Marriage and teaching.

I just need to write a quick little note to say how much I love being married to the man of my dreams.  He is kind, thoughtful, conscientious, funny, affectionate and he often thinks of my well being before he thinks of his own.  So I am in good hands and am well cared for.  

This September I began teaching at an elementary school.  It's a really hard job.  I could see that it was a hard job while I was student teaching, but it's beyond what I had imagined.  It is the most difficult and challenging job that I have ever taken on.  I may sound like a masochist, but at the same time I enjoy it in some weird way.  It's not just that there are great kids because often they are very challenging, but it is because it is the job that God has given me and when you work hard and do your work as unto the Lord and not for man (in the Bible somewhere), it is rewarding and it gives you strength and resources that you didn't know you had.  As well, God wired me to want work that challenged my mind and gave me opportunities to learn and grow.  Teaching is a great job for just those reasons.  A teacher NEVER really arrives at a point of having reached perfection or being a master teacher or something of that nature.  You can always learn, you can always improve and any decent teacher knows that and knows that you must always reflect on your own work so you can continue to improve on it.  I have oodles of room for improvement, but I kind of feel like I am holding my own.

Back to the God giving me strength and resources for teaching and life.  First and foremost he gave me Nolan.  I cannot express adequately how Nolan has been a source of strength, encouragement and restoration for me as I have begun teaching.  Long hours and rebuilding the wheel is stressful and a new work location, new co-workers, a new home to unpack and settle into and a new marriage.  There were many days I am sure I would have cried in exhaustion and frustration during the first month of my new work if it hadn't have been for the love of God and the love of my husband.  I believe that right now I would have been a very discontent person and not very happy as a teacher and my life if it hadn't been for Nolan and his constant love and encouragment.  He has given me strength, his love has restored me and allowed me to face another day and all that comes with it.  Now I know that this may sound as though I have placed Nolan as an idol in my life, but wait...

I believe that God's timing is impeccable.  He gave me Nolan as a husband and His purpose in marriages is to reveal a greater degree of his nature and being to us through the intimacy of a Bride and Groom, because to Him, the Church is his Bride.  Earthly marriage is to be another beacon of light that shows the world who God is and how much he loves us.  I believe that God has taught me a great deal about HIS love through how Nolan and I interact as husband and wife because I now have this tangible expression of intimate love that reveals to me how God desires us, and thinks of us, and cares for us and I have been greatly encouraged and strengthened through it.  

I have to say that I highly recommend marriage, and when you allow God to choose and reveal you marriage spouse, it's such an amazing experience!!

God is good.

Pizza from Hell

On Friday night I went to Hell and back but stopped at Wendy's on the way. Mmmmhmmm. It's true. On Friday Tania and I drove the car down the road to the Wendy's drive through to pick up a spicy chicken combo. I had asked for an iced tea to go with my combo meal and ended up with an orange juice?!? I am not quite sure how that happens, but it did. Somehow drinking orange juice doesn't quite fit the bill when you indulge in fast food. Anyhow...this is all beside the point. The point was, that I went to Hell and back.

Hell Pizza Co. the name of one of the hottest pizza places around town here in Auckland. We stopped there to pick up some pizza that the flat mates ordered. Pizzas by the names of: lust, chaos, gluttony, and so on. Really quite disconcerting names however, the pizzas taste quite heavenly!!

Aaaaahhhh...speaking of gustatory delights, I was invited to breakfast this morning for a new combo I have never imagined putting together. I was invited to Leon and Hannah's for pancake/crepe hybrid with a mix of bananas and bacon topped with brown sugar and maple syrup. I personally thought the mix of bananas and bacon sounded quite revolting however it was quite the contrary; it was quite tasty!!

Now that is quite enough about food. I have to go and bake some cookies.

Grease, calves and maybe the zoo

Well...here I am once again writing from good ol' New Zealand still. The other night I came home (from next door) and low and behold, what did I see? On the wall was a nice green bug; it was a praying mantis!! I thought it was pretty exciting to see one. It sat on the wall and I immediately went and grabbed my camera to see if I could get a good shot of it. So me and the mantis had a nice little photoshoot. It had these serious bugging out eyes...and while I was taking pictures it turned its buggy little head and watched me. Freaky little bug. I don't know if they bite of anything, so I left it to enjoy the luxury of our wall while I went off to enjoy the luxury of my bed.

