Heading to Windy Welly

We may have been able to celebrate the 4th of July before all of you due to the time change, but it is just not like being in the US. No fireworks, no bands, and…it’s cold and rainy. However, we have had some great experiences these past few days. Our team has been getting training in how to share the Gospel and their testimony and yesterday we put that into practice. We went out into the town of Matamata (also known as “Hobbiton” because it is where the Shire scenes from the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed) and talked to residents about a relationship with Christ. There were a lot of great conversations! My partner and I (we went out in pairs) were able to talk to a couple, John and Caroline, where the husband had just accepted Christ 18 months ago and walked them through the Four Laws because they wanted to share the Gospel with Caroline’s mother but didn’t know an easy way. We were able to pray with them and give them a Jesus Film DVD as well. One of our

students, Ronnie Vales, got to see someone start a relationship with Christ! In all, there were 180 people that we talked to and 6 people received Christ as their Savior and we are passing their information on to a local church for follow up. Each person on our team was able to have some great conversations to encourage people to take a step towards Christ.

It has been really great for our team as we have been able to hang out with so many Kiwi students and our team has already made quite a few friends. One of our team was able to be a part of the Maori (New Zealand’s indigenous peoples) traditional dance called the Haka, it is very rare that an American is invited to be a part of it. [see picture] We have met people from New Zealand, China, Taiwan, Tonga, Fiji and Scotland and we have only been in one place! It is very apparent that New Zealand is such a strategic place to reach the world with the Gospel without going to each place. One of our conference speakers, Justin O’Malley, told a story of a guy named Aaron that was a student studying in New Zealand from China. Aaron accepted Christ a few months ago and already wants to reach China with the Gospel, ALL of China. I am not sure that he knows that China is about 1.8 billion people, but that is his goal. It is crazy to see what God can do with a few people who are excited about serving Him.

We are getting ready to head to Wellington in the morning at 4:30am (12:30pm EST -which is just a few hours from now). We are taking a bus to Auckland and then flying to Wellington. It is backtracking a little bit, but our motto for the summer is “Flexibility is our friend, expectation is our enemy” and we are getting plenty of opportunities to put it into practice. We are getting in to Wellington around 10am, and then we’ll get to our hostel and get the chance to tour around the city for the first time. It will be a bit colder for us and a definite shift from the countryside, but our team is very excited to get onto campus!

Dave