Hello Holidays

Ki ora!

Last night I typed in the final few words, checked over it a few times, and then emailed off with a single calm click my final assignment for the semester. Which means....... this morning I'm on holiday! I can take my time to slowly sip my coffee, and look outside at the rustling trees and clouds racing over the sky, and reflect. I think in our busy schedules today, we don't take enough time to simply reflect. For me that is definately true anyway. I find that when I do reflect, it always leads back to recognition of the way God's been at work in my life and has been answering prayer... so reflection seems to always lead to giving God thanks. I'm sure many of you can relate.

So what are my honest thoughts on my new home here in the Hawkes Bay? (though the deep south will always be Home of course!) I think the word that comes first to mind is 'rightness'. I feel a deep and settled peace and rightness about where I am right now, what I'm doing, and where I'm headed. I know that this is surely a peace from God that I'm following the path He's already laid out. It has been hard to move from Flagstaff to here, in that I was so involved in the communities and people in Halfway Bush and Wakari day by day, and suddenly they've all disappeared. But you do adapt quickly to new places. And I feel very settled here already. My plan is to remain studying part time here (alongside some work) for the next 5 years. I really like the people at the church at Riverbend. There are a strong bunch of young people at the church who love God, which isn't verycommon - and it's been great to get to know them. And being such a small college, all the students and staff get to know each other well. I've enjoyed these aspects a lot. I feel right at home in the church here at Riverbend, with great preaching, diversity of music, lots of families, and friendly, down-to-earth people (just like my church at Flagstaff). I think I'm very blessed to be part of this church. And it's been awesome to be able to do practical ministry as part of my studies (so not just all academic, but putting what I'm learning into practice in a church setting). That is quite unique among Bible colleges, but I think is a really good and important thing. This year of course, my internship is focussed on song-writing. Next year, I want to do something I haven't been involved with before. I want to expose myself and have experience in all different areas of ministry that I may end up encountering in the future! I'm here to be equipped after all.

The Hawkes Bay is also a beautiful part of Aotearoa. The people and the land. There is such diversity with the people who live here, drawn together from many different cultures to this location. And the surroundings are equally as diverse and wonderful, as my parents and I will be exploring over the next few days. They arrive tomorrow from the deep south, which I'm very excited about! Following some days here in the Bay, we'll do a bit of a road trip (in their campervan) northwards to catch up with family in the big smoke of Auckland. And spend some time on the Coromandel, which I've really yet to properly explore. The harder you work, the more you appeciate the holidays...........bring them on. Sweet as!