Church Fundraising - Phase 1

Today I put 35 envelopes into church mail slots with a letter, newsletter, prayer card and postage paid envelope. i had 2 families speak directly to me about how excited they are for me to have this opportunity! I haven't had an extremely close relationship with one of the couples, but we do have a connection through both worship and youth. They sounded a) surprised that I was still here and b) absolutely ecstatic about how God has matched up this internship perfectly.

I only met the other couple when I got back from school this past year. One of them is a youth leader with me at Axis, and his wife has been so nice to me even though we hardly know eachother. Already, they offered to ship my guitar FOR me - they said to leave it with them and let them know what the value is and they'll ship it for me so I can actually bring 2 suitcases worth of stuff down with me! How awesome is that?!

I need to work on my pride issues, though. Here I am asking people to help me go by offering financial support...and then when they offer it, I HAVE A HARD TIME ACCEPTING IT!

Yeesh...this is already harder than I thought, and I've only officially talked to two families about my fundraising in specific. I really hope it gets easier from here on out...

*Really* New Zealand

Ok. I'm ready to just take a step back, take a breather, and then get back into everything slowly. I feel like too much is going on. Calgary will be a welcome break/birthday present.

The letter from the school came, so all I have to do is figure out the rest of the questions (what they MEAN) on the Work Visa application and send 'er all away. I'll probably ask Emma to help me with the details while I'm in Calgary. Then I'll mail the application from there. And she can sign the little thing that says she was the person who helped me fill it out.

I forgot to mention 2 entries ago that my new home at 105½ Matai St. is fondly referred to as "The Outhouse". I'm pretty sure that "Outhouse" has the same meaning there as it does here. I'm pretty sure that slightly frightens me!

I'm pretty sure that I really want to make a new country consisting of only that house. How many people can say they live in their own country?!

I'll call it "Really New Zealand"...

Mid-Day Update/Ramblings

I got the letter from Karl stating that I have an official job offer to work at Lakeside Church - now I have to wait for the letter from the school stating that it's a program requirement...

And then I can go ahead and apply for my Work Visa!

It's kind of cool to have my first piece of New Zealand sitting on the dining room table!

I'm scheduled to do a fundraising presentation at my church on October 2nd. I have to figure out how to synchronize music in with my PowerPoint presentation. Hmm, that means more work. Yikes.

I'm busier than I'd like to be lately - considering I'm practically working 40 hours a week between pizza deliveries, youth ministry and ... well, more youth ministry. Funny how, without realizing it, I signed up in some way to be a part of every available youth ministry program at the church. Be it leading Sunday school, or just setting sound equipment up on a lunch hour at the Highschool. I'm afraid I might've gotten in over my head.

But I'm sure it'll work out once I'm not spending 3 hours a day cramming my head with schoolwork - I'm taking a correspondence class. I've officially (as of today) almost covered 2 months worth of information in less than a week. As of tomorrow, I should be (ideally) ready to write my midterm. HA!

Brain overload. Work overload. Not enough hours in a day. I suppose there are enough, however, if I sacrifice 3 or 4 hours worth of sleep each night...eesh.

My Eyes Are Green...

I'll admit right now - I've been an absolutely horrible fellow onSiter to Mr. Ryan Monson. Up until today, I hadn't even taken much of a glance at Ryan's blog more than enough to know that I wanted to set up my own onSite blog on this website.

So I just spent the last hour, or so, reading every entry he's written prior to and during his trip so far. Then I went and read Cindy's blog...

And I'm a little bummed: A) because they're already off on their journey and I still have to wait like 3 more months and B) I can't download that really cool Google Earth that Ryan used to "fly" to Egypt.

Stupid dial-"down" connection.

But I guess I'm just feeling kinda lonely all the way back here. I've been okay with staying here til January up until this point...

But the ball is rolling and I'm starting to prepare in ways that solidify in my mind that this is actually happening! By next week I will have packed up some boxes of books and things to send to my new place. It's hard only being able to take two pieces of luggage when one of them is most certainly going to be a guitar - I can't leave old Jennifer here without me for almost an entire year! So just to get prepared, I'm shipping down a few things that I won't need until I get there.

And "where are you sending them to?" you might ask. Well recently I've heard from one of the Pastors, John Steffens (we'll call him John, yes?) regarding my housing for the year. He and his family have donated a small detached unit on their property to me for the year. This is part of the job deal - the youth pastor has a place to live for free. It's a nice incentive for future hiring, that's for sure! It has a bathroom, bedroom and two offices (one is John's church office, and upstairs (beside my bedroom, I'm assuming) is going to be another office, which I believe is for me and his wife to both use. I'll still eat with the family and spend time in the house, but I'll also have my own space, which is quite good!

Jacquie's new home address (as of January 2006): 105 Matai St.

I might see if I can unofficially name "my" house 105⅓ Matai St...or even make up my own town on their property. Yikes, I'm SO Strongbad right now...haha

Anyways, I don't have any pictures yet, but I've heard that my new family consists of the following: John, Fiona, Vanessa (16), Mac (dog), Fegan (cat) and 15 goldfish. If the fish have names, he failed to mention them. If they don't have names - I'm sure I'll dedicate part of my life in Te Anau to making each little fishy feel special!

I haven't had a chance to ask if I'm allowed to have a pet of my own in this little place. If I can, I'm hoping to get a ferret! But now I'm just getting ahead of myself. haha...

My work visa is in process (rather, I'm in the process of receiving letters from both Karl and the school stating that this position is required for my program) and other than that, just little details need to be taken care of. Oh yeah, and the plane ticket.

Minor details...ha! At least it's feeling a little more real to me!

The Adventure Continues - Details, Details, Details...

First thing I did after finding out I had an official offer from Pastor Karl (let's just call him Karl, shall we?) was...well...celebrated! In celebration for such a joyous, happy, wonderful set of news, Kate and I went to see QUITE the appropriate movie...

Hide and Seek.........


.......................YAH! WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!?!?!?!


*ahem*
In other news - Jacquie's parents also revealed, that same evening, that they were moving before she came home. Remarkably, no one was injured. Back to you, psycho.

Thank you, Random News Reporter...
WHO, IN THEIR RIGHT MIND, GOES TO SEE A MOVIE THAT THEY VOWED NEVER TO SEE BECAUSE OF IT'S OBVIOUSLY FREAKY CONTENT?!

Anyways, that's neither here nor there...nor anywhere, really. What I'm trying to say is that after that night, I had no idea how much preparation would actually be needed to get this thing off the ground.

So for a long time, I slacked.

...what's new?

Finally I got an e-mail from Karl describing my job...uh...description! It got me both excited and intimidated. They used fancy words like "liaise" in it.

Life got busy with exams, youth conference, moving and hard goodbyes. I came home and immediately starting NOT looking for a job, due to major car problems. Which is a bad thing, considering the nearest town with any job prospects is a 12 minute drive from here! So for almost a month, my hands were tied and I was left to sit at home, miserable, lonely and jobless.

So I spent my time working on an initial fundraising effort for New Zealand - which returned fairly well, but not as well as I had hoped. It was a little discouraging, but a lesson in putting my trust in God.

Also during this time, I started praying about when I should be actually leaving for NZ - the question was whether I'd leave this summer, or in January. After prayer and weighing the pros and cons, it makes much more sense for me to stay until January - as their school year starts in February so I'd be coming in right at the beginning of the year rather than halfway through for them.

Then dad fixed the car. And we bought a little junker car for the family to make sure we had enough rides to suit 4 drivers with 4 different jobs in 4 different towns. My focus had to chance very quickly - I had to look for a job ASAP. I finally found a job to start building up my funds to pay for this awesome opportun...oh, no...wait. School debt had to come first - I had a deadline to pay for that class I took in the summer, apparently. HA!

Side note: It's always felt like this whole New Zealand thing has been on the back burner, to be honest with you. I always have something to do FIRST before I can clear a path for New Zealand. It's good for building character, but NOT good for Jacquie's already short supply of patience in such situations.

(...i mean, come on...every OTHER time i've flown to new zealand on an adventure where i have no idea what i'm getting myself into, things have gone QUITE smoothly...pshh!)

