Living and loving life

Hey Yall! Life in Methven has been wonderful and I still love it. Since my last post I have been able to get even more settled in here. I work every day for either 7 or 8 hours and I really enjoy it. I haven’t had a day off yet but I haven’t really wanted one either. Since Methven is such a small town I would have a hard time filling up my day with stuff to do here, or I would have to spend quite a bit of money getting to the next town.

All that being said, I do have my first day off this coming Saturday. I may go up to the mountain to try snow boarding. I am also looking for a car, so depending on that I may use my day off to get into the city and pick one up. Cars here are pretty inexpensive (I can find a decent one for under $1000 NZD and insurance is only about $30 NZD a month) So buying one will end up being a lot cheaper than renting one or taking trains for travelling. It will also be nice to have when my parents come to visit.

God's provision is still blowing me away! The church I found has been great. I feel so welcome there and they have completely opened their arms to me. I have been able to go to a Women's lunch/ bible study on Mondays, which is wonderful. It’s a small group of 3 women that get together to fellowship for a few hours. Yesterday they asked me if I would be willing to teach the lesson. So today I taught over Psalms 23 and I feel like it went really well. It has been really refreshing and comforting to have fellowship with older women.

On Saturday night I was able to hang out with the YWAMers and that was fantastic. There is about to be a backpackers YWAM starting in 3 weeks. That school will be doing pretty much everything I had hopped to do in moving here (backpack, rock climb and reach out to that culture) and they have the resources and connections to do it. I got the number of the base and when this job ends I am going to go spend a few days there meeting with the leaders and start to get some connections and direction hopefully. I was able to talk to one of the girls that will be staffing that school for a while, it was wonderfully encouraging to talk to someone with my same passion and vision.

Between the church, my job and the YWAMers I have really felt much more at home than I ever expected to. It doesn’t feel like home at all, but I feel such peace and a great comfort here. I really love the culture and have been able to partake in a few of the culture norms (aka, watching rugby.) The rugby world cup started on Saturday and that will be going on over the next 6 weeks. The All Blacks had their first game and of course they DEMOLISHED Italy. The ending score was 77 to 14. I am pretty confident that this is the year for the All Blacks. It should be really fun to be here while that is going on.

Prayers: I am praying for Gods continually provision. To continually be at rest in where He has me right now, and clarity in where He wants me in the future. My biggest prayer is that I will be able to be settled in somewhere before the holidays. My hope is that I can be somewhere for at least a month before Christmas so that I can meet people to share that time with. I love you all! Please let me know how I can pray for you. (I know there is a TON going on in your lives, don’t hold back on me!) I miss you!