On another note...I bought a membership at the local community centre and have gone to workout and get buff. One of the trainers there recently wrote up a strength training program for me and I was on day 3 of the workout. It included standing and seated calf raises. No problemo! I used to do them all the time back in the day. They always have seemed kind of easy so I put on a good amount of weight. The next morning I could barely stand up properly!! When you sleep, the position of your calf muscles are in a shortened position and overnight they begin to heal in that shortened position. SO in the morning when you go to stand up and LENGTHEN your calf muscles you are TEARING the healing that has happened overnight and it is painful. So for 3 days now I have not been able to walk properly. I have been tiptoeing around because placing my heals on the ground is SORE! So needless to say, I have avoided the gym.

In the meantime, I have spent some good time with the neighbours. Leon, Hannah, Canaan, Josiah and Psalm. The other night we watched the movie Grease because I had never watched it before. Ever. Leon and Hannah filled me in on interesting Grease trivia as we watched the movie. Did you know that John Travolta was 19 years old and Olivia Newton John was 26 when they filmed the movie? Did you know that the black super tight pants that Olivia wears at the end of the movie had to be sewn on her? Have you ever caught all the sexual innuendos of this classic movie? The best part of our night was after the movie though. Hannah had pulled up a YouTube video of a newly married couple at their wedding doing a cheesy little choreographed dance number. That wasn't the best part. The best part came after that. We watched little videos of laughing babies!! It was so funny and cute! We were all laughing so hard at all the videos!! I highly recommend it!

Over the past few days I have been thinking about my trip home. My flight leaves in the evening and we travel overnight to SanFrancisco and land there in the late morning. I have 6 hours in San Fran before catching my connecting flight home to Calgary. The question is what do you do in San Fran for 6 hours after a 14 hour flight from the other side of the world during which you really don't get any sleep. SO, by the time you arrive, you've been awake for 20 some odd hours and feel like a broken toilet. What do you do? I keep thinking how great it would be to rent a hotel room for half a day (as if hotels do that) and SLEEP!!!! On the other hand I keep thinking it would be lame to just stay in the airport and wait out the time. I should go OUT and see some of San Francisco, or at least head to the zoo. BUT...what fun is that when you feel like garbage? What to do, what to do? Ideally my flight home to Calgary would be changed and leave at least 3 or 4 hours earlier than scheduled. Yeah, wishful thinking.

Well...I still have 6 sleeps (that's if I actually sleep on the plane) until I am HOME!

Finally...real homesickness

I have experienced this feeling before. I was in Brighton, England and I really wanted to come home. I kind of shut down a little bit. I don't want to wander around and experience the place where I am, I just want to pass the time quickly so I can go home. Don't get me wrong. I am still doing my thing here. Last night I went to weaving class even though I was ridiculously tired and I wove an awesome basket. I am still working on my stupid paper. I still go to the gym. I still enjoy the warm sunshine and love my neighbours and enjoy their children (who made a Harry Potter movie last Saturday and came over in the morning just before I was leaving to go to the street market, to ask me if I would be Lord Voldemorte...isn't that just priceless? I love being asked things like that by the cutest looking 4 year old with a pair of round glasses and a scar drawn on his face, and in his sweet innocent little voice...priceless). It actually reminds me of the time his older brother who is 6 asked me to go to his drama class with him. We wanted a different adult to be there than his mom. So he asked me and said that if I went I either had to be a fairy or a troll because that was who was in the play and being totally genuine told me I could be a troll because I looked like one. Oh...so funny. Nolan did you know that you are marrying someone who apparently looks like a troll? Aren't you a lucky fella.

Anyhow...it's time. It is time to go home. Unfortunately my plane ticket and the calendar don't quite agree with me and since I have not yet learned how to manipulate time....I can't do anything about it. I am trying oh so hard to be patient but as it turns out, I am actually not an incredibly patient person. I have even resorted to what I used to do while running laps for trial times when I used to try out for Team BC for field hockey. As I ran, I knew I had to run 12 laps. As I ran I would tell myself how many laps I had left to do. After one, I would say in my head, "11 left to go". As I began to get tired, I would change the method a bit and say I had completed lap 6, I would say to myself, "5 laps to after this one", so it SOUNDED as if I had less than 6 laps left to run. Well, that is exactly what I am doing now. Instead of saying I only have X amount of days until I go home, I say I have Y amount of days after this one. So it seems that April 1st is closer than it actually is, but 1o days sounds better than 11 days. AND 9 days sounds WAY better than 10 days (its a single digit). So there you have it. The inner thinkings and workings of Sherry for today.

