna's guitar in the back of the car and she strummed out some worship music while we listened or sang. The tide came in closer and closer and finally we left the rocky beach and went home to warm beds.

In Queenstown, we had a second worship night with another group and a devotional. It was so good. Song after song was played on the guitar while people harmonized their hearts out. This house we stayed in had an amazing view and heated tile floors in the bathroom. It was by far the most expensive house but it was worth the cost of $47 a night. All the airbnb's we stayed at had some form of free food for us and this house was no exception. One of the favorite parts was the milk frother and high scale coffee maker. We lived like rich students. It was awesome!

I'm fourth from the right in another jumping photo. This one is in front of Mt. Cook which you can spot between Corina's legs whose to the left of me. We spent quite a bit of time here, skipping rocks and taking pictures. There was a few moments of tenseness when Jason's phone died on his drone and it had to come back to the location without him being able to control it. On cue, we heard the sound of a plane just over the hills. Drone + plane = bad things happen. Thankfully, the plane never showed up although we heard it come closer. The drone landed back where it had started and everything was fine after that. Phew.

That night after exploring lakes, we decided to stay at the Church of the Good Shepherd for a cuddle puddle time. There were some sleeping bags in the car which we put over our legs and backs and then everyone drew close for warmth from the bitter cold. There were the random moments of people grabbing your leg, "whose this?" or, "can someone put these knobby knees somewhere else?" Because it was so dark, it was hard to figure out who was next to who. It was just us until from out of nowhere, about 20 Asians showed up in front of us to photograph the famous church behind us with all the stars. And there we are smack dab in front of the church. One guy went up to us and asked, "do you want us to take your picture?" Nathan held out his phone and the guy reached down as if to take it, then backed up, saying, "Oh that camera is trash." And then he left! Who does that? We were surprised and disgruntled. For a minute, we thought he was teasing and would come back but he didn't. It wasn't until like 2 minutes had passed, that he came back with a huge camera on a massive tripod. He told us to shine our phone screens at our faces so they'd light up while he took a 10 second long exposure time to capture the stars and the church in the background. We gathered around him afterward to see the final product and told him we were Bible school students. "ahh, then we are brothers and sisters!" Was his response. SO cool!

In order from left to right: Tobias (German), Corina (Canadian), Marie (German), Me, Jacob (Canadian)

 We stayed in Christchurch for several days which is the city that had a 6.3 earthquake in 2011 and then a shooting that killed 50 people just last month. We didn't die though and one day, five of us visited Akaroa area, just east of Christchurch. We spent the day exploring the land and then headed back after a gorgeous sunset and fog rolling in from the hills.

We're missing 3 people in this photo. Names left to right: Tobias, Jacob, Makenna, Jackson, Gracie, Ryan, Scott, Grace, Mallie, Corina, Brodie, Ceanna, Jason, Me, Marie

   
For Easter, we visited an Elim church and bombed their youth get together after. It was about 8 to 10 of them and 18 of us. We payed for our half of the pizza but got free soda, hot chocolate, coffee, and tea. They were very kind and we got to know all about their lives from Singapore, etc. and they got to experience Capernwray students for the first time which hopefully was a good thing for them. Afterwards we went to this museum which featured huge wax figures representing people of world war 1. My hand was about as big as half the figure's ear to put it in scale. I was a little creeped out by the realistic sweat, pores, and blood so I diverted myself to watching a lady try to park her car far down in the parking lot. It turned out to be a lot more painful then looking at bomb shelled people because I felt like this was much more truer to how my life will look like. Instead of death or honor after the grime and intensity in war, most of us are chosen to park a car. And this lady spent 10 minutes in the parking lot trying to park her car in a normal parking space. She got in other cars way as they tried to go around her. She wasn't even backing in! I learned from her that turning your wheels while not moving is terrible for your tires. And opening a door and hitting the car beside you is not great as well. My only hope is that when I park my car in life, Jesus will be at the wheel...not me. Because I know that by myself, I will probably take longer than 10 minutes to park my car - and that's both figuratively and literally.

Fiji. Beautiful green lush fields. Opaque pristine waters. Palm trees swaying in the warm tropical breeze. That's how the tourists see Fiji as and that's what they find. They don't venture inland into the squatter huddles around the bit of muddy river. They don't see the impact when the river floods and takes the little possession they have of land and belongings. The beautiful lush fields turn into a mess of mosquitoes and red clay the second you step into it. The clean waters are filtered - you don't find pristine blue waters in the interior. The palm trees are still beautiful - no comment needed.
A team of 11 of us headed out from Capernwray for two weeks of mission trip work. We experienced heat 100% humidity the second we stepped off the plane. The first couple days we were dead from the heat but it got better once it rained and clouds came in. Although it was hurricane season we thankfully didn’t get to know what that was like. Basically a normal day at island encounters went like so:
- 6:30 wake up time
- 6:45 devo
- 7 really good breakfast made of fruits (fresh watermelon, pineapple, bananas, avocados, passion fruit, guava, and papaya!)
- 7:30 to 8:30 was quiet time with Jesus (I read through Zachariah and half of Romans)
- 8:30 we met with sunscreen and bug spray ready for the day
We worked for 4 hours (except the last day when I got in 4 and a half hours) each day with a break for morning tea of fresh juice and cookies and Busa - a Fijian trail mix of raisins, nuts, curly crisps, and dried peas.
- 1 lunch ranging from bread and rice to boiled cassava - lots of starches!
After lunch we usually hung out, had a nap, or played some games. This was also a good time to prepare crafts for the kids activities we did in the afternoons.
- 3 or 4 we had kids ministry! We did a skit, song, and lesson around the Good Samaritan story in modern day life.
- 6 was dinner which was soup and rice or curry and rice or chutney, chicken, and rice.
- 7:30 was testimonies and going around the circle saying a high and low of the day and what we learned. That was really cool to hear what people had experienced that day. Afterwards, we played some games that people had in mind or oftentimes we had Deans Deep Discussions. This was when we plyed our leader Dean with questions about life and then after he gave his answer, we all discussed what he had said with what we had in our slight store of knowledge.
For tourist activities, we went to beachcombers island and experienced mud pools and zip lines upside down in a jungle under the hills of the sleeping giant. It was actually sad to see the stark difference between the tourist realm and the actual life of Fijians who live in dirt poor. But it was a very good time overall and our team bonded amazingly well!