I would have thought that after spending 4 months in New Zealand I would have caught on to all of the weird slang. I was wrong. The other day, a Kiwi was like "I'm gonna go spend the night at my parent's dry batch." I was like "What?" The only batch I know is a batch of cookies. And he tried to explain that he was going to this batch because it was dry. I was like... "Ok..." I had no clue. But apparently a 'batch' is a summer home or a cabin thingy. Weird. Who thought of that?
Then last night I was talking with these guys about snowboarding, and they told me about an indoor hill in Aukland. They said that all the 'Loose Bros' hang out there. Hmmm. In Canada 'Loose' implies flooziness. But apparently loose bros are just really intense or hard-core. Sweet. Love it. I'm gonna go to Aukland and hang with the loose bros.
Also, either I have been out of the real world for so long that I am behind in the current trends, or else Kiwi's have really weird fashion sense. There is a guy here with a mushroom cut. A MUSHROOM CUT?!?! I have legitimately not seen a mushroom cut since the nineties. Nick Carter apparently is making a comeback. And apparently frosted tips are back too? Really? The nineties? C'mon.
The past two nights have been super awesome! Even more kids came by on the 30th and then on the 31st! And we have been having some regulars come and hang out for a lot of the day. We have come to love them. Well, we actually loved them the whole time, but now we are attached to them. They just come and chill with us for the majority of the day. It's awesome. They say that they like coming over to our place because it is a safe place and the people are chill to hang out with. Awesome. That's the whole point of this.
On the 30th, I met some lovely boys that were very drunk. I took care of them for the majority of the night and fed them bread and water. They loved when I said "Drink some water" because Canadians say WA-TERRRR and Kiwis say WA-TAH. So it was amuzing for them to listen to me tell them to hydrate. They were cute and hung around a long time.
Oli brought a bunch of his friends over in the afternoon too and they became our besties. I served them Milo all day/night long. I have become the best Canadian Milo maker that ever lived. Probably because no Canadians have ever made Milo before. Milo is kind of like hot chocolate, but it is less sweet. You put in a couple scoops of Milo, some sugar, some milk, and hot water. It is the best. All of the Kiwi's love the Milo that I make. Maybe it is because they are drunk and can't actually taste the milo, but I choose to believe that it is because I am so good at making it.
We keep on getting sicker and sicker. I feel like poop this morning. Too many late nights. My throat is quite sore and I sound like a man. It is unfortunate. But we just have one night to go! And I made quite the amazing discovery! There are warm showers! I was looking on the wrong side of the bathroom before! So yesterday I had a warm shower. It was glorious. Praise Jesus for hot water that falls on your head.
Every morning we get up and pick up cans and bottles and garbage from around the camp site to help people out. I met some good buddies down by the river. Most people just watch you pick up their trash as you wander by their tents and such, which is fine because it is my job to do it. But these guys, they refused to let me pick up their rubbish! They took my trash bag and picked it up for me. And then they did it again the next day! I love them. So today I went straight down to their tent and they were all still asleep, so I picked up all of their trash and hung their wet clothes that were all over the ground on the line and gathered their belongings into a neat row. Just because they are awesome.
Every evening, before the loud music commences, we have a little worship session in the markie where the dancing usually is. Yesterday (New Years Eve), we were worshipping and a bunch of the kids that have been hanging out with us came by and joined and then a bunch of random drunk passerbys came too. It was so amazing. Maybe they thought they were being funny and making a joke, but it was so cool! Because the dark spirits of alcoholism and perversion and lust and all of these things have such a hold over these kids, and words have power. They were singing the words to the songs (there were handouts with words on them), and when they declared Jesus' Lordship and Glory, whether they knew what they were saying or not, the demons were terrified. Because Jesus has won against them already, and they have to flee from Jesus and carriers of Jesus Christ. There was a prophet guy there with us for the night and he said that he saw angels decend over us as we were worshipping. It was actually so powerful seeing all of those drunks worshipping. We got out a jimbay too and they were just drumming away to their hearts content. Thank you God. And then a few of those guys stayed and asked us questions and came back repeatedly throughout the night. Awesome.
One girl came right over to me after worship. She didn't even introduce herself or anything. She just launched right in to a bunch of questions about Christianity in todays world. She is a Christian and always has been. But the influence of her friends and of the world has brought her into parties and such things. She knows that its wrong and doesn't like it, but doesn't really know what to do. I got to really encourage her and let her know that she is loved no matter what and that God does not judge her, he still loves her the same, he just is sad seeing her struggle. We chatted for quite a long time and it was really awesome and I got to pray for her! It was really awesome and we are going to stay in contact by emails and such! So cool.
Last night there were actually so many girls that were curious about me and my faith. I got to talk to close to 6 I think. And it was so cool because they are so open and curious. When I spoke their eyes were wide and glued to me and they were hanging off of every word. It was so cool. The theme of the night was really just the message of Jesus' love. They are all so used to condemnation by christians for drinking or sex or drugs or whatever it may be. And I was so glad to encourage them and just share about my life and my experiences and show them how imperfectly perfect I am. They can relate to me because I used to party like them. It was just so cool.
There was one guy that I got into a deep convo about christianity with right over midnight. So I spent the new year preaching the message that Jesus preached. I was telling the guy about the difference between religion and christianity. And that people have made christianity into a religion with a bunch of rules and guidlines that are hard to follow and no one can live up to. People in church often aren't completely honest about their struggles, and everyone acts all perfect when in reality no one is perfect. It's not possible not to sin. The only person that has never sinned is Jesus. I told this guy that the main message that Jesus preached was to love God, love one another and tell the world about God. And that the way to do that is not by scaring people by threatening hell over them. It is to simply lead by example and they'll come running. And we saw it so clearly this week. These people can see something different about us, and they always come up and ask about it. We don't even have to lead them to the subject of Jesus, they want to hear it and ask about it.
Anyways, this guy was so encouraging. He was so into it and he said "Man, if every christian was like you, then christianity would actually be cool." I told him that's because all I am doing is sharing what Jesus' message was - Love. His mind was blown. And the clock struck 12 and he just waved it off and wanted to keep talking. Awesome.
There were so many other convo's along the same lines. So many seeds have been planted this week for the kingdom of God and it is so exciting.
The prophet guy that came last night is this super cool old dude. He just walked up to me and said "You're not a church person, are you?" Those were the first words he ever said to me, and I hadn't said anything to him. I was like, "No, I'm not actually." And he said "Yes, you are a rare type of person, you are a kingdom person and you can see God's kingdom everywhere and understand that every person in the world was created for God's kingdom. The Church and the world will try to change you but never change." Cool. I feel like the kingdom and not the church has been a major theme of this week for me in all of the conversations that I have had with people. He also explained that I really understand the kingdom and that I am able to communicate it and explain it to people to teach them. Crazy! That's what I've been doing all week, and especially last night. Awesome Possum.
We saw a major clash of kingdoms outside of our campsite last night. There were 5 fights right beside our camp and every single one of them ended up on top of our tents and they got torn and broken. It is because the kingdom of sin is threatened by our presence here.
Anyways, I am excited for one more night of this! And I am so thankful that the sun is out and our tent only got flooded once. Yesssssss.
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