In the meantime as I sit here and procrastinate from writing my paper, I keep checking to see if Nolan has returned home from Ontario and signed on to Skype so I can talk to him. I feel like a bit of a stalker, but it has been at least 6 days since I have talked to him and I am in extreme withdrawal. I was going to go to the MIT library and work on the paper, but I wasn't sure if they would have wireless just in case Nolan did sign on, so I have resigned myself to working at home. Do you think me pathetic? Oh well. I don't care. I love him and want to talk to him. Priorities people, priorities.

Sunny days keeping the clouds away.

I am verifiably in certified countdown mode. How many sleeps until I get to see Nolan at 11pm ish on Tuesday, April 1st? The number is getting smaller and smaller, but not fast enough for my liking. Time is moving sloooowwwwllly like molasses in January. It will make coming home all that much sweeter I guess.

I actually had a great blog entry typed up but I hit some random button and it left. I despise random buttons. It's more interesting when random buttons are things like ejection seats or are the 'on' button for a siren or something, but as an erase button on the computer? Lame, very disappointing actually and extremely annoying.

So...today is a rather sunny day not unlike many of the days that I have had since being here. i don't think the temperature has dipped lower than maybe 21 degrees during the day. I know just the other night when I went to bed at 11pm it was still 21 degrees out. Actually yesterday after coming home from the beach (where I was chaperoning two 4 year olds) it started to cloud over and I was jumping on my bike to come home and it started to spit. Hanna joked and wish me a good ride home. Well...my ride home was not in the spitting rain but it was in the torrential rain! It was nice! It was still really warm out, the raindrops were so large that it seemed as though it would only take 5 raindrops to effectively soak you. I was drenched by the time I got home (a 10 minute bike ride), and I had a huge grin on my face!

Anyhow, it is a gorgeous day outside right now and I am going to Pacifica Fest just down the road. I can actually hear it from here. Drums are beating and it's catching. It is a celebration of Pacific Island cultures and it is going to be fun! I am going to take my camera (that I still don't know how to use properly) and take some pics and I am going to hope I don't get a sunburn and stupid tan lines.

I hope that tomorrow is as nice as today because I am going to head off to R.......Island which used to be a volcano and hike up it and check out the crater and take more pictures.

When will I actually do my homework? Maybe just for once it will do itself.

Maybe.

I caught part of a korero (talk) given by my neighbour Sam at the last Te Haerenga. We talked about all sorts of things, but Sam was always able to relate the scripture or topics to culture identity, being Maori (or Irish, or First Nations, Sri Lankan, Hebrew...) and to the ministry of home.

I am not even sure where to begin...on top of listening to him talk at the marae, I'm in a Bible study with him every week too...I should have been taking notes...hindsight is always 20/20. Anyhow...we're looking at Nehemiah...it was kind of chosen by default. Hanna (Sam's daughter and one of my other next door neighbours) asked a question about Nehemiah because she was reading something and it became our focus. There you go. Anyhow...Nehemiah is about rebuilding and that's what the Maori are doing in some many ways; rebuilding their cultural identity, rebuilding their language, their homes, their whanuas, and their values. It's hard work to rebuild especially when there is opposition like there was in Nehemiah.

So...why Nehemiah? Sam asked us that question and then said because he had vision. Vision. I feel as though I have met so many visionary people and that I had a pretty good idea what it meant to be visionary. Sam shed some light on the meaning of the word vision. He referred to the scripture that had the word vision in it (I forgot which one) and said that it referred to a scroll being unrolled and its contents being revealed and it meant (in this scripture...something about people being without vision....anyone?), "The unfolding of the mind, will and purpose of God". I like that. I want vision.

NEXT.

