About four months ago, before I moved back to Tauranga, I asked God what he was wanting to teach me about in this next season. A key thing He said was vulnerability. Honestly, I didn’t really know what vulnerability even was and seeing it as a good thing was weird to me. The […]
My last year and a half has been full of digestive issues, different diets, trial and error, medications, doctors, confusion, and financial struggle—not to mention vocal issues, and not being able to sing. At some points it felt like I was a slave to my health problems. But throughout it all, somehow I hung onto
A taxi, a bus, a van, and two more buses—in one day we made it to the start of our two-week trek in the Himalayas. Our team of ten hiked to three villages, about 65 miles total. We visited churches and brought teachings to equip the believers, as a lot are considered nominal Christians—and
I was twenty-one when I graduated from university. I had a great job opportunity at a dream spot. Not to mention, I needed to start paying back my student loan, too. Inconveniently, God started reminding me of another dream, the plan I’d dismissed somewhere in the middle of my teaching degree. I wanted to do a
5 Reasons to do DTS if You Graduated from College Read More »
A year and a half ago, I had just walked through a season feeling like the Lord was silent—deafeningly silent, all when I felt I needed Him most. I needed Him as an advocate, as a friend, and as a leader. Instead, I found myself weeping before the Lord for hours a day with what felt
(2019) I am currently in my Leaders Internship course with nine others, supported by an awesome team—all in the beautiful nation of Aotearoa (the Māori word for New Zealand)! The goal of these three months is to develop and understand our strengths for leadership, to learn what it means to be rooted in our identity
“You wouldn’t call a passion fruit just a ‘passion’, would you?” I’ve always known that green, fuzzy snack was a “kiwifruit”, not a kiwi—my brothers made sure of it. We all grew up in the USA, but our parents are originally from New Zealand. So when I moved to New Zealand as an eighteen-year-old to
Why a Kiwifruit is Not a Kiwi | Tips on New Zealand Culture Read More »
You’ve booked your flights, watched every movie ever filmed in New Zealand, and you can’t wait to arrive. But what language do they speak? Okay, okay, you have done your research—they speak English and some speak Te Reo Māori. Maybe you even know “Kiwi” refers to New Zealanders and the national bird—NOT the fruit
An American’s Guide to Kiwi English | Tips on New Zealand Culture Read More »
One thing you might not always remember about yourself—is that YOU have a culture. The way you dress, what you like to eat, how you talk, even how you sleep is part of your culture! It’s part of the way you grew up. It formed when you hung out with your friends, or when you did
It was a normal Thursday in Papua New Guinea. We woke up sweating and didn’t stop until the sun was below the horizon. There were island-wide power cuts from 6am to 6pm, which meant no refrigeration, no fresh foods, and no fans (a.k.a. no relief from the heat). Regardless, our Discipleship Training School (DTS) team