The last 3 weeks of staff training was awesome. We had a guest speaker named Trish come in the second week and she was great. She showed us a lot on how to run small groups and how to be a team and all sorts of great stuff like that. The next week was spent with a little more training on what it is gonna take, but with a lot more of getting to know each other and where we come from, and some logistical stuff as well. That weekend we got to go on a sweet staff retreat to a place called Dansey's Pass and it was awesome. The campground we stayed in had a flying fox and a sweet rope swing. Then on the way home we stopped at this place where there is a penguin colony and waited for like 2 hours for one to come on to shore. Then finally this penguin waddles up onto the beach and into a cave. Coolest thing ever! Then we had the last week to prepare. We prepared our job roles and got everything ready for the students to arrive.
Tweaked out method on the rope swing
Some of the beauty of Dansey's Pass and New Zealand
The first student came in on Thursday and we were doing airport pick ups from then until Sunday afternoon when our last student came in. Sunday night we had the welcome banquet for students, during the banquet myself, Stephen, Loren (school leader), Matt (Bible Core Course school leader) and Jeremy (base team leader) all broke out into a Haka we had been practing for a week prior and it was so rad! We owned it of course. Laying down a spiritual challenge for the students to pick up and go for it. That night we had our first worship session as a school. Oh and by the way I somehow ended up as the worship coordinator for the school. So I was involved in my first worship practice on Sunday afternoon. I'm not too experienced in this regard so I'll definitely be needing Jesus' help. but I'm sure it will be all good. God will make it work! Anyways the worship night on Sunday was fantastic! The students really got into it and we had a great prayer session and everyone just dove in head first. The Spirit of God was certainly among us. Then Monday we had all the administrative boring stuff you have to go over with the students. Tuesday was great though we had another great prayer time with the students and God was clearly working in their lives. Tuesday night we had a wax party and got all our boards waxed and ready to go to the mountain on Wednesday. Gnarly first day on the mountain! There was actually some powder and a little park I was trying all sorts of new stuff and we had a lot of fun. Thursday was a lecture on hearing God's voice and it was a new teaching for a lot of the students and I'm very excited to see how God works in their lives and speaks to all of them personally. We had our first small group on Thursday night as well and it was so good just to sit down and chat with those guys. I'm super excited to get to know them more. Friday we had a lecture on The first and greatest commandment. Loving God. We also had a little talk on local outreach and mountain evangelism. It was good stuff. Today we went up to Mt. Hutt! yay! It was a great day so much fun hanging out with everyone and a bunch of the guys from the SFC (Snowboarders for Christ) crew. It was good to push myself and at one point I reached about 95 Km's an hour!
So that's the sum of what happened in the past month. I've been feeling really tired lately and been fighting to get enough rest. Now that the students are here I know it's gonna be a real challenge. A lot of things that I just have to rely on God for. I know that I'm not the most qualified leader and I know I certainly don't have all the answers but God called me here and I believe He'll teach me and guide me for these next few months. Even though it is going to be tough it will also be an amazing time of growth together with people and with the Lord. I know every day I'll laugh and have a good time. Just excited to see what God has in store next...
I've been missing home a little bit lately as well. Missing my family, my friends and Lindsay. She got me a bracelet that says "Love knows no distance" and sent it in the mail. What a sweet heart.
Stoked as bru.
Brendan
