New Zealand!

upper left:
me at the bridal falls in Reglan NZ

upper right: sunset at Reglan

lower left: The group at one tree hill in Reglan

lower right: view from our Auckland hotel room. We ate at the sky tower restaurant and had a 360 degree rotating view of the city!

Fiji!

Melanie, Grace and I in the Danford village in Fiji

Below: Waterfall by native village in fiji. I jumped off the lower rock!

lowerright: Grace, Melanie and I driving up to the village

lower left: A traditional Kava ceremony made from kava root. It is only performed for special occaisions. It causes a slight numbing effect.

New Zealand!

Well, sorry I havn't posted! Things have been crazy since arriving on the 11th in Fiji. For those of you who don't know, my class doesn't acutally start until March 1st so at the moment I am living it up by first touring fiji for 4 days and now in New Zealand. I know, I have such a hard life! Fiji was wonderful and we even got to expirience villiage life with a traditional Kava ceremony. This is a drink made from the kava root and is only used for special ceremonies. It does have a slight numbing effect when you drink it though! My lips and tongue were numb for a little while. On the 15th we (my friends Grace and Melanie and I) left for New Zealand to tour around for 2 weeks with our mutual friend Sandra. We all met while working on the Mercy Ship in Liberia. It is so nice to be with close Christian friends! So far we have been in Auckland, Reglan, Rotura and now Toupa. Tomorrow we leave for Hastings for a couple nights at Sandra's parents house. To write about all the things we have done would take forever so I will tell you some highlights. Visiting Geothermal hot springs and mud pools in Rotura; snorkling in fiji, white water rafting in Rotura, Black water tubing at the Wytoma caves; participating in a hangi, a traditional Maori dinner cooked underground and just drinking in the countryside. I am hoping to have better internet access as the "vacation" part of my trip progresses but rest assured I will definetly be writing plenty when I get to the YWAM base. Please continue to keep me in your prayers as I prepare for the next 6 months. God Bless!

Here is my email address if you wish to email me!
rosycheeks_83@yahoo.com

Leaving....again!

Hello one and all! Welcome to my blog!
Well, I am leaving again! It seems like that has been all I have been doing for the last 2 years. First to work with Mercy Ships as a nurse in Liberia for 6 months, then to be a traveling nurse in phoenix and Palm springs. Now I am off to New Zealand! If you would have asked me if I would have done all of this before I turned 26, I wouldn't have believed you. God has blessed me with the financial and vocational ability to travel and I am thankful for that.
So, what is in New Zealand you ask? Well, while I was working with Mercy Ships, I heard about a program called DTS (discipleship training school) associated with Youth With A Mission YWAM). If you wanted to work more than a year on the ship you had to take a course such as DTS. By taking this course it would prepare you for missions and help you decide whether God is truely calling you to that. There are thousands of locations that you can take DTS and once I heard that two of my friends were taking the NZ course, I applied! Ever since I have been back from Africa, I have been interested in taking this course. Also over the last few months, I have been feeling a need to remove myself from the daily grind and really concentrate on God for a while. While I could do that here, it has always been easier for me to do that when I am taken away from what is familier and immersed in another place and in a program that is intended to help you learn more about God. So here I am 4 days away from leaving! Over the next 3 months I will be taking classes (it has been awhile!), doing chores around the base, and doing outreach in the nearby city. After that we will be split into 6 different groups and head out into 6 different areas of the world for 3 months. This will be our outreach phase. There we will be helping local missionaries, giving bible teachings to the local people and whatever else is required of us. The theme of this school is to "know God and make Him known". I am also trying to raise funds for this, so if you feel led to give please email me and I will let you know how to do that. Please pray for me as I embark on this journey and look for updates! God Bless!