It is Sunday of
Week 5 which means that, firstly, my fifth week here is almost over (crazy!)
and, secondly, I’m sitting down to write another blog post. As always I have to
get my diary out because I struggle to get my memories of this week in the
right order, as always I have no idea what to title the new post and as always
I don’t even know where to start.
Maybe let’s get
started with the topic of the week and continue from there: relationships.
Taught about by our first female speaker – that fact alone made it an entirely
different experience to the weeks before. Our speaker Catherine had a
curriculum that she talked about in the planned order, with slides to match her
talking and stories to tell about them. The perfect setting to take notes that
actually make sense :D. Besides, listening to a calm female voice was ear- as
well as soul-soothing.
Her lectures weren’t focused on relationships in the romantic sense but rather
an explanation of what every relationship (meaning to others, to oneself &
to God) should really be based on. According to her, the ingredients for a healthy
relationship are Honour, Love, Understanding, Trust (& Accountability) and
Forgiveness and she gave examples to apply those to all kinds of relationships,
from the general honour we should have for every being to the trust needed for
a deep friendship to the willingness to forgive those who hurt us that we need in
order to not become bitter.
Romantic relationships eventually came up on Thursday and Catherine managed to teach basic levels and functions of a journey to marriage without pressing her own boundaries and experiences onto us which was a very pleasant approach to the sometimes sensitive topic.
Personally, the past week’s lectures weren’t so much about learning new stuff but more about realising what people have explained to me before and actively processing it.
Romantic relationships eventually came up on Thursday and Catherine managed to teach basic levels and functions of a journey to marriage without pressing her own boundaries and experiences onto us which was a very pleasant approach to the sometimes sensitive topic.
Personally, the past week’s lectures weren’t so much about learning new stuff but more about realising what people have explained to me before and actively processing it.
Other cool
things that happened this week were the “twinning” theme on Monday (see photo that I couldn't upload so see no photo),
a night of prayer and prophetic words on Wednesday and of course the (more than
30) baptisms on Friday afternoon. Also, the sun finally decided to show up
again after six days of straight rain that slightly strained the relationships
between the girls in my room. Being forced to stay inside when everything is
humid and smelling weird is definitely a special kind of patience test!
However, it seems that New Zealand weather has only two settings and the rain
has left as suddenly as it came and we are now back to 26 degrees and burning
sun – crazy. What really helped lift the spirits in the pouring rain was this
week’s honour project: Matching the lectures, everyone got a name of another
person in the school and our task was to honour that person anonymously. It was
so cute to see the joy all those little notes, gifts and chocolates brought to
givers as well as receivers :)
What can I say?
Now it’s Sunday again and I spent most of my weekend reading and marvelling at
how fast time seems to go by. In an hour I’m going to leave for a church
service organised by all of Tauranga’s churches so I hope that will be good. Next
week promises to be pretty crazy again – there’s only so much calm in “Freedom
And Deliverance”…
Until then, I
hope you can sleep in just as well as I could on this beautiful Sunday morning.
Have an awesome week and enjoy the (hopefully good) relationships you have with
those around you.
With love,
Annika
Annika
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