Another Fun Weekend!

On Friday, Loren (a NZ girl in my dorm) drove Megan and I downtown to listen to some live music at a bar.  No clubs are open on Friday nights, just Thursday and Saturday (isn’t that weird!), so it was pretty low key and quiet, which is just my kind of night!  Loren is so sweet and chill so it was fun to hang out with her too (and I know she’s probably reading this, hey Loren!).

Megan, me, and Loren under a bridge in Hamilton

Saturday.  Saturday was an adventure to say the least.  Remember the time I posted about how I am a slight germophobe, but just with people germs, not nature germs..?  Well, Saturday is for sure evidence for that, cold hard evidence.  Shannon and I had plans to go hiking, so she picked me up at Uni around 11am and we headed over to Te Awamatu (stopping by the grocery to get some granola for fuel up the mountain of course).  Since I didn’t know how intense this trek was going to be, I ended up wearing my tennis shoes but bringing my hiking boots just in case.  Good thing I brought both because Shannon was about to hike up a 4 hour return in little ked’s type sneakers!  I unhesitatingly insisted that she wear my boots instead.  Since when do I let people wear my shoes? Who am I over here?  Anyways, we started up Mount Kakepuku.  It went from an open grassy area to a muddy track covered with rainforest-y trees and such.  It was “muddy-as” and “slippery-as” from the very beginning.  My tennis shoes are up there with flossing and Dr. Pepper on the list of things that I love so it was nearly breaking my heart that they were getting so dirty and muddy.  Shannon can attest to the fact that I was literally about to cry when we saw people on their way back down the mountain and their shoes were COVERED with mud. Top to bottom, front to back, no white anywhere.  Long story short, I took one for the team (I guess the team of myself?) and took my shoes off and decided to just hold them about 1/3 of the way up.  Yep, that’s right.  I went barefoot up the mountain and back down.  It was freeing and gushy and felt pretty darn good.  Shannon and I finally got to the top of the mountain after about 2 hours and lots of false alarms.  You know when you can tell you’re pretty close to the top and you can see the sun shining through the trees and then you get to the point where you thought the top was and it turns out its not actually the top?   That happened about 5 times.  Such a tease!  But eventually we made it, saw miles after miles of pastures and farmland and hills and mountains, and then headed back down.  She dropped me off at Uni and I headed straight to the shower.  I just cleaned off my shoes and put them in the washing machine, so we’ll see how that turns out.  They should be alright though, I’m not too worried.  Congrats to Shannon for completing her very first mountain hike! Get it girl!

...and then shoes came off.

I am so thankful to have gotten to spend another fun and adventurous day with Shannon.  She is SO hilarious and I feel like I just always end up laughing at everything she says, which I guess isn’t really that abnormal for me.  She is so encouraging and has such a love for Jesus.  I for sure can’t wait to hang out with her again, but maybe we should wait until the soreness in my legs and feet go away J

We did it!

This morning timed the bus just right and went to Reformed Church of Hamilton, where I went last week.  As soon as I got there, John, a man I had met last week, told me to find him after the service so I could get his wife’s number and they could pick me up from now on instead of me taking the bus!  He even remembered my name and everything!  So great.  I sat down in the same place and pew I had sat the week before and just all of a sudden got overwhelmed to the point of tears in my eyes by how much love has been shown to me here in New Zealand.  The Lord has blessed me with so many incredible new friends, situations, and adventures.  It was so humbling to just sit there in that church and think about how big and constant and all-knowing Christ is!  It’s so awesome that I can be in a different country across the world and still sing praise to and worship the same Jesus with people that I’ve never met before!  So incredible.  Anyway, after the service, which I really enjoyed again, the old lady behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked where I was from.  I told her I was from the U.S. and was here for the semester studying at Waikato Uni.  Her response was, “Wow, so you must really miss your parents?”  Ok lady, I’ve already been brought to tears this morning, way to make it worse.  Sure enough the tears welled up in my eyes, but I managed to keep them from streaming down my face and getting that wobbly I’m-about-to-cry chin.  She was sweet though and just wanted to make sure I had a ride anywhere I needed to go, so I told her I did.  I found the Hemmes family (the ones that so generously brought me to their house for lunch last week) and ended up going to their house again for lunch!  Homemade bread and treats were waiting at their house.  They were so fun to hang out with and I’m SO thankful to have met them!  Unfortunately, I will be in the south island, which is actually not so unfortunate, for the next 3 Sundays, so I’ll have to reconnect with the folks at church after that!  And, the 80 year old man that I randomly sat down with last week at tea after the service waved to me today! He remembered me too! I love the people over here!

Jackie and Lisa with a plate of treats! They are so nice!

I’ve got one more week of school and then we leave for the south island on Saturday! ONE MORE WEEK.  My day was made (for about the 5th time in one day) this afternoon when I finally figured out some accommodation for our 2 days in Christchurch.  Follow me here… my Dad’s brother’s kids’ mom’s cousin’s daughter (phew!) lives in Christchurch and has offered to let us stay with her!  I am SO excited to meet her and so thankful for random family connections on the other side of the world!  On another note, I’m super nervous about it snowing or being icey down in the south of the south island when we’re driving so prayers for safety and minimal driving troubles during this trip would be awesome!

I know this post is long enough, but I can’t forget the…

Interesting Observations:

-Because of their accent, NZ people put “an” in front of certain words.  Example: “an historical…”

-They put an “s” on math here.  Maths.  That just came up as a misspelled word on my spellchecker haha.

-The Red Box phenomenon has not hit NZ yet.

-scrogen=trail mix

-This mailbox:

the view from Mount Kekapuku

A special message from Adam: