Day 202: Employed once more!

Today I started a new job: working as a liftie (lift operator) at Mt. Hutt skifield.  Mt. Hutt is about 1 and a half hours southwest from Christchurch.  The nearest town to the skifield is called Methven.  Methven is a really cute little town, but there isn't really a whole lot happening when the mountain is closed.  Anyway, I showed up for work today, got issued some really nice outdoor gear (the nicest I've ever gotten to use!) for my uniform, and went up the mountain to fill out forms and start to learn how to run lifts.  I subbed in for another liftie at the top of the Magic Carpet (beginners') lift, and it was pretty funny to watch people fall at the end and collide with one another (safely, of course.)  Then in the afternoon I worked on the detachable six-man lift and started learning how that works.  It was pretty fun, everyone was helpful and nice, and I enjoyed myself.  I think it's going to be a good job.  Now I just need to get my hands on some ski gear or a snowboard and I can start improving my skills!

I'll probably be working at Mt. Hutt until the end of the season (which is mid-Oct or so.)  The only drawback to this job will be that I won't get to go to church (my days off are Mondays and Tuesdays) and I won't get to see my Christchurch friends as much since I won't be living there anymore.  But I'm really grateful to have a source of income after such a long period of unemployment.  I need to save up my money as much as I can for when Mom and Betty come to visit!

Day 201: Astonishing!

Last night I learned something about New Zealand that I previously had not known: Kiwi police officers carry no guns!  This is somewhat shocking to me, and it took me a while to get over it.  At first I couldn't understand how the police could have any authority without weapons.  Apparently it is somewhat of a matter of pride amongst Kiwis that their police don't need to have guns (it is a relatively safe country).  But that said, there are murders here, and robberies, and violence happening.  It must make it a bit scary to know that as a cop you have no means of defending yourself against a criminal armed with a gun.  How much more sacrificial might that make your job?

I suppose you could look at it that police not having guns makes criminals less likely to carry them themselves.  I don't know if this is true; it would make an interesting study.  But what if no guns for police means more criminal will carry guns because they know it gives them the upper hand?  Is it possible that armed police officers in the states makes our criminals that much more violent? 

I wonder where on the page of history America took a course that established the right to bear arms as a fundamental right (maybe this started in the wild west, conquering of the frontier days) and where New Zealand decided on an opposite legislative course of action?  Apparently it's much more difficult here than it is at home to obtain a hand gun; hunting rifles are not that hard to get, but hand guns, which are more easily concealed, require special permits.  Interesting to think about...

Day 191: Six Months!

I have now been in New Zealand for six months, which means that my visit here is half over, and that I have another six months to go before my flight home.  The knowledge that my time is half over is somewhat bittersweet.  I have really been enjoying my time here, mostly because of the amazing people that I have met and gotten to spend time with, and also because of the beautiful and interesting places that I have dreamed about and actually gotten to go to, which previously were summed up as just words or pictures in a book.  Most of the time I have been quite happy and content and grateful to be here.  I am being challenged in my life, and my faith and in who I am, in good ways.  I'm trying to learn to rely on God and I've had plenty of time to consider what I believe and think about things which is one of my favorite thing to do.  I really appreciate everybody from home who has been in contact with me and encouraged me when I was down, or shared good times with me from afar.  And I also need to say a big thank you to people that I have met here who have helped me out, remembered and included me, hung out with me, had good conversation with me, encouraged me, supported me, housed me, fed me, and even clothed me.  I am amazed at how easy they have made it to feel like I belong in the body of Christ even when that body is not located in a place that I would normally belong.  So, thank you to everyone for sharing in my New Zealand odyssey so far.  Here's to more adventures to come! 

Days 175 - 179: Girls Winter Camp at Waihola

Jenna and I are in Waihola, at the Waihola Christian Youth Camp to volunteer for a week.  It is pretty fun being the only American there, and I teach the campers lots of songs that I know from NECC, like "Just Plant A Watermelon Right on My Grave," "The Johnny Appleseed Grace," "Swimming, Swimming," and "The Sea of Galilee."  The girls that are there range in age between 8 and 13.  I am working with the oldest girls, between about 11 and 13.  The schedule for the day looked a bit like this:

7:50 Leaders meeting and devotions
8:15 Devotions with campers
8:30 Breakfast
9:15 Duties (these are chores that the campers have to do, like setting up the tables for meals, sweeping the floors, washing campers' and cooks' dishes, cleaning the toilets and peeling vegetables for dinner.)
9:45 Morning Tea
10:00 Speaker (our speaker was a lovely woman named Ann, who talked during the week about seeing Jesus face to face.)
11:00 Activities (the campers rotated through activities which were Archery and Air Rifles, Go-Karts, Flying Fox (zipline), and Horses.)




1:00 Lunch
1:45 Duties
2:15 Afternoon Tea
2:30 Camp Store!!!  Get all  your lollies here!
3:00 Afternoon Activities (the theme of the camp was The Amazing Race, and the campers could earn points for their teams through challenges that they participated in.  These were things like building a sledge for the mudslide, a challenge walk around Waihola (with a quiz about the things you were seeing), and a Cluedo game where they did challenges for staff and could see part of the answer they were looking for after every completed challenge.)

6:00 Tea
6:45 Duties
7:30 Group games
8:30 Everyone goes and puts their pajamas on and comes back for supper (snack)
9:00 Move (we watched "The Ultimate Gift" in installments, about 30 minutes each night.  This was my favorite part of the day.)
9:30ish Bed

So there are a lot of things in there that seem very familiar to me from other camps that I've worked at, and I got asked again and again "how is this camp different to camps in America?"  which is a really hard question to answer.  Because there are a lot of the same elements (only I don't think we eat quite so often maybe?) but they are just done in slightly different ways and have a slightly different feel.  At this camp the kids have more unsupervised free time, I'd say, and are less tied down to the schedule always running on time, but then, it is much smaller (with only about 30 campers) so it doesn't matter so much since every group is following the same schedule anyway.

At camps here, adults are referred to as Aunties or Uncles, so for the week I was Aunty Rachel, or, often, Aunty Rachel from America.  Despite the fact that I caught a cold and felt sort of out of it for a couple of days, I really had a good time, enjoyed meeting the awesome other leaders and the great kids, and enjoyed being a part of camp in New Zealand.

Day 174: Queenstown

Jenna and I leave Cromwell and head off to Queenstown.  It's very beautiful there, with a river running a thin channel between steep mountains on either side.  It's also really cold!  We bundle up and go for a walk in the park, where we find the ice skating rink and laugh at people who have hired Segways and are cruising around.

Next we drive over to the gondola.  Queenstown's gondola is very steep and fairly long - also a bit pricey at $23 for a round trip.  Apparently you can ride it one way (down only) and hike up if you want.  To save ourselves $11, this is what we do.

Although it is cold, we both get nicely warmed up on the 40 minute or so hike to the top of the gondola line.  Since we have been thrifty and saved our money to get up to the top, we decide to ride the luge, which is a concrete course with small carts with wheels.  We ride a chairlift (with the coolest ever automatic integrated return for the luges themselves worked in) up to the ticket office and buy a ticket, then we're off!

(the above photo is actually a photo of the photo they took of us riding the chair lift.  Quite a nice view, tho, huh?)

Here's Jenna (and miniwati) on the luge.

And then here's us on taking the gondola down and some pretty pictures of Queenstown scenery.  Ah, Queenstown!

Day 173: Cromwell

I have tagged along with Rob & Jenna to a wedding that they are attending in Cromwell, which is south of Christchurch, and sort of in the middle of the South Island.  While they go to the wedding, I wander Cromwell.  There is not heaps to see.  But here is some of what I did see.
 

When we pull into town the first thing we come upon is a sculpture of giant fruit.  So of course I needed a photo of that.  Apparently much of original historic Cromwell was destroyed when the river was dammed to create lake Dunstan.  So next it was off to visit the historic town (they salvaged some of the buildings by moving them to a dry spot before the river was dammed.)

In the historic section of town, which is closed to traffic and only open to pedestrians, are about 2 streets worth of old building, most of which have been turned into cafes or art galleries (hence the metal roses and the felted hats - Mom, I thought you might like those.)  I wandered around there for a while, then headed to the lookout, to get a glimpse of the lake and the old location of the heart of the town.

This photo is looking out over Lake Dunstan.  Cromwell's original main street is now underwater here.  The town is surrounded by these barren looking mountains, brown and sort of bare looking all the time.  There are some higher mountains, with snow, that can be seen farther off in the distance.

After our chilly excursion around Cromwell, Miniwati and I enjoy some tea back at the house where we are staying.





The perfect ending to a lovely day.