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