10 Things I Have Learned This Week…

…1) Lessons on wisdom, as philosophical as that sounds, can be relatable, interesting and extremely funny. Wisdom was the first lecture week’s topic and although (maybe even because) I have to reflect quite critically on what the preacher said and not just believe everything, I enjoyed it a lot. We learned about worldly and biblical wisdom, found out that sometimes even wisdom isn’t in the head but in the heart, talked about wisdom in relationships, and the quint essence was: “You can do anything, wherever and with whomever you like, as long as it is wise.” Which is good advice if you know what’s wise and what isn’t, for example…

…2) Going to a beach in New Zealand on a beautiful summer day without putting sunscreen on everywhere more than once is NOT wise. Still that was a decision some of us made and now regret with every pat on the shoulders. Though, to be fair, I did put on sunscreen three times and I’m still a little burned. The combination of the sun here and the sea is absolutely invincible and I can only say that there’s a reason we normally have an ozone layer between us and the inferno. 

…3) Cathedral Cove and the neighbouring Hahei Beach are just as gorgeous as the Narnia films and all the postcards try to tell us. Never have I ever seen a sea so blue and wavy and warm. Our school trip there was awesome and although we all struggled with the high waves sometimes, being swept off our feet in the Pacific was more entertaining than frightening.

…4) The flu going around in a house with 70+ people is not good and if that flu turns into a stomach bug for some people it is just a nightmare of feeling ill and being sleep deprived. Luckily, whatever has been moving from one student to the next for the past week only seems to be a kind of 24-hour problem and so by now, almost everyone is on their feet again. Even my room which got hit pretty badly doesn’t look like a war zone of moved belongings and essential oils anymore.

…5) I miss the good old German/Swiss food (especially bread!) but apples with peanut butter, actually sweet kiwis and French toast also have their appeal.

…6) Apparently floors (and almost everything else) can be cleaned with a sort of disinfectant every day which makes my job in housekeeping relatively easy and not too long. Why you wouldn’t just take a bucket and an actual mop and do the floors one day, the windows the next and just vacuum in between, though, I haven’t established yet. At least the bathrooms are thoroughly cleaned twice a day (not just with disinfectant).

 

…7) Danish is easy to read and hard to pronounce and if I were to learn a Scandinavian language, it would probably be Swedish (so much more logical!). If I continue the same way I started this week, I might actually come home with a decent amount of Swedish in my repertoire. I certainly hope so :)

…8) Living together as closely as we do and spending nearly every hour of every day with each other might be exhausting sometimes but welding together always. I feel as if I’ve known these people for months, if not years, and I get along really well with most of them (thank God!). I’m already pretty sure that the combination of teams for outreach can only be amazing.

…9) I might be a control freak at times but my constant planning has the positive side effect of being able to organize town and shopping trips to the right location when needed. As it turns out, I’m not the only one who wants to see the city centre, go second hand shopping and check out some souvenir stores. With all the pins that I have on my maps now, we shouldn’t have any difficulties.

…10) I found the church I’m going to go to for the next ten Sundays. It’s a small, but very cute family oriented church with a lovely atmosphere that welcomed us YWAMers openheartedly. We definitely turned down the average age but I liked being around older people. It puts a contrast to the youthful chaos of the weekdays. 

I think that sums up week two quite well. I’m excited to see what I can tell you next Sunday ;)
I really appreciate you reading this, writing sweet comments and supporting me in so many other ways. Thank you!

On that note, I hope the rest of your weekend is great!
xx, Annika

Making A Home

Our mirror after tidying the dorm (beds in background)

My first week at YWAM is now almost over and it is equally crazy how fast it went by and how intense it was for everyone here – everyone meaning 65 DTS students and twenty-something staff members.
Personally, I’m slowly getting used to making this my (temporary) everyday life after having struggled with homesickness for the first few days.
But back to the past six days:

I live in a room with nine other girls, which is a lot, but our dorm is right next to the bathroom and actually in the main building so I think I’m pretty lucky. It’s just weird for my traditional German heart to have unisex bathrooms but oh well, I’m going to get over it. Getting my stuff sorted and a daily rhythm going turned out to be very important and also relatively complicated but yesterday, we rearranged everything an now we’re happy with our room.

 

The lawn behind the main building

This week wasn’t a regular lecture week like the next eleven will be but a getting-to-the-others-icebreaker-week of a very unusual kind. Unusual because, in this case, the ice breaking method was all the students (who wanted to) sharing their life stories. And I have to tell you, the others' stories just made me so, so grateful for my family, friends and the life I’ve been given! Safe to say, despite being brought closer together, we were very grateful for the weekend and the sun to arrive on Friday evening, after an emotionally very exhausting week. 