So finally this has become top priority, with the school off my back, and a little extra time and patience to get documents finalized. My passport is officially in my possession, and my Work Visa is in process (on my end - still waiting for a letter to get delivered from New Zealand. i wonder how long that takes...hmm).

So those are all the details that HAVE been worked out.

Next: All the stuff I have to do NOW...stay tuned, kiddies!

Much Anticipation

You might notice that I posted my last entry at 4:00 am...and that my profile says I'm in New Zealand already.

But I'm not. And it's actually just past noon here. But I'm wanting to make this blog as authentically new zealand...ish...as possible!

I've also created a new e-mail account specifically for sending newsletters, updates and e-mails about my experiences. It's also where I will be receiving comments from the ole' blogger!

The new e-mail address is practicallykiwi@hotmail.com

What a surprise, eh?! I quite like this whole catchy title thing I've come up with for myself...heh.

Anyways, I've been starving for lunch here for the past 40 minutes while trying to write in this darn thing! So, I bid you adieu for now. And I shall return with the progress of the Te Anau story from February until now...hold on t'ya face!

Over n' Out!

God's Will - the Journey Begins

It all began second semester of 2004 at McDonalds on 8th and 8th in Calgary.

As I sat across the table from Jo Smith, she suggested to me the possibility of interning in Britain with her sister's youth organization she was working for. I had never thought I would be able to intern outside of Canada unless I was in the Missions program.

I wasn't exactly sure if I wanted to go to Britain, but hey it was an idea and I started to run a little with the possibility. I decided to contact Arch and find out if my internship would be suitable if it were out of this country. He sent me to Emma to talk about onSite (for those of you who aren't familiar with the term, onSite is just a fancy program name for "internship that isn't in Canada").

I was absolutely dead set against calling it onSite, since I didn't want to get sucked into going to some crazy country like Egypt or Guinea, West Africa. I've never felt called to "missions" in the World Vision sense. I just wanted an internship in an English speaking country that I've always desired to be in.

I've been known to be both a Brit and an Aussie at heart. It's really lame, I know, but I would practice my accents for hours both in front of people for entertainment, and behind closed doors. I wanted to perfect my accents to the point where I could mimick the Spice Girls and the Crocodile Hunter, and fool any Brit and Aussie alike.

Please feel free to make fun of me. I do.

Anyway...to make a long story shorter (but not quite 'short', by status) I eventually felt God calling me all summer to the Land Down Under. I had my heart set on Australia, and I knew God had a place for me there. So I emailed Emma again, trying to find out if she knew of any onSite contacts in Australia...and...really there wasn't anything.

I was waiting and searching until almost November, and one night I was extremely discouraged when I was wandering about the school residence. I ended up in room 601 for a random visit and noticed an "I (heart) New Zealand" magnet on the fridge. I asked who the lucky bugger was that owned such a magnet, and Rachelle (the girl I was talking to) said it was hers.

Well she had been to Capernwray in New Zealand the past year! I then mentioned that I was just feeling terrible about not finding a placement possibility for Australia, and so she asked if I had tried New Zealand ("it's MUCH better there!" she said...hehe). So after a long conversation, I learned that she and a friend had been touring the south island and staying at Pastors houses in each city they stopped at for the night. She thought she might have a couple of cards from those churches, and suggested that perhaps I try getting a hold of them - "you never know, right?".

So after some searching, she could only come up with one card that she had kept from the journey. She gave it to me and I sent an email to the address on the card, half-heartedly asking if the pastor there knew of anyone in the region or country who might be looking for a youth intern.

Within a couple of weeks, I had a return email from Pastor Karl Lamb of Lakeside Church in Te Anau. He asked me what I was looking for in regards to an internship. After a couple of months of questions and answers, Karl revealed to me that the town of Te Anau is in need of a solid youth ministry, but there is no youth pastor.

Finally! The long worrisome nights hadn't been in vain! I didn't know where to start to find a placement, and God gave me a small starting point that happened to be the bullseye!

On February 13th 2005 I was in Cranbrook at my friend Kate's house when I got a phonecall from Emma, congratulating me on my official placement at Lakeside Church in Te Anