Greetings, blessings, and sunshine to you from down under.
About a week ago, a rather bedraggled assembly of students with varying energy levels and jetlag arrived in the Land of the Long White Cloud (Aotearoa in te reo Maori). Since then we have ventured into the sea and up the mountains, into the kitchen and out onto the lawn, on bicycle and in nine-passenger vans, and generally around in each other's company. The intentional community that CCSP has taken the time to form here looks to be an environment in which I will very well thrive, process, and grow this semester.
Just having finished up lunch here, I hear the sounds of dishes and silverware pinging as one group takes on the lunch clean-up chore this week. They are also cranking music that we are all sharing throughout the house. From where I sit, I can see a species of tree fern called a Rough Tree Fern, and can nearly see the amazing Puhutakawa Tree and maybe a Cabbage Tree as well. What I can't quite see from this vista are the vegetable gardens kept here. We have eaten so many vegetables from our own excellently kept gardens on campus. Speaking of which, campus is actually an old convent--called The Old Convent, funnily enough--and I live in one of the rooms in the old schoolhouse connected by a breezeway. We have compost and recycling processes and containers, and our goal is only to produce one typical black plastic bag of rubbish as a community of 30 each week. A worthy goal.
We bike whenever we want to go somewhere on our own time. We hike lots. We learn a considerable amount from the Maori culture and language. We eat together, laugh together, make our community norms together, and strive towards shalom together. We had academic orientation together today, and start classes on Monday, I think. After, of course, a weekend trip some students have planned backpacking through Abel Tasman national park. Look for more, periodic, blog updates in the future.
Kia ora, and I send much aroha back home.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
"Requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul"
Note: Tomorrow I leave for New Zealand--incredibly, amazingly, unimaginably, but truly! I will be aiming for a blog a week, so be looking forward to that, if you think of it. :)
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On the eve of another adventure, I am in a familiar swarm of emotions. There's the nagging feeling that I forgot to pack something pivotal, or that the checked bag will weigh two ounces over 50 pounds. There is always the joy of venturing forth into the beauty of creation, and the things it teaches me about the Creator of it all. There's also something to be said for the emotional difficulty of each and every goodbye (although I did get over fifty hugs last weekend, which was amazing).
This time, though, I sense much more longevity to the excitement with which I'm starting this trip. Feeling this way throughout the weeks leading up to the last-minute packing day, I have noticed much more hope for growth regarding this adventure. Not just hope that growth will take place, mind; I have more specific ideas in which areas I most desire strengthening and peace. That's something the pre-college Anna couldn't have said, I believe.
I had some general clues of the woman I want to be, but they were nebulous at best. Now, I am starting to tell the difference between the cumulus, the stratus, the nimbus, and the cirrus clouds of my personality, as well as the permutations of each kind with the others. I know, thanks be to God, more about the traits of patience--also of prayer, of gentleness, wisdom--I want to embody, and how they blend together.
As I enter prayerfully into this good night, the last in my own bed for a while, I aim to fall asleep praying for those on this dear continent I leave behind. I want to leave and return being a blessing here--and there. Those are my dad's words of advice: "Be a blessing." I think he's got that right.
May shalom be an ever-nearer, ever-realer truth for each of us this night. Christ is at his restoring work, even as we sleep.
Thanks be to the Triune God. xox
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
On the eve of another adventure, I am in a familiar swarm of emotions. There's the nagging feeling that I forgot to pack something pivotal, or that the checked bag will weigh two ounces over 50 pounds. There is always the joy of venturing forth into the beauty of creation, and the things it teaches me about the Creator of it all. There's also something to be said for the emotional difficulty of each and every goodbye (although I did get over fifty hugs last weekend, which was amazing).
This time, though, I sense much more longevity to the excitement with which I'm starting this trip. Feeling this way throughout the weeks leading up to the last-minute packing day, I have noticed much more hope for growth regarding this adventure. Not just hope that growth will take place, mind; I have more specific ideas in which areas I most desire strengthening and peace. That's something the pre-college Anna couldn't have said, I believe.
I had some general clues of the woman I want to be, but they were nebulous at best. Now, I am starting to tell the difference between the cumulus, the stratus, the nimbus, and the cirrus clouds of my personality, as well as the permutations of each kind with the others. I know, thanks be to God, more about the traits of patience--also of prayer, of gentleness, wisdom--I want to embody, and how they blend together.
As I enter prayerfully into this good night, the last in my own bed for a while, I aim to fall asleep praying for those on this dear continent I leave behind. I want to leave and return being a blessing here--and there. Those are my dad's words of advice: "Be a blessing." I think he's got that right.
May shalom be an ever-nearer, ever-realer truth for each of us this night. Christ is at his restoring work, even as we sleep.
Thanks be to the Triune God. xox
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