The waterfall

I took the opportunity and spent the weekend literally just sitting around and doing, if not nothing, at least not much. I read a nice book, I updated my diary, got to know the girls a little better and went for a walk down the valley with some others. The valley behind the Training Centre is a meadow surrounded by tree ferns and a small river with a beautiful waterfall being the cherry on top (not that I like those cherries at all). It is absolutely gorgeous and the atmosphere is so peaceful it feels like another world (Narnia?). Plus, when you walk back up after sunset you can see glow worms hanging in the trees all around you. That was what I did with Lena, a German who – surprise, surprise – once went to the same Word of Life camp as me without either of us noticing. I’m one of eight Germans here but I think the majority of students is from the US. Canada, the UK, Switzerland, Australia, Scandinavia (even the Faroe Islands), France, Singapore and Brazil also have their representatives which makes the community really interesting and colourful.

Making international friends :)

Now my free time will soon be over and I’m excited to see what I can learn from the lectures, to finally meet the whole medical stream and to see the timetable in action. We all have our part to play in life at the base going as it should including taking turns for doing the dishes and different tasks in the afternoon. For that, I just got assigned to housekeeping (having the choice between kitchen, housekeeping and grounds) which I don’t think it's going to be too bad because 1.I’m with a team, 2.we can listen to music, 3.it means I have a least a little power over how clean the bathrooms are…
On Sundays, we can go to one of three possible churches and unfortunately the one I wanted to go to wasn’t an option today, so I hope I can try it next week. You’ll see if I succeeded ;)

Have a great Sunday!
xx Annika

On Stormy Seas

Kaikoura, 10/01/18-12/01/18
Our time in Kaikoura,  including the drive there, was absolutely spectacular and definitely better told about in photos but I’m going to give you a brief summary here: The drive on SH1 from Picton to Kaikoura was just as scary as it was stunning. The road has only been open since Christmas and the earthquake scars from 2016 are still clearly visible in the landscape. Construction sites and unstable cliffs and hills are never far. Arriving in our lovely Bed & Breakfast we were very kindly welcomed by our host, Julie. Seriously, the only negative thing I have to say about that day is the rain that didn’t stop the next day, either. But luckily, neither seals, nor dolphins or whales hide from a bit of rain and so we were able to see all three. The seals by foot on Wednesday evening, the dolphins and whales by boat on Thursday – the day we literally went on stormy seas, not once but twice. Well, to be honest, stormy is an exaggeration but if you’re not used to shaky boats (which we’re not) it certainly feels stormy :)

After swimming with the colony of dolphins and watching them (about 200) from the boat (AMAZING!!!) and then seeing the sea again for the whale(s) we were impressed to actually have been IN that green-blue-greyish soup. It really didn’t look very comfortable (it wasn’t, either). 

Wellington, 12/01/18-13/01/18
Our journey to Wellington was an adventure all on its own! The road I previously talked about (SH1) is open but not very predictable and due to the rainfall, it was closed again (because of landslides) just in time for us to get to our booked ferry and Wellington. So the 7-hour detour was researched, the night ferry organised and the smiles wiped of our faces when, just as we were driving out of town, my parents decided to turn around and check SH1 for a last time. And the miracle happened: All of a sudden, it was open again, we could reach our original ferry and be in Wellington in the afternoon.


As it turns out, the road basically closed right after we went out of the critical zone – praise the Lord!
Wellington itself was good to show us that, yes, we are still no city people and we’d always rather spend a quiet night in the countryside. Nevertheless, it was nice to have seen it and we all learned more about Maori history and culture in New Zealand’s national museum.

Ohakune, 13/01/18-15/01/18
This village was not originally on our list, it was added because someone screwed up their bookings and we were moved to Ohakune in the Tongariro National Park. A change that was definitely for the better! Our lodge’s host was (hopefully still is) Swiss, extremely nice, has two adorable cats (that made us miss ours even more), and keeps his lodge up to Swiss standards. Those two days felt a little like coming home and we enjoyed every minute. Another advantage of being there instead of the original lodge was that we could have a look at volcanoes for the first time in our lives. The landscape in the Tongariro National Park is entirely shaped by volcanic activity, so it was fascinating to see not only Mount Doom (unfortunately that’s not the actual name) but the vegetation and scenery it has created.
When we left Ohakune for Otorohanga on Tuesday, we took a small detour to drive by Rotorua and the geothermal parks in the region which was pretty cool and also pretty disgusting. The smell of sulphur in the air and the sight of boiling mud on the ground: Not something I necessarily need again but still worth having experienced ;)

Tauranga, 16/01/18-09/04/18
After having spent a night in our slightly stuffy and dusty accommodation in Otorohanga (we all missed the Swiss chalet very much) we set course for YWAM’s Marine Reach in Tauranga where my parents dropped me off. Although I was kindly welcomed and, so far, everyone here has been really nice, I can’t help but feel homesick. Everything here is so different from what I’m used to, there are 65 people who are never quiet and my personal space is limited to the roughly two square meters that my bed measures up to. So, yes, I’m kind of an emotional wreck at the moment and I guess those are my own (figurative) stormy seas to navigate through. They waves come and go and I’m just incredibly grateful for all the people out there that write to me, lift me up, go with me spiritually, the people that have been with me every step of the way – most of all my parents.
I love you guys to the moon and back! 💓

Updates about my life here will come as frequently as possible :D
Lots of love and hugs (given and needed),
Annika