Hey guys,

Time for my daily blog post, eh?

I’m doin’ pretty well here. Outreach is coming up in a few weeks, and we’re starting to direct our attention towards it in prayer/meetings etc.. I’ve been a little apprehensive about the whole ordeal, and haven’t really been sure whether or not God has been wanting me to go. My “one-on-one,” Tom, told me he was having his quiet time this morning and felt strongly that God was telling him he wants me there. I think that was the confirmation I’ve been praying for. I’m still praying about it though, because there are still a few things I’m on still on the fence about. God’s working them out though. This past week has been my best week here so far, spiritually. I’ve been learning how to rely more on faith than feelings in my walk with God, and I’m finding that it’s a much more rewarding approach. I still feel like I’m on a rollercoaster with it though. 

This past week’s speaker, Brent Chambers, spoke on worship and prophecy the whole week. It was cool having him because he was constantly prophesying over people, and was very in tune with the Holy Spirit. On friday he spent the whole lecture time prophesying over each person in the class. When it was my turn the first thing he said was, “this is serious. And I don’t think I’ve ever used the word serious in any of my prophecies before.” He said that he saw a vision of God digging a hole, a really deep hole, and that hole was the foundation for a large structure, which was why the hole had to be so deep. He said that God hasn’t been rushing with things, but has been taking his time to make sure that everything was done thoroughly. he saw that I was on the first floor now, and all the work trucks were surrounding the site, waiting for God to give them their “work permits.” He touched on a bunch of other little things too, and said that he wouldn’t be surprised to see really big things out of me, but it was completely dependant on how much I leaned back into God. Oh, and he said that God doesn’t want me to be a lawyer or doctor or anything. Which I guess meant that He doesn’t want me to be into my career for the money, which could be confirmation for my call being in music. I’ve been praying a lot about going to the music school at MorningStar in the fall, and still haven’t really felt anything one way or the other, but that could be the beginning of an answer.

Hmm.. I don’t really know what else.. I’m sorry I haven’t been updating you guys. I’m finding that I’m not really the blogging type, and on the rare occasion that time permits me to even start a post, my mind goes blank and I can’t think of anything to say. It also hasn’t been ultra-eventful around here. We basically eat, get lectured, drink, more lectures, sleep, lecture. Oh, and worship thrown in there every few days. I’m somewhat disappointed with the level of focus put on actual worship, here. The students lead it, which is cool, but it’s definitely put on the backburner, which is ironic since this is primarily a worship dts. 

The guy  next week is suppossedly the most intense speaker so far. He’s speaking on the Lordship of Christ, and on the last day will be taking us through the four stations of the cross (which will apparently take 12+ hours) and he can sense anything you have in your life that isn’t right, and he’ll get in your face and, like, grab your shirt and yell at you about it… Not sure how well that’s going to go over, but I’m still excited to see what’s gonna happen. 

Alright, well I’ve been typing for too long, and dunno what else to say right now.

I miss and love you guys,

-Ben

So I’d be uploading a lot of pictures here, but since we pay by the megabyte, we can’t even turn on website pictures without paying about 2 dollars a picture. I’ve been taking a decent amount though (as much as I can, but the weather has been either foggy or rainy for a good portion of the past two weeks), and hopefully I’ll be able to bring my laptop into an internet cafe on friday when we go to town and upload them. That or find people who wanna split the cost for the hot spring’s wireless with me..

 Anyways, the biggest thing I’ve been praying about lately is whether or not to switch over to the Surfing DTS. Theres only four people in it, so anyone who wants to can do it for free. I know I came here for music, but the only real difference between the two is that instead of staying in the “GAP” (that’s where everyone hangs out and plays music during the week) on the weekends, I’d be able to go camp out on beaches, and get to actually see some of New Zealand. They would definitely both have their perks, but I feel like all my free time is spent playing music with people anyways, so recording a cd and whatnot would be kind of gimmicky. Also, two of my best friends here are in the surfing one.. But I dunno.. Like I said, I’m praying about it, and unfortunately Josh (the school leader (who also leads the music school)) won’t really tell us anything about what the music and worship part is going to entail, so I sorta want to see for myself before I make any decisions, because there’s no switching back.

