Why is it that obscure and unfortunate events happen to me on a daily basis? I have come to the conclusion that it is because I am Steph. Yesterday another such event occurred. It all began as I was carrying my backpack that probably weighs 20 or 30 pounds out to the van. There was nothing out of the ordinary on the ground. But my right foot decided that rather than taking a normal step, which involves placing the bottom of the heal of your foot to the ground and then shifting your weight to the bottom of the toe side of your foot, it wanted to take an abnormal step, which involved placing the outer side of my foot on the ground. This move resulted in an unfortunate spraining of the ankle and pain shot through my leg causing me to lose balance. I am a tall person and that means that I have a long way to fall when I lose balance, and I was carrying a very heavy bag on my back. This meant that I fell even harder than normal. Somehow I managed to scrape the top of my right foot and my right knee as I fell and twisted and landed on my butt. It hurt a lot. But the worst part was that the fall tore a massive hole in the knee of the only pair of pants that I packed for outreaLch. I sat on the sidewalk for a while while I gathered myself and tried not to cry or curse. Then I looked at my left knee and realized that blood was now gushing out of my wound onto my only pair of pants. I ran inside so fast that I felt no pain and I ripped my pants off as fast as I could and tried to get as little blood on them as possible. Then I sat in my undies and tended to my wounds.
I don't think that I have ever had a skinned knee as bad as this one. There are huge gashes in it that are really deep. I basically have holes in my knee now. Awesome. And a twisted ankle. My ankle was legitimately sprained badly. I have sprained my ankle many times in the past and I knew instantly that my ankle would be the size of a softball in no time. So I iced and elevated. And I elevated it for 4 hours as we drove from Auckland to Paihia. And today, it is a miracle, my ankle is a bit purple, but not swollen or sore. Praise Jesus.
We are camping in tents in a campground near Paihia in the very North of the North island. It is in-tents! (get it? Intense! Haha I'm so punny). We are working with an organization called Operation Jerusalem. During the New Years week, it is a tradition for the youth of NZ to go camping and get drunk and party - similar to May long weekend in Canada. And since we are in the Southern hemisphere it is beautiful and hot out over this week. So, with Operation Jerusalem, we are supposed to be a sort of calm in the madness of partying. We are doing lots of prayer and worship, and ministering to the campers. Mostly just loving on them and talking with them. But also putting on activities and feeding them sausages and hot drinks.
Campers started to arrive today and pitch their tents. So we had lots of time to prepare mentally. It is kind of culture shock coming here from Fiji. In Fiji women dress very modestly. The young women camping here are not so modest. Apparently high wasted shorts that show most of your butt cheeks are in style. As well as a general lack of clothing. It is sort of a shock to say the least. I feel like a granny wearing my fingertip length shorts and modest tops.
We went swimming in the river that is running by the camp ground this afternoon. I wore my very stylish navy blue one-peice speedo bathing suit with modest shorts. I felt extremely overdressed. It was awkward. I felt like everyone was staring at me thinking "What the heck is this weirdo grandma lady doing here?"
The river was cold. It is weird feeling cold after a month of always feeling TOO hot. But it was nice. The current was strong and there were lots of rocks. We discovered that the most efficient and safe way for 'swimming' against the current was to do the 'golem'. The rocks made the water only about a foot deep. But the rocks were all slimey, so it was scarey to walk. So we did the golem. Perfect for being in Middle Earth.
As soon as the tents were pitched, the party was a boppin' up in here. There was really loud music coming from at least 3 directions and people were getting roudy. Tonight was the first of 5 nights of partying. After dinner we started to walk around and talk to people and invite them over for sausages later. Me and Jacob went around together and we met so many cool kids! And I have found that there is an abundance of gingers in NZ. I love ginges. I think I will marry a ginge. Maybe even a kiwi ginge, since there is such a large selection here.
A lot of the kids we met in our walk-around came over to our tent area later this evening and we had some amazing convos. I have already met so many new friends and I am excited to get to know them better and to meet more people! It really helps that I have a Canadian accent because Kiwi's love to listen to Canadian accents! I am so excited for what the rest of the week has in store! I think it will be awesome and I thank God so much for this opportunity. I think big things in the kingdom of God are going to happen here this week.
There was one interesting event that happened this afternoon. Jacob and I went into a little camp site area to let people know about the sausages and DJ and such things that were happening later. And this one guy started getting really mad at us and saying "Get out of here you Christians! Stop preaching to me!" and really just cursing at us. We were surprised because we haddent said anything about Jesus or our religious beliefs. All of his friends were telling him to stop being rude and stuff. I asked how he knew we were Christians, and he told me that I have a 'Jesus voice'. Interesting. Since he told me to leave, I did the opposite and sat down beside him. He acted repulsed by me and HE left. I think he has some sort of demonic thing going on. I have never seen anything like that before. Weird. I will be praying for him this week.
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