The following is a work in progress - it takes time to chronicle three months!

Beginnings

My relationship with Christ is a fluid thing, sometimes waxing, sometimes waning. But when I am broken before Him, He always cradles me in His arms again and tells me I am loved. Being saved is the beginning of a new life and relationship with our Lord and Savior - a continual effort to know and be known. This has certainly been evident during my time in New Zealand and directly before, a time which has further solidified my relationship with Jesus Christ and renewed my fervency to give my life completely to Him whose plan and provision far exceed my own.

The culmination of events that led me to New Zealand is nothing short of miraculous. To begin with, I've always had a heart for missions, but early on, seriously wondered if these dreams would ever come to fruition, because every opportunity I pursued, promptly fell through due to scheduling issues or insufficient funding. I thought I was ready, certainly willing, but as always, God knew better and disallowed me to continue.

Yet unbeknownst to me, my preparation began long before I was born, with a small Boy Scout troop in Minnesota, where my Dad met his best friend, Paul Huberty. The two of them, and a third boy, remained the best of friends all through High School. Over time, they grew up and their paths diverged, but our families maintained a close connection. While it took several years before I met Paul's children, I always knew about them, and when his daughter, Angela, and I first interacted face to face, we immediately formed a special bond. Over the years, and many countries later, she and I reunited after I graduated High School and realized that we finally lived in the same city. She is now my dearest friend, my confidant and my sister. Angela had the experience in missions that I did not. She answered my questions and encouraged me in my decisions and plans. And it was she who showed me what it truly means to serve wholeheartedly.

So when I was asked to apply for a missions trip to Costa Rica with Operation Christmas Child (a ministry that utilizes gift-filled shoeboxes to spread the love of Jesus Christ), I prayerfully considered the opportunity. Actually, to be honest, I rather flippantly asked for a fleece test that evening at a Bible study: "If you want me to go, Lord, have the pastor talk about missions tonight," knowing perfectly well that he was still in the middle of series on Lamentations. What I didn't know, however, was that a group returned from Morocco earlier in the morning and usurped the sermon to talk about their experiences. Given this blunt confirmation, I filled out the paperwork, wrote an essay, asked for and received personal and spiritual references, and researched the South American country. And then I waited.

Meanwhile, it was discovered that my grandpa had a brain tumor. His pacemaker impeded the process to a point where the doctors went into surgery essentially blind. My mom and I drove close to 1000 miles to support him and the rest of our family. The surgeons were able to extract a majority of the tumor, but a small portion remained, trapped within the brainstem - it was completely inoperable. He would live, but for how long? No one knew. Understanding that there was nothing more we could do, Mom and I headed home.

Summer approached, along with, this time, Angela’s High School graduation. Our original intent was to take two weeks and go on a road trip throughout the the Midwest. But as we talked, New Zealand continued to creep into our conversations. The closer our roadtrip came, the thought of missions in the middle of the Pacific seemed all the more possible. The roadtrip soon became inconsequential as we realized the significant impact we could make for the Kingdom of God.

The letter came in late October. Despite my qualifications, I was not accepted for the trip to Costa Rica and was asked to reapply the following year. Of course I was disappointed, but I knew that God had something special planned in its stead.

A week from Thanksgiving, my family received the call. Grandpa was near the end and it be any day. The three of us hurried back north, hoping and praying that we would make it in time. When we arrived, he was so far gone that they were spoon-feeding him water. But as the days progressed, so did Grandpa and by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, he was able to join the entire family for Thanksgiving dinner at a nearby restaurant. Satisfied that he was fine, my parents and I made the long trip home for a third time. My grandpa was like his old self again, which did wonders for my soul.

But tragedy struck a week from Christmas when my Grandpa went to be with the Lord - he accepted Christ as his savior only a few months before.

The opportunity for Costa Rica opened my eyes to the possibility for New Zealand. And had I gone to South America, I would have missed seeing my grandpa alive for the last time. I would have also been out of the country during his funeral, which I was able to attend.