Umm, other than that, the people here are all really cool. I’ve actually made a lot of friends, and met some super talented people. My friends Nick and Jessi are teaching me how to play the drums, and my roommate Jay is teaching me guitar for English lessons (he’s from South Korea).

I like it here a lot, but feel like I’m in prison sometimes. We have a decent amount of freedom, but it kind of sucks being on house arrest in such a pretty place. Jeshie, a new staffer who just got here the day before yesterday is staffing on the surfing dts, and his parents are staying here so they have a car that he said we could take out to beaches during the week on days that we don’t have anything going on at night, and either camp there or just come back by bedtime. So that’s another thing that’s making me want to switch over. I see myself getting cabin fever if I can’t at least explore a little… PLUS THEN YOU’LL GET TO SEE COOLER PICTURES!

So for the the first half of last week instead of doing lectures, we each shared our life stories, and they had to be around 15 minutes long. That was suuuuper fun… But it was a good way to get to really know people, and it bonded us all a lot quicker. The people here are all basically my age.. Actually.. I think I’m the second or third oldest guy here, which is kinda weird. There’s a lot of 18-19 year olds, and a 17 year old. And the girls are all basically 20-24.

Hmm I dunno what else.. We started work duties today, and I get to clean the “A-frame” toilets twice a day this week. (That’s the main building that we eat and have lectures in. It looks like an A, hence the name.)

….And I haven’t done that yet sooo I should probably do it now.

I love you guys.

So I’m finally getting a chance to write a new entry. Today is basically our first free day since I got here, and that’s only if you decided not to go to church. It’s been really hectic, but it’s actually pretty fun.

 So now I get to have some writers block…

Well first off, New Zealand is awesome. At first I wasn’t too sure about it when we were in Auckland because it was all just city, but once we headed out to Matamata (2 hours away) I quickly realized how wrong my initial asumption of how wrong I was about this place.. was. …If that makes any sense. It’s gorgeous here. We’ve had a LOT of rain this past week too, which has helped it get prettier, because apparently they were in a 6 month drought up until the day after I got here, and everything was golden brown. Now I feel like I’m in a rainforest.

But yeah, our days are pretty packed. Breakfast at 7:30, worship and lectures at 9 till 12:30, lunch at 12:30, lectures from 2-5:30, dinner at 5:30, then lectures from 7:30-whenever. It isn’t completely consistent every day– Wednesday and Thursday nights we have off, and I think occasionally we won’t have an afternoon session, but our first week has also been a lighter load than the rest of the DTS. Work duties, one-on-one’s, a couple other things start tomorrow.

We have a different person come in and speak each week, and our first lecturer wasn’t the most interesting guy. I think we all had trouble staying awake through his talks. He barely whispered, was incredibly repetitive, and made me feel like I was in sunday school again… Except a sp-ed version. We were warned about him, and the other speakers are supposed to be more exciting, but that’s basically the only qualm I’ve had so far.

Umm, but yeah… one of the staffers just told me that someone called for me and is calling back in ten minutes so I have to go hang out in the phone booth, which is sweet, so you can blame whoever that was for me ending this right here… (dad)

 I love you guys, and obviously miss you.

Soo.. I’m not too sure how often Ill be able to get online because apparently the internet over here is so ridiculous that you have to pay per megabyte. The internet cafes are $8 an hour! But, the school leader Josh was telling me that the hot springs “resort” has wifi that the base picks up on, and for.. 300 dollars.. for three months you can get access to it. So I might do that if I can find some people to split it with.

…I was going to write more here but the script is lagging behind a good 5 seconds per letter and it isn’t very fun…

My flight was good though- slept 75% of it, and watched Into The Wild for the last leg. (Really good movie btw, I wanna buy the book now.)

I’ll post more when I get a chance.

Love and miss you all.

So here I am; at the airport twiddling my thumbs for the next 9 hours, waiting for my flight. Ok it’s really only another 5, but the grand total will be 9, and that’s all that really matters. I don’t remember the last time I’ve felt such an odd mixture of boredom and anxiety. I feel like I’m being pulled at from two opposing forces, and unfortunately, it’s keeping me from being able to take a nap… Maybe that’s a good thing, though… So since I have nothing else to put in my first post, here’s a picture of my gate for your viewing pleasure.  I miss everyone!