Then he was talking about when a couple of John's disciples asked him where he was staying and instead of saying, "oh, I live with my mom and dad over there and my dad and I have a carpentry shop", he said, "Come with me" and he took them there. Sam's purpose of pointing out this little tidbit was to share how important home is as a place (if not THE place) for ministry. Then he pointed out that a number of things Jesus did were in homes too...water into wine, healing the paralytic, meals etc. Home. Create a place where he can dwell and people want to come and spend time in your home. Not just the power of home but a sense of family and how it can heal people to see and live in and be in a sense of family.

Where do you live?

The next thing was about the shakers, feelers and insiders.

Shakers don't get to close to you, they may not even look at you, but just shake you a bit and then make their best guesses as to what you are like and what you need etc (gov't, sometimes the church, researchers). How would that make you feel?

Feelers still won't look at you, but they will get close enough to touch and poke, maybe ask a few good intentioned questions (that serve their own purposes of defining who you are rather than letting you tell them who you are or taking the time to actually get to know you). Maybe even be friendly just to get those answers too, and then leave.

Insiders are the people that actually take the time to have a relationship, get to know you, see and experience your life. YOU...are an insider...you know yourself. You know best (well God knows best, but you usually have a pretty good idea what you need etc. and what your life is really like).

I kept thinking of ministering to people in the world and wondering how often Christians have been shakers and feelers rather than insiders. Jesus was most definitely an insider. I hate to admit that I have been both a shaker and a feeler. I have stereotyped, judged, and misunderstood people.

What are you?

This was such a random post. Sorry. Random thoughts just have to come out sometimes.

What other random thoughts have I been having you ask? Well, I can't stop thinking about how many sleeps it is until I get to see Nolan (19) and I have thought about weaving and whether or not Canadian customs will let me keep the things I have made (it's plant material) and I keep wondering what the heck I am going to do for a 6 hour layover in San Fransisco after a 15 hour flight from Auckland. Yep. That's it for now.

Chapman Whanau, Marae Waipapa and Clandon

I wrote this on Feb. 18th...

I am presently sitting in my third unique community setting since having arrived in New Zealand. I've already described the first, so let me move on to the second.

Marae Waipapa is in Kawhia ('wh' is like 'ph' and makes an 'f ' sound). A marae (mah- rye) is the Maori traditional extended family community home. Tania and I went to stay at Marae Waipapa this past weekend for the beginning of Te Haerenga (te hiringa pronounced with a soft 'g' sound), which means "The Journey". Te Haerenga is a discipleship training series of weekends put on by Maori for Maori through the ministry of Island Breeze (a part of ywam). Back a number of years ago they did a world impact tour to evangelize the Maori, but in a Maori way. BUT...to follow up had no way to show them how to be followers of Jesus as Maori, only by stuff them into church culture. So began Te Haerenga.

The weekend began on Friday night as we sat in the parking lot outside the marae waiting. We were waiting for everyone to arrive (it was kind of like Indian time-Pam you know what I mean). Once everyone was there, we would be called onto the marae. That was the only way to come into someone else's marae. And so it began. The women walked in front of the men and a woman sang a song in Maori that called us into their home. A woman in our group responded in song as we entered and made our way to benches across from where the whanau (pronounced fan-oh, meaning family)were seated. The men on the front benches and the women behind. The men each had the opportunity to speak greetings and welcomes and such. Tania said it could last for hours. For us...it lasted about 10 minutes and then we walked to where the whanau were seated and greeted them each by pressing noses together in order to breathe the same breath...which would then make us in a sense family too.

After we had a late dinner we all gathered in the whare nui (fahd-eh new-ee, big house) for korero (koh-dee-doh, speaking, talk, sharing, anytime you talk). It was a time for introductions and EVERYONE was given the floor for really as long as they wanted to introduce themselves and say whatever they wanted to say. Oh...the layout of the whare nui...a HUGE long one room house with mattresses (foamies) lines up around the entire outside wall (with a HUGE stack still left in the corner of the room). There were must have been at least 60-70 mattresses!! And we all slept in the same room; men, women, youth, children, babies...everyone.

Saturday was good...we started learning a song...hard for me because I didn't know how to pronounce everything I was reading. Here's the song and it's based on Psalm 29.

Hoatu ki a Ihowa
E nga tama o te hunga nunui

Hoatu ki a Ihowa
te korokia me t koha
Hoatu ki a Ihowa
te kororia e rite an mo tona ingoa
koropiko ki a Ihowa
I roto i te atahua o te tapu
kei runga te reo o Ihowa i nga wai
e pap ana te whatitiri o te atua
e te kororia
kei runga a Ihowa i nga waimaha
kaha tonu te reo o Ihowa
kororia tonu te reo o Ihowa
whanau ana nga hata i te reo o Ihowa
tihorea ana nga kia tahanga
I tona temepara ko te kupu a te katoa
kororia ka homai e Ihowa
he kaha ki tana Ihowa manaki mo tanga hunga

So...I did my best. Later on we learned raenga (weaving) from harvest to finish for a simple basket that would be used at a meal. It was neat! AND the thing is...that back in the day if your mother, aunty or grandmother were teaching you something like this, you would never JUST be learning to weave, you would learn the lessons of life and spirit woven into the day to day skills you learned. SO we learned that if God was Maori...he would have been a weaver (instead of a potter) and we would have been the flax (that's what we were weaving) and he would weave us into whatever thing, in whatever pattern he wanted to. AND as flax in the hands of God the master weaver, we would be softened and prepared and dyed and...and...(it is apparently a long process to prepare flax to weave). I love God and that He is as much Maori as he is Sto:lo Sitel, and Ojibwe etc. It was a great lesson to remember what God is like while learning how to weave.


On Sunday morning after breakfast we had korero and people had the opportunity to share thoughts on the weekend. I felt like I wanted to say something but I hesitated and let others speak. At the end(ish) Ray picked up his guitar and said, "Anyone else?" and seemed to look right at me. I nodded my head and stood up and could tell that I was going to be fighting tears. So...I joked! I was hoping to get past the urge to cry. Why I felt like crying I don't know. I only knew that God was doing something in me. So...I paused hoping again that the tears would pass, but God apparently wanted me to cry in front of everyone. So I told everyone that I cry when God moves in my spirit and that I have a hard time talking and crying, to which Karen Bishop (one of the marae whanau) said..."You just cry then, we'll wait and then you can talk". Essentially what came out of my mouth was that I felt strongly that God had me here to learn about community and family. He used a teaching practicum to get me here and show me more of His beautiful ways that community is expressed. It was more than just that though...I was in awe and in a way jealous of a culture that seemed so much more intact than mine in many ways. It was fantastic to see Maori's being MAORI Jesus followers, not Maori copying church Christian culture type Christians, but following Jesus within the context of their culture and their way of being which we know glorifies God as He created all cultures in His image and we glorify Him when we are being ourselves.

Instead of coming straight home when the weekend was over, Tania took me with her to go and visit a good friend of hers who was home front Thailand for a bit and staying with mutual friends, living in Clandon Community. Community numero 3. 25 years ago, 6 families from Auckland sold their homes, put the money in a trust, the trust got a loan from the bank, the trust had land donated to them and they built a community. They built in clusters and made 3 of them. In each cluster are 2 attached homes with garages and attached on the other side of each garage are smaller units meant to be used by people who need them; a family hard up on luck, a single trying to go clean, missionaries on furlough...whatever they are needed for. They have a shared laundry room in each cluster and either a games room or a quiet room in the corner of each cluster in between where the two homes meet. They have a swimming pool and they share things like lawn mowers and sporting equipment etc. The whole community, everyone from all 3 clusters of homes get together once every week to eat together potluck style. They pray, worship or


This week as we've talked more about community around the kitchen table here back in Auckland, God reminded me that He is the quintessential community; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. MMmmmmm. Something good to mull over in the mind and spirit. What does that picture pf community hold for us to learn from?


So...community...what is your definition of it?

The times and the faces

Well...I have been in Auckland a week now and it feels like it has been at least 2 weeks. I have been doing homework, making friends and attended a funeral in the extended family Maori community I am living in.

Yes...I am living in a really neat community here. The Chapman family has revived the traditional Maori value of living in extended family communities and they've done it in an urban, poor community area. What they've managed to do has inspired me and I really, honestly haven't heard the half of it yet.

