Week-02 A Week Above The Clouds
The Team had an amazing second week of the programme!
This past weekend the team had the opportunity to attend Norm & Christy's local church in the Nelson area. The team really enjoyed the chance to meet with members of the community and receive encouragement from them. It was particularly uplifting to hear that many members of the church already knew our names because they have been praying for us in the time leading up to OTG. We even found out some of our names are difficult for kiwis to pronounce, but we felt the love nonetheless! We look forward to continuing to attend church with this community in the coming weeks.
On Monday, the team embarked on a three-day tramp in a national park located in the Tasman region. The landscape of this park includes towering peaks, rolling prairies and lush forest areas. The challenge we set out to complete was summiting three mountain peaks in three days. This involved several longer days on the trails and mountains, but the extra time was absolutely worth it! The team rose to the challenge and were able to complete our goal together. Our Swiss friends even had the chance to show off their prowess on the mountains (Swiss friend here: everyone else did an amazing job as well!).
Another perk of tramping during the summer is meeting lots of interesting people along the way. This week we were able to meet a family who had several kids that entertained the team with their awesome magic tricks! We also got to meet someone from a local organization that focuses on habitat preservation in New Zealand. While this was a secular organization, we connected much of what they were saying with stewarding God's creation in a responsible way. We hope to meet many more people like this on our upcoming trips!
As a team, this tramp was much more than just conquering a physical task together, it was about coming together as a collective unit and learning how to unite. We had to learn how to trust each other and lean on one another when someone needed lifting up. Moreover, our team exercised effective conflict resolution when faced with the existential question of "to climb or not to climb". We know this thought process can be applied to more than just literal mountains we will face in our lives. Overall, we will certainly look back on this particular tramp as an experience that has brought us much closer and stronger together.
One highlight for the team involved all of us sitting in the grass during sunset at the base of one of the mountains we had just climbed. The sky was painted with different shades of pink and orange and the wind quietly whistled through the grass. Our legs were tired, and our feet were aching, but the peaceful valley offered up a night where we could only worship what our God had created. We all shared a bag of cookies and sat in silence together as we watched the sun disappear over the distant mountain tops. It was a very simple moment, but one that felt like a reward for all of our hard work.
The team has now arrived back at base camp and had the chance to get some much-needed rest and dive deeper into the Word (with some yard work mixed in). Through our spiritual studies we have been able to revisit some of our foundational beliefs. It may seem simple to say, but diving deeper into the truth that Jesus was the ultimate completion of the law has given us a renewed sense of thankfulness to God. Additionally, our team has been participating in numerous discipleship training and leadership development exercises. These have been both fun and very challenging, but ultimately have allowed us to see more of the ways God has gifted us. We look forward to continuing to learn more about ourselves.
Bible study
Dinner with OM NZ Board Chair & his lovely wife
As we conclude this week we want to leave you, our loved ones, who may be reading this from every corner of the globe with a simple phrase. This is something that has both challenged our team but also offered a great deal of encouragement to us. We hope it brings you all encouragement and allows you to focus more on how great our God is.
"Don’t let what is wrong with you, or difficult in your life, stop you from worshipping what is right with God"
Please leave a comment/short note for our team!
We love you all!
Prayer Requests:
The health of each member of our team
Our team van has broken down :( please pray it gets fixed in a timely manner
That God would ordain conversations with the people we meet along our trips
Written by Colton (USA) & Jo (Switzerland) on behalf of the entire OTG Team