A Possibly Not So Short Overview

“What have you been doing for the last fourteen days?”, some of you might be asking. Well, spending a week without internet for a start. We left off at week 6 and honestly, it doesn’t exactly become easier so put the weeks and topics here in to words. I’ll try anyway…here are the fourteen most impactful things (in chronological order) that happened in the last fourteen days of my life:

 

1.  Oh wonder: I catch a cold and my voice decides to slide down to baritone for a day. Seriously, my body seems to think that there’s nothing like a good old cold, no matter if German, Australian or Kiwi.
2. David Cowie, the founder of Marine Reach, speaks on compassion for our medical stream meeting and it is incredibly touching. I have rarely seen a man who radiates this much love and hearing him talk about the origins of the Family Care Centre in Vanuatu made me look forward to my outreach there. One of the things he said was that compassion (like pretty much everything) was a choice and that out of our pain, either bitterness or compassion can be born. Wow.
3. A good way to listen to lectures you can’t really identify with (last week’s topic: Spiritual Warfare) is to think about the slides yourself and write down your own thoughts rather than the speaker’s. I found that that way, I actually learn something without starting to question my whole life.
4. One of my roommates, Victoria from Canada, likes the exact same music and movies as me and we have decided to make movie and talking nights a thing for the rest of lecture phase :)
5.  Moving and packing have never been my thing but when you already have a limited amount of stuff with you and you’re only moving for a week, it’s relatively easy ;) We moved to the YWAM base in Matamata for the week because the October school came back from outreach. That’s also the reason I didn’t have wifi for seven days.
6.  On that note, the Marine Reach YWAM base is exceptionally clean, cozy and the food is amazingly fresh. Turns out that not every base has fruit baskets for everyone. I don’t think I have ever eaten as much toast as in the past week…Not that Matamata wasn’t also nice but all of us now feel a new level of appreciation for our Training Centre which has really become our (temporary) home.
   
7. Whatever boysenberries are, it’s a pity that they don’t exist at our place. I found out they make a very good cheesecake, amazing jam and by the way; peanut butter and jam truly is a taste that works very well.
8.   No matter how interesting and how much fun DTS is, it’s nice to get out of there every once in a while. Like last Sunday, when eleven of us went on a girls’ night out to an (absolutely delicious!) Italian restaurant which our taste buds and us enjoyed immensely. Oh, European food, you guys – not to mention Italian desserts ;)
9. I love hiking and I don’t mind hiking uphill but when that involves what feels like hundreds of incredibly steep stairs, my thighs are in danger of just giving up. Our hike to Wairere waterfall was still totally worth it, though!
   
10.  I’ve noticed that it’s very good and relaxing to read and listen to topics that have nothing to do with lectures so last week, I listened to a few podcasts by Rob Bell (I recommend!) and decided that a few “secular” novels can’t do any bad either – good decision. Sometimes, you just have to get your head wrapped around something else!
11.  Plucking weeds is (to my surprise) a rather therapeutic and community-forming task - especially when there are freshly baked cookies and coke involved.
12. Our speaker this week, who is also the head of YWAM New Zealand, is very enthusiastic, very direct and incredibly energetic. Perfect material for amazingly interesting lectures on “Lordship” and how to make faith a lifestyle, not simply a name. While all of that is true, yet often the opposite of easy, he never ceased to share all sorts of wisdom with us, e.g.:
13. “You’re so young! Don’t worry about that (meaning uni, a future spouse etc.)! Your job is to enjoy life and live it! If you don’t go to uni now, you can still do it after voluntary work. Why worry about a future husband at nineteen? You seem a very nice lady, I don’t think there’s a problem. Get out there. Travel. Enjoy. Get a life!”
14. A few one-liners:  “Well, what do you want to do? What do you really want to do? God’s never going to ask you to do something that you don’t want to do!”, “Get a life before a wife.” & “Don’t go back home, go forward home.”

Wow, I just noticed I could probably write a list of about 25 impactful things that happened in the last fourteen days. They were certainly very inventful, intense, not to mention pretty crazy. I think I’ve got the most entertaining ones up there and I hope, you agree :)
Now I want to say good night with one last thought: Why do so many of us think that we don’t deserve God’s love? We’re his children, right? And in most cases, parents love their children. A child is the only person you instantly fall in love with not because it does anything but simply because it IS. So yeah, we deserve that love. You, my friend, are worthy and deserving of love! And you are loved.

Have an amazing week,
xx Annika