When it came time to apply for New Zealand, all of the leg-work had been completed.

It is as if I am walking, hand in hand with Jesus, into a blackness, and His light only allows me to see the step directly before me. I must learn follow after God's direction with all my heart, until He tells me to go somewhere else.

My dad taught me this lesson: for one to know where he is, one must know where he is going. I believe this with all of my heart. And where we all should be going, and striving after, is Jesus Christ.

Chapter One - A New Adventure

“I think we’re getting close. I remember this curve... I think.”

“You don’t remember?”

“Well, it was seven years ago, Kalila.”

“I suppose... Opal Springs... That’s not it, is it?”

“No, but we’re almost there. Though I don’t remember it being exactly in that place--”

“Here we are girls,” Kevin called from the front, pulling into the following driveway.

To our left, a sign constructed of horizontal slats, and in simple blue script, read:

Youth With A Mission

CRYSTAL SPRINGS Water of life, Clear as Crystal Rev:22.1

Family Ministries Outdoor Pursuits

Farther up the driveway and also to the left, sat a squat, single-story building, brown, with a small a-frame structure, directly centered on both the front and back.

“Is it the same as you remember?” I whispered.

“Exactly.”

“Well, girls, I’ll take you to your unit now to unload. If you’d like, I can give you a tour when we’re done. Or if you would rather stay and have a sleep--”

“Actually,” I said, “We want to try and stay up for as long as possible and get on the local schedule. A tour would be great.”

“And I would love to see the base again.”

“All right then.”

More text to follow.

That night, sleep came easily, dreamless and peaceful, arresting any semblance of anxiety, and jetlag of course, produced during the previous day. I’d never slept so well, nor have I since.

What a surreal and wonderful experience it was to wake up in New Zealand. I contemplated this fact with my eyes closed, remaining completely still and lounging in my bed. The burning sensation at my feet was no longer there. During the night, I must have kicked the hot water bottle of off the bed. Unable to continue doing nothing, I lifted my head. Angela opened her eyes, as though she too was languishing in the new morning.

“We’re in New Zealand, Friend.”

“Yes, we are.” I smiled. “What time is it?”

She fumbled across the nightstand, refusing to leave her warm bed. “It’s only ten till eight.”

“A.M.? I would have thought we slept through half the day.”

“Yeah, me too. Well, we can probably make it to that meeting now.”

By the time we arrived, the meeting was already in progress.

“Good morning, Girls. We didn’t expect to see you.” Pat stood up and gave us each a hug. “I believe you’ve already met Jeff and Sue.” We nodded hello and took our seats in two empty chairs next to a couple we didn’t recognize. “This is Rachel and David,” Pat continued.

“David is going to be here part-time as our handyman. He got another job in town at a cabinet maker’s shop, and will be there for the other part of the week. Rachel has generously offered to take over the Preschool for us.”

My heart sank and I saw Angela’s shoulders slump out of the corner of my eye.

“I got my teaching certificate back home in Derby. And I’ve had experience in Preschool before.”

After a moment’s silence, Pat shifted subtly in her chair. “Now only if you feel completely comfortable with this, but right now we need one of you to help Rachel in the Preschool, and the other to take over the Homeschool.”

“That would be perfect!” I exclaimed.

At the same time, Pat quickly added, “But we have other jobs you can do if you’d rather not.”

It took a moment to register that we accepted. “You won’t be able to work together...”

“We were planning on that anyway,” Angela offered. “I was already hoping to work with the Homeschool, actually. I think I have a lot to offer them from my own experiences in the program.”

“And I teach the Preschool age at my church for Sunday School back home, so if you wouldn’t mind, Rachel, I’d love to work with you.”

“Oh, no. Not at all.”

More text to follow.

I noticed a sweet, musty scent upon first entering the Preschool room, whose furniture was shuffled into the middle of the floor, having been stored there for the past several months.

