Beautiful Mess!

           John 15:9-12 (NIV) 9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends

I can’t believe today is the first day of May (at least here in New Zealand). Where has the time gone? April has been a really full and busy month for me and also a very rewarding one. On April 1st the youth group, some of their parents, younger siblings and I went to the Hamilton Gardens for an Easter, Stations of the Cross. It was a fun way to get the youth out of the church and doing stuff in the community. The Gardens are one of my favorite places in Hamilton so I was excited to go. A lot of local artist did creative pieces that told of what Jesus went through the last week of His life, the cross and the resurrection. There were a lot of lovely things that really got you to think. Some of the youth really took this in and let it affect their lives. It was a really fun social event!

           Then we had a week to prepare ourselves for Easter camp. We arrived to the camp site on the 5th of April to set up our tents and to go to our first worship session. It was fun seeing our group of youth so excited about the weekend. There were over 4000 people at this camp so there were a lot of tents and a lot of people. It was pretty awesome. We slept in our tents for four nights and had a lot of fun. I just want to talk about a few of the highlights of the camp. First off our group entered in to play sports. We played touch rugby and sort of got owned but we had a lot of fun. We only had nine people so not many subs. Then the next day we played soccer. It was pretty awesome; we even won one game and got milkshakes because of it. :) I learned that I need to get back in shape. Also before all of our group sessions we would have tribal wars. No Josh, we didn’t have spears or stones to fight. :P The stands were split in three sections and we competed by making the most sound possible, and believe me 4000 people can make a lot of sound. We also had various competitions such as crowd surfing and passing a cow’s lung around. It was quite entertaining.

Even though the games and activities were a lot of fun I think that my favorite time was this quiet space that they set up where you could go see art that told the Easter story. They had this long tablecloth set out with wine glasses, bread, and grape juice so that you could sit there, reflect and take communion. It was dark in the room with one stage light cast down the table, almost blinding. As I sat there I started to picture Jesus and His disciples sitting there. Jesus was telling us about what was going to happen. I wondered if I was there what would I have said, would I have understood? It was such a powerful moment for me and I just sat there in reflection and awe of God!

           The theme of Easter Camp was “A Beautiful Mess”. The speakers talked about how sometimes our lives get messy but God brings something beautiful out of it. One of the speakers really hit home for me as he describes us as broken glass because of our mess but how Jesus picks up those pieces and makes us into a beautiful mosaic! It really got me to thinking. I could imagine us as a mosaic and how beautiful we truly are.

           Even though I slept on a hard ground and was exhausted when Monday rolled around I had an amazing time. It was so awesome getting to know the six youth that went and watching them grow closer to God. God truly showed up at the camp!

The week after Easter Camp was sort of a busy week for me with getting assignments done and just catching up on rest. We didn’t have youth group that Sunday or the next because the youth were on school holidays. However, the 22nd of April the church had a shared dinner and a gentleman from Australia came and talked about Noah’s Ark, so I got to see some of the youth then. It was an awesome presentation and just went to show how amazing God truly is. I think that I want to look more into the topic of Noah’s Ark and also look into dinosaurs and the Bible. ;)

           Then last week was one of the busiest weeks so far; with an assignment being due that Monday and planning for my first Sunday in charge of the youth. Tuesday was my second time doing Bible in Schools. A lovely lady from my church called Judi asked me if I’d like to help her with this. We go to a little primary school in a town a short distance from Hamilton and spend a half hour talking about different stories of the Bible. It is a lot different being able to talk to children about God in school. I wonder if America could start doing this. It is a lot of fun and the children seem to enjoy it.

           Then Wednesday I read this book called Sacred Pathways for my Spiritual Formation group. It talked about nine different temperaments on how we worship God. There are: the Naturalist, Creationist, Traditionalist, Ascetics, Caregivers, Intellectuals, Enthusiast, Activists, and Contemplative. After reading about what each were and how they worship God and some temptations each type of person has, you answered a few questions and tallied your score to see which one you were most like. When I started reading the book I thought I would be closest to Caregivers or Intellectual. I was but they were my second and third highest scores. My first highest was Ascetics. When I started reading this book I had no idea what that mean but as I read the chapter I kept getting more and more excited, thinking how it sounded a lot like me. The author of the book talked about how it is kind of like the “monk” temperament, one who likes solitude, strictness/obedience, commitment and simplicity. For me that makes a lot of sense. I tend to worship and feel closer to God when I’m lying in bed, in complete silence, in the dark. Or when I stay at the church on Sundays after everyone goes home until youth group. The solitude allows me to truly focus on God. I find that noises, smells or just flashy worship can be distracting to me. Before I read this book I always would try to worship like everyone else expected of me but now I realize that there are many ways to worship God. I want to try this way that excites me and just feels right. Some of the things the book suggested to do was to have night worship, basically like I described about, fasting where you give up something to focus on God (Maybe my computer), and just silent retreats away where there are no distractions. I highly highly recommend this book. It is by Gary Thomas and is called, Sacred Pathways: Discover Your Soul's Path to God. If you are interested in finding a way to worship God in the way He made you to then this is an awesome book for you!

           This week I have also started my new devotional called “Trusting God” and have found that it is comforting to know that God really does have the whole world in His hands. I have also started my next assignment for my Old Testament Themes class. It is reading a book called “The Bible Jesus Read”. So far it is quite interesting and should be a fun read.

           This last weekend was the busiest part of the week. On Saturday I went to a youth conference that a group called Word of Life put on. Four of the Pathways’ student are interning there so it was awesome seeing them and doing workshops on how to work with your youth and ask them questions. Also, making sure our hearts are in the right place. That was an all day event but was also pretty fun. Then on Sunday the youth group from Easter Camp showed their video to the congregation that one of the youth made and shared some highlights from camp. I was super nervous because I’m not too brave speaking in front of people but God was with me and helped me get through it and it ended up great.

           Then the hardest thing that has happened to me since I have been in New Zealand, happened Sunday night, running youth group.  Since the couple that were running youth group are in Peru for four months I am now pretty much in charge of running youth group (with the help of this awesome guy called Ye-Gon and the pastor and his wife). Well, the pastor and I decided that we were going to take a detour from the book of John and focus on what the youth group should look like and how we are to treat each other at youth, outside youth, and on Facebook. I was so nervous coming up with the lesson, finding the right verses and presenting it in a way that they group would be engaged and willing to talk. And I have to say God is such an amazing God!!! He made things run so well. The group talked, laughed, asked hard questions, and gave great insight to one another! They are such an amazing group of young people and I am blessed that God put them in my life to be the first youth group to work with!!!

           So for the next few months we as a youth group might continue to put the book of John on hold and find answers to the hard questions that they are facing or just want to know about, to continue to engage them and help them grow in their walk with God. Also, this month we are going to be having a 40 hour famine social event and then in June we are going to be having a games/rootbeer float (They don’t have rootbeer here but I’ve found a store that sells it) night. I will be busy planning these events, lessons and doing assignments but I’m very excited about doing all these things. Also, the next two Sundays I will be working with our Livewire class (middle school age) and providing them their lesson during church.

           I hope everyone is doing well! Please let me know if you need any prayer or even just tell me how things are going in your lives. I would love to hear from you. If you guys could pray for my youth group and that God uses me to teach and guide them at youth group. Also, pray for my studies and that I can truly focus on then. One last thing would be either patience about waiting on buses because that is my only form of transportation (sometimes it is hard cause I have to plan an hour of travel each time I want to go to the church) or pray I miraculously have a car sitting in my driveway with my name on it. :P Thank you for all your support and I hope you are enjoying seeing what I’ve been up to.