On the Sunday after I arrived we had a potluck dinner/bb-q here and I sat with Sam Chapman and asked him a few questions about this community and he told me about reading books like "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "Quadrant economics" (something like that). He told me how it changed his thinking in regards to finances. He asked me what the first thing paid out of my pay is. TAX. He asked me what the first thing paid out of the revenues a business makes....expenses(bills) and then tax. So in essence you pay less tax and he says that through little things like that (and beleive me...lots in this community is business related...their whole life is ministry business so even the cost of having dogs (security expense) and cats(pest control) is paid for before taxes are. They bought one home and eventually leased it to a Family Trust (not sure how this all works, I am just going from memory and this information is not pieced together very well) and they don't pay the mortgage...the Trust/business does because their home is their ministry...to the poor, to gang members, to people who need to live in a family and remember what it's like to be loved, to laugh with people you can trust and to hold small children in your lap (there are lots of those here). They also have started a pre-school type place that really loves children and does good stuff. There is something else that I have heard whisperings of but i haven't yet figured out what it is.

Anyhow...after a number of years and owning some really small business ventures on top of the big ones, they have managed to buy about 6-8 homes(I haven't quite figured out exactly how many) right beside each other and they've knocked down fences and they literally live with open doors. I really want to figure it out...it will come. I will go and sit with Sam and pick his brain and take notes.

In the meantime..I thought I would share with you some of the faces of my new community. These 3 are the children of Leon (who calls me sis)and Hannah who live next door. Their names are (from oldest to youngest), Canaan, Josiah and Psalm. Psalm came over and she kept chatting to me but I could not understand a word she said...it was all in Maori. Then she kept grabbing fruit and eating bites out of them and then grabbing new ones. I found Josiah after the memorial service, sitting on our back steps in his togs (swim shorts), pouting. When I asked him what was the matter, he said something about everyone else next door having lollies (candy). Obviously he didn't get any. I asked him if he wanted to be big and strong when he grew up and he nodded. I told him that lollies don't make him big and strong. You could see him thinking about that. With a really serious face he looked at me and asked, "Do lollies make you strong?" Nope I told him that meat and veggies and fruit would make him strong. He considered an answer for a moment and then it looked like he was okay with being strong when he grows up and not eating lollies at the moment and he ran back to swim with his cousins. yep.

This weekend I am off with Tania my flatmate to head off somewhere on the island to go to a Discipleship training thing that is designed specifically for Maori. I will get to experience some culture and learn and make new friends! YAY. And someday I will start teaching.

Someday.

Stingray

Why oh why would I call this post stingray? Well let me tell you.

The day began with me waking up FAR, FAR too early in the morning for someone who just flew and was in transit for a ridiculous amount of time!!! 6:30 am...what?!? I dozed for a few hours and then dragged myself out of bed. We chatted as roomies in the living room for a while and Tabitha invited me to go to Goat Island with her and her boyfriend and another Sherry from Canada who is a teacher and her boyfriend. I thought no, I won't go I will be too tired. Tania invited me to go with her to a pool party that night and in the end I opted to go with Tabitha after all because you only live once and it is the end of summer and who knows what the weather will do later on!

So we hopped in the car and drove about an hour and a half outside of Auckland to go to Goat Island and snorkel. The guy at the rentals gave us a deal because we promised to get our gear back in by a certain time so he wouldn't be late for his next job that was somewhere else. It was cheap as!! (as they say here in NZland). So off we went with our wet suits and snorkels. There were tons of fish! It was great. Once while I was off on my own for a wee bit (which made me a bit nervous), I was kicking my fins and low and behold swimming along on the bottom was a STINGRAY!!! It was HUGE and freaky!! So I quickly backed up and watched it float along from a distance.

We then drove back into the city to have gourmet burgers and hit up a chocolate cafe. Yum. I must say that after eating some food I was ready for bed!! I came home and checked the email and hit the hay. I had a choppy, broken up sleep however because it was so hot and muggy!! Today is the same...hot 27 degrees and 100% humidity for sure!

So tonight we're having a community potluck and I will get to meet everyone hereabouts. good stuff.

On another note, I learned that the community area that I am living in is not the best area in regards to safety etc., so please pray. I am not quite sure how to go out for a run around here! So pray. I am glad to be here nonetheless. The more I have chatted with Tania about community living, I think I am here more for the community aspect rather than for teaching. We'll see what God has up his sleeve!