Mummy,” whispered Jacob, clearly eyeing a small yellow truck in one of the toy bins sided along the far wall. “Can I, can I have that lorry?”

No, my darling, but you may play with that lorry."

"Thank you." With new toy in hand, he then walked up to me and tugged at my pants leg.

"Look. Look at my new lorry. I got it for my birf-day."

More text to follow.

Chapter Two - The Argument

How naïve we were to think that we would never argue. Angela and I go way back, after all, and had never even considered fighting before, so when we traveled together, we figured that, of course, things would remain the same. It took one week. One week, and we were at each other's throats.

It certainly began innocently enough. Late one evening, Angela suggested that we go to the A-Frame and worship together on the piano. I suppose that deep down I was hoping we could also take the time for a quick lesson, as she promised me before we even left for down under that she would teach me how to play chord piano, so I agreed. Now the two of us, what with different experiences and all, had completely different musical repertoires – thus, she wouldn't play songs that I knew, because, well, she didn't know them.

So I was forced to learn almost every song we did sing right there on the spot. Frankly, this became tiresome after the first few and I quickly became frustrated. I wanted the ability to play the piano, so that we could sing songs that only I knew for a change. Let her learn them all! She probably felt like I was holding her back, or so I perceived. And rather than spending the time with God as we should, we harbored poor feelings towards each other and wasted time pouring through the song book, desperately searching for some semblance of mutual familiarity.

This all could have been avoided. Had I swallowed my pride and said, “I don’t know any of these songs… this isn’t working…. why don’t you continue on your own…,” we would have been fine. Well, I don’t know about fine, but we’ll get into that later. What I did say, exacerbating the situation instead of diffusing it, was, “When I worship, I like to sing happy and upbeat tunes,” and began choosing songs from my early childhood. This was true. It was also nothing more than an excuse. She promptly said that she came to worship and not to sing silly songs, to which I rebutted with the verse in Psalms that says to ‘make a joyful noise unto the Lord.’ She caved in, and the tension between us rose even higher.

Eventually, I walked back to our apartment, where I sat fuming, waiting for her to return. I’m not even sure who initiated the argument when she got back, but both of us felt strongly that the other was completely in the wrong.

And yet, a strange thing happened. Though we may not have liked each other very much during that time, we still loved each other. I still made her bed at night while she took her shower, and she still washed my coffee cup the next morning, and made me hot chocolate. We still ate meals together, took walks together, did kind things for each other… we continued to spent every living moment together. We may not have been talking, but we were not talking - side by side.

The argument didn’t last long, and there were many more after, but the event itself got me to thinking. Our relationship with God can be very similar. There are times when we don’t feel like praying, or worshiping, reading God’s Word, or spending time with Him. But when we do these things anyway, we are richly blessed. A good relationship takes time and tenacity, work and effort.

Chapter Three - Of Having Childlike Faith

With drops of dew languishing on the freshly mowed, piquant grass, morning signified yet another arrival as I walked to the small room where I taught my preschool class. I wiped away the sleep still encrusting my eyes and yawned in apathetic sentiment: Another day with nothing new ahead.

And yet, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a thing rocketing towards me from off of the ampitheatre stage. No, "Ai-ee-ah," no wave of acknowledgment, no, "Hey, you!" Just a blur of rapid motion coming at me, completely expecting open arms. By the grace of God, I caught little Tobias. And thus began the heart-stopping ritual that continued throughout my entire experience in New Zealand.

What I wouldn't give for the faith to leap into the ams of my Heavenly Father, and fully trust in all that He is, curl my head in the crook of His neck, and thank Him for the blessings that He has bestowed upon me, cry out His holy name with conviction, and ask Him to never let me go! What I wouldn't give for the faith of a child to know, without any encumbrance that the Lord is all! What I wouldn't do for this faith.

I must do, and just believe.