Tauranga House of Prayer Internship

        I began a 3 month Internship with THOP (Tauranga House of Prayer) on October 1st, 2012. How in the world did I end up here in New Zealand for 3 months you might ask?? Great question. Well, it began when we lived in Fort Benning, Georgia and I was volunteering at the Cafe in the church we were attending. The manager of the Cafe was Keri and she had been a missionary in New Zealand and had worked with YWAM and the House of Prayer. I overheard her talking to one of the ladies that I volunteered with about an Internship that her son was thinking about doing with the House of Prayer. For some reason it resonated with me. Anyway, we left Georgia and headed to Vicenza, Italy where teaching jobs are few and far between. We found out that Taylor would be deploying in the summer of 2012 for 9 months and I got to thinking... what the heck am I going to do for 9 months with no husband and no full time job!!?? For some reason, this internship came to mind and I did a little research. They had one that started in October and ended towards the end of December. Perfect!! After talking to Taylor about it and doing some praying, I decided that I was going to do it. Little did I know how life changing it would be. 

      Let me back up a little bit. I grew up in a Christian home with great parents. I officially made the decision to ask Jesus into my heart at church camp one year in 5th or 6th grade. Fast forward lots of years and I am in Vicenza, Italy at a Bible Study called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. So began my realization that my life was in fact fake and empty. The chapter titled "Luke Warm Christian" could have been written about me. There was no hiding the ugly truth…I was honoring God with my lips, but my heart was far from Him. Now I'm a little bit of a perfectionist and if something is wrong I want to quickly fix it. So, I immediately started doing the only thing I knew to do to fix my relationship with Jesus…seek God. I started reading my Bible and praying more regularly. I was bound and determined to cultivate a real life relationship with God. Although I was spending more time with God, I still felt like something was missing. Hence one of the reasons I wanted to do this Internship. Never before and probably never again in my life will I be able to set aside 3 months away from family and 'things that have to be done' and just focus on seeking the Lord. 

So, this is the town of Tauranga where I spent 3 months of my life. Not too shabby. 

There were 9 interns in all, 8 girls and 1 boy. There were 9 people that were on intern staff. We lived in a large house with a total of 14 people in all. 4 rooms, 2 bathrooms, 14 people, 3 months. Whew! I went from living by myself for 3 months to having 13 other house mates. It was definitely an adjustment, but I had great room mates! This picture is from graduation. 

These were my room mates: Hannah from Georgia & Julia from Minnesota. Love them!

     During the 3 months I was here God turned my world upside down. He took my heart of stone and gave me a heart of flesh. He showed me who He was (and not who I made Him up to be) and showed me who I was in Christ (and not who I thought I was). I knew in my head that God loved me, but for the first time I realized it in my heart. He opened the eyes of my heart to where I felt like I was hearing scripture and Biblical principals for the first time. Even now I am so overwhelmed by his mercy and love during that period in my life that sometimes all I can do is weep in humble gratitude when I think of it.

     I do not think that you have to travel across the world and do some internship to hear God and have your life changed. All you have to do is seek His face. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. For me at this particular time in my life, drawing near involved leaving my life in Italy and giving 3 months to focus on my relationship with God and surround myself with people who were doing the same thing. And now, even back in the "normalcy" of my daily life I am committed to drawing nearer. Now that I have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, there is no turning back. 

Northern NZ : Auckland

      After my adventures in the South island I flew from Queenstown to Auckland to visit Taylor's Aunt Lara and niece, Bella. 

These are some pics from the plane ride. 

       Taylor's mom, Susan, had a brother named Jim and he was married to Lara. They have a daughter named Bella. I never got to meet Jim because he died of colon cancer before I became part of the family. Lara is from New Zealand and returned back to her country a year or two after Jim passed away. She was so gracious to let me stay in her home and show me around the area. I very much enjoyed my time with her and Bella just outside of Auckland. 

"Pictured" below from left to right: Bella, me, Lara, Doug (her boyfriend), and Ursi (his daughter).  

They took me to Piha beach which is on the Tasman Sea. It is known for its black sand, which is due to high iron content. 

Bella

Ursi and Bella with black sandy feet!!

I was amazed at all of the plants and flowers in Lara's yard. Her backyard is literally a rain forest!!

Yes, those are Calla Lilies. 

Bella and a picture of her Dad when he was around the same age as her. They look so much alike!

This is a video of Bella giving a speech she wrote in school. Sorry it is side ways...

That night Lara made an amazing fish. It was soooo good!!

From Auckland I headed to Tauranga for the next 3 months...

New Zealand, Sept. 2012

      I flew to New Zealand a week before my Internship began (I'll tell you more about this later) to travel around a bit. I decided to see what the southern island was all about since I would be staying in the northern island for the duration of the Internship. I travelled with a company called Magic Bus which has different set itineraries with buses coming through the towns every day or 2 and you can can hop off and on as you like. We started in Nelson and made our way south to Queenstown.  

           

Before I came to New Zealand I would say that Switzerland was the most beautiful country I had been to. I was wrong. New Zealand is THE MOST. BEAUTIFUL. COUNTY. EVER!  No other country (that I have been to) compares. The people are friendly, the weather is warm, the beaches are beautiful and there is even snow skiing in the south. The only down side is that it very expensive!

Here are several pics of the country.

I took this out of the bus window. There was not a lick of wind this day. 

It was very rainy and overcast many of the days I was there.

All those white dots in the distance are sheep.

New Zealand has 2800 deer farms with about 1.1 million deer. That is a lot of Bambi's running around!  The deer were brought in from England for sport, but they rapidly multiplied and then became pests.  Eventually they started capturing and exporting them. 

People say that sheep outnumber people in New Zealand 20 to 1. 

There were tons of waterfalls along the road.

Wild seals!!!

One day I did a half day hike on Fox Glacier. Fox is a 13 km glacier on the west coast of NZ that terminates in a rain forest. This was the view of the valley we drove up to get to the glacier. 

They outfitted us in a rain suit, toboggans, gloves, hiking boots, and clamp-ons for the bottom of our boots. 

Our guide was from Australia. He is chiseling out some steps for us here.

Hiking through the crevices.

This was a pretty cool experience. I had never hiked on ice before!

This is Wanaka, NZ. Unfortunately I didn't get to spend but about a hour here because I decided to head on down to Queenstown so I had time to see the Milford Sound. 

The bus ride from Wanaka to Queenstown had some amazing views!! And these were out the window of the bus!

The Kea is one of the 10 endemic parrot species in New Zealand.

We couldn't stop along the way to Milford Sound because of Avalanche danger…yikes!!

You can see through the bus window where the snow had "avalanched" down and across the road. 

Milford Sound is a fjord in the southern island of New Zealand and has been deemed one of the world's top travel destinations. 

Mitre Peak

Seals sunning on the rock. 

The most amazing waterfalls ever...

I finished the trip off with an Afghan biscuit which is a chocolate cookie topped with chocolate icing and a walnut. 

One of my favorite towns, Queenstown. 

This was my first time to travel alone. It was a pretty good experience overall. I met some girls from Germany that I roomed with in the hostels and usually ate with a girl from Wales, a guy from Great Britain, and another from Spain. Everyone on our bus was around my age or older which was nice. I would have preferred to have my favorite traveling buddy with me, my husband, but I guess I will have to return to this country with him some day!!