Hey turkeys

ah canada sure sounds nice right now. chilly here at night but the days are nice. tonights my last night in a warm bed before ill be sleeping in my car while traveling. me and naomi are trying to travel cheap so we made sure to be the last ones at school so we could collect all the leftover food. suprising what people leave. canned apricots (which are delicious), much penut butter, some pesto sauce, 2 onions, and mushroom soup in these strange zip lock bags. sounds like we'll be eating well. i also took my last shower for a while tonight. on sunday we will find a church that we have never been to. we'll walk in just as we are. possibly looking like we have been living in a car. nay's hair dreads very quickly so that always adds to the homeless look. probably sit in the back and see how people perseve us. good way to see where peoples hearts are. I hope everyone else is wearing their sunday bests. smelling of sweet roses and vanilla. after that ill go to a farm in tauraranga, a very nice part of new zealand.. its a dairy farm and kiwi orchard. they milk three times a day, 5am, 11 am and 5 pm i think. i got to see it last weekend and had my first kiwi fruit fight. when thrown hard they hurt even when rotten. i love waking up on a farm. I sit on the window sill and there are cows everywhere. My friend taught me which are "good looking cows" and the not so good lookers. Im not very good at deciding yet. beyond the cows are pretty hills, perfect padocks. its just lovely. So yup, when Im there I will work maybe 4 ish days a week and on days off i have plenty to do. I got a hold of these amazing work books. I met these missionaries that got too old to serve in ethiopia so now they create these bible studies and send them to third world countries as well as prisions or anyone else who may want them. there is a work book for each book of the bible but I only got 17 or something.. Im kind of tired about talking about my "feelings" from capernwray so what I love about the work books is that it helps to gain bible knowledge. the answers are in the bible passages. I learn well from writing things out so im really excited to work on them. hmm what else do i have planned..
-keep learning guitar
-photography
-find an old folks home
-bicycle
-make dinner for farm friend
-read . did you know a majority of our spiritual growth comes from reading? id throw out a percent but it sounds too high to belive. did you know that 80% of statistics are made up.

and then I come home. whoa. weird hey. I dropped off a good friend calvin at the airport last week and it was tough. we had all done our goodbyes and then suddenly saw them again. i yelled a finial goodbye across the airport. it was much louder then anticipated but I did not care. so sad. I hate goodbyes. we need more hellos. it will be very hard for me to leave this place. im not sure if NZ is done with me yet. Its so weird cuz i never cried when I said goodbye to the capernwray students. I tried to as I stood their being the only one with dry eyes but I knew a forced cry would be too fake to believe. it would just be pouty sounds. But i defintaly choked up saying goodbye to the church people that Ive grown so close to. ahhh. I dont even like typing about it. Funny how I thought God was putting me in New Zea to grow at capernwray but then drew me towards a completly different area. God is limitless.

Hey Im tired and I got to close this. i know its usually longer but ill have plently of time to write next week. below is my Grad speech if you care to know a little how Ive been challenged here at school.
GRADUATION

Upon going home we, the students are all going to be bombarded with a repetitive question, "how was capernwray?" The simple answere: it was "good." maybe even, "it was very good." For myself I am going to try to aviod that response. Saying "good" gives a false impliacation that capernwray was mediocre. An experience that changed my life cannot be described in this way. If i were to explain to someone every way that capernwray built my relationship with Christ the person would be sorry they had asked because Christmas would have come. Its not possible for someone to fully understand the capernwray experience which is what makes the bond between us students so special. We have all had difference experiences while living in the same environment together for many months. however we have also had some similar ones. We wake up to each others bed heads, we know who to talk to in the morning and who not to, who likes smooth penut butter, who likes chunky,, we can tell the time by a loud bell that rings continually throughout the day. and we all know Ruths, "im about to scold you face". We are truly a close body of students that are flying our seperate ways tomorrow to tell others what has happened in this incredible place. So although it will be impossible to summarize the extent of what capernwrays done in my life I hope to be able to give a glimpse by a longer explanation then "good"

If I could use a bit of an analogy. My life use to be sort of like a TV dinner. The meat is my job and university studies the area of my life where I spend much time. The potatoes are my family and friends, also very important.. The vegitable section is my spiritual life, my prayer time, spending time with God. They were all seperate. Capernwray has helped me to have a better understanding of how life should be: a casserole. God does not come to me in sections like a TV dinner but rather is intimatly involved in all areas of my life, the meat, the potatoes and vegitables and therefore I should involve him in all areas. A life of worship is worship when I dont feel like it, when im in a traffic jam, when the capernwray morning bell is the last thing I want to here.
It was here that I have learnt to become more of aware of God in my daily life. Amidst the secular world that sometimes seems to crumble around me God is teaching me to also see that the world is also saturated with Him. His footprints are everywhere. For example just the other day I saw a child being tickled and the realization came to me that there is nothing that could explain how a tickle spot in a child came about other then our great creator. Our tastebuds are just another example of an intricate detail God has blessed us with so we can enjoy our earthly life a little more. He is worthy of so much more then we could ever praise. Capernwray has given me a confidence in Christ. The other day, Nat, a student here, asked me what I will physically become when I die. "dirt, i responded." He agreed and said, "but If your not walking in christ everyday your walking dirt." i was a little taken back at his bluntness and perhaps still am. But the reality is true, without him I am only physically exisiting, bearing no fruit, no substance. My identity is in Christ and anything good in my life is a prodiuct of him.

These are just a few ways I have grown during my time here in New Zealand. There are people in this room that have committed much time to young peoples lives like myself. Im not sure they realize how much effect they really have on us. they do not work here for the credit and they certainly do not work here for the money. saying thaknyou does not begin to express our gratitute for your time pouring into our lives. None of the staff are just in it for the job or they wouldnt be here. They keep us in line by shining a massive flashlight on us if we break curfuew, they tolerate very loud meal times but most importantly they are our mentors and friends. We wake up each morning and know Christ a little better because of the example that they set for us and the discipleship they give us. Could all the staff members and discipleship leaders stand up. On behave of all the students we say thankyou, we are leaving here better followers of christ.