Birthdays and a Home away from Home

I arrived here in Auckland, New Zealand on Feb. 8th, my birthday. It was 25 degrees celsius and it was a glorious and beautiful day. I was so tired that I left my gray cardigan and Nolan's novel "Scarlet" on the baggage cart after I loaded up the car with all my luggage. Some nice Kiwis flagged us down and told me that I left the sweater in the cart. I ran out of the car bar footed and grabbed the sweater, but failed to see that I had left the book in the cart as well. It's unfortunate because I only had about 1 or 2 chapters left to read until I was finished it. It was also unfortunate because it was a gift from Melanie to Nolan for Christmas. I feel bad, but it was just a book and thankfully not a camera. Things can go missing when you are tired like that after traveling.

The airport as I have discovered is not very far away. While trying to sleep last night I heard very large planes flying overhead and I wished I had better earplugs. Anyhow, Tania drove me "home" to 8 Atawere Rd. in Manukau, Auckland (far right window is my bedroom ). They had prepared a room for me, newly wall papered (floor still somewhat wet from some spilled water), a comfy bed with a down comforter (not sure why down...it's stinkin' hot to sleep with that!), a desk (for homework or procrastinating), and a shelfy thing for clothes and such. Tania also added a bit of a feminine touch by putting some beautiful tropical flowers in

a really cool vase and a welcome card by my bed. Oh and we can't forget the incense set for a lovely smelling room.

In my attempt to stay awake, I unpacked while Tania went to the grocery store to grab some things for dinner. She cooked dinner and she texted the next door neighbours while cooking to tell them that it was my birthday. Thelma and Sam Chapman came over and gave me big hugs of welcome and birthday wishes and stayed to dinner. It was nice and they sang happy birthday to me in Maori. There is a first time for everything. I met the new roomies Tabitha and Kirsten along with other friends who dropped by and shared a Kiwi desert with us for my birthday!! Pavlova...it was yummy, but very sweet.

I lasted until about 9:20pm and then excused myself from the festivities to go to bed. Sleep is always so sweet after such a long trip and I was looking forward to a deep and long sleep. I climbed into bed and was drifting off to sleep when somewhere in my brain I heard knocking on my door. Low and behold it was NOLAN!!!! He called to wish me a happy birthday! I love him sooo much!! It made my day to hear his voice. It made me feel somewhat homesick but it made me feel so much better about being in a new place and sort of by myself. I felt loved even from afar and not so alone. After a short conversation ( I was trying so hard not to fall asleep!) we said goodbye and I slept. Mmmmmm...sweet sleep.

Planes, planes and more planes

As I looked up and realized what the digital words and numbers read, my stomach dropped and I began to sweat. Los Angeles, gate C25, flight 287. Hey, wait a cotton pickin' minute!! My boarding pass says-San Fransisco, gate C25, flight 728!! AND...boarding was technically supposed to be 45 minutes ago. I quickly packed up my lap top (I was actually working on my homework) and quickly made my way to the agent desk to make some panicky inquiries. As I stood at the desk and waited I began to picture the scenario in my head. I must have gotten so wrapped up in my homework that I missed the boarding call and missed my flight!! How could I have missed my flight when they never even opened the glass doors into gate C25!?!? I mean, we were all sitting at a different gate looking through the glass at the gate that our flight was supposed to board from. When I did ask the airline employee I was quickly calmed as he stated that I was in the right spot and I hadn't missed my plane. I was so relieved!! I have to admit I wondered for a moment if God's plans had changed and I needed to stay in Calgary. Things that make you go hmmmm.

Anyhow...So that flight left late and when we landed in San Fransisco, I immediately boarded the next plane to Sydney Australia. Once seated I met my row mate, a girl named Kathleen, but I was to call her Kat. She was going on a 3 week vacation to NZ all on her own! We had some good chats. After eating dinner at what was about 12:30am my time, I took a sleep-eze, felt sick for about an hour and then drifted in and out of sleep for a while. SLEEP!!! I actually slept on a plane!!! It was miraculous!! So by the time I arrived in Sydney, I didn't feel completely like garbage, I still felt mostly human being.