New Zealand Summary

It's been awhile hey. I got back from New Zealand yesterday
morning and I've been kind of recovering ever since.

It was an amazing trip. I'd rather not spend forever typing at
what all happened. So I'll just mention a few of the highlights,
and then paste my two journal entries from the trip.

First I just want to say how much I've grown to admire both
Derrick and Shannon as friends. They're really fun people to
be with. I feel like we all bonded quite a bit and now I feel very
sad to be apart from them. Especially knowing I'll be leaving
Friday for home.

Derrick is such a talker. He can strike up a conversation with
anybody. Several times he was able to buy stuff for cheaper
then the listed price just by negotiating with them a bit. It's so
funny because we would all have a good laugh about what he
had gotten away with. At the black water rafting place their
t-shirts were $35 each, and eventually, by getting a bunch of
other strangers to buy shirts with us we were able to get them
for $10 cheaper. It was so funny. Derrick's a great guy.

We got back into Wellington on Friday night which is where we
were to fly out. We had to check our car in by midnight and our
flight was Saturday morning at 6:40. For some reason the airport
isn't open 24 hours a day. They close at 1:30 am and open again
at 4 am. So we had a two and a half hour period where we had
nowhere to stay. It wouldn't have been worth it to take a cab into
the city with all of our luggage and spend the night at a hostel
just to be back at the airport early in the morning. So we borrowed
a couple of those luggage carts and took it off the airport property
for two and half hours. We just went to this gas station and hung
out there. The guy behind the counter was as nice as could be. He
said this type of thing happens at least once a week. We tried to
sleep some on the stools and even some on the floor next to the
drinks in the back. It was quite the experience. Basically we got
next to no sleep that night. But man it's a great memory.

The other thing I wanted to mention was what happened early that
Friday night. We went to the mall to eat and kill some time. After
we ate we had what I thought was the most meaningful conversation
we had had on the trip. Shannon told us her impression of each of
us guys and what stuck out to her about each of us. It was all light
hearted of course, but it was interesting to hear. Then we each told
her something that surprised us or that struck us about her on this
trip. I said that I was surprised at how comfortable and easy it was
for her to converse with three guys for a week.

Anyway, after talking for a very long time Derrick got up to get some
coffee or something and he came back with a guy and two girls
following him. They were Christians who Derrick just happened to
start chit chatting with. They were going to do some type of food
service to the poor that night. So anyway they came over to us all
still sitting at a table in the food court. We all starting talking
straight
away, getting to know each other. It was so amazing how fast we all
seemed to connect. We talked for probably a couple hours about
what we were all doing in life. It was so fun. It's like we were all
instantaneously friends. One of the chicks was pretty cute too. It was
a great experience that God put together for us. I think it must have
been a way in which God wanted us all to be encouraged as we
saw other Christians going through the same life on a different side
of the world. I praise God for that and every other good experience
on the New Zealand trip.

Here are the journal entries. They're not too detailed as I didn't feel
like writing much on the trip.

November 16, 2004

I'm on the 4th day of my NZ trip. I'm having a fantastic time. On Friday
Shannon and I flew into Wellington which is on the southern tip of the
north island of New Zealand. Everything went pretty much as
planned for us. However Derrick had some complications getting
onto the flight. For some reason, because he was originally from
Kenya he had to get a Visa into NZ whereas the rest of us didn't have
to. After much stress he finally was able to get what he needed and
get on the flight at about the same time as us.

We hired a sweet Nissan Maxima at the airport. We were supposed
to get a smaller car for what we payed but I guess the guy at the car
hire place liked us so we got a good deal.

Friday and Saturday night we stayed with Derrick's friend Abby in
Napier.

She and her boyfriend showed us around all day Saturday. Fraser,
Abby's boyfriend was so nice to sacrifice his Saturday and show us
around. He even got up before the sun to take us to the point where
we could be the first in the world to see the sun on Sunday the
4th of November 2004. It was pretty cool to do that. This land is
absolutely amazing. The lush green color is amazing. I can totally
see how the Lord of the Rings could be filmed here. The hills are
as green as golf courses and there's so many of them.

By the way, on our trip was Darren, Derrick, Shannon and I. To tell
you the truth I wasn't terribly excited about that group of poeple.
But it's turned out to be wonderful. They really know how to have a
good time and i've really come to respect Shannon and Derrick a
lot more than I did.

November 18, 2004

Yesterday we all took a day trip up to the Bay of Islands. It's a
choice place (as the Kiwi's would say). It was so amazingly beautiful.
Have you ever seen Jurasic park? Man I swear, that place looks
exactly like that movie. They're big, green, mountainous islands. We
all took heaps of pictures. You just can't stop, every place is so
picturesque. We took a boat tour of the islands. And we were
supposed to go kyaking and snorkling. But I guess the tour ran out
of time. It started to get really choppy out there and I was getting
really close to throwing up. But God was good to me and I was able
to hang on to my lunch.

On the 3 hour drive up there we stopped several times as we saw
places to take pictures along the side of the road. Those times were
so fun. It was so spontaneous and we got some choice pictures. I
feel like we've all bonded quite a bit. You might think there would
be some tension between Shannon and the guys because of the
maintenance a girl normally requires. But Shannon is totally not like
other girls in that way. She's grown up with boys and so she gets a
long and understands them probably a lot more than most girls.
She even gets in on the guy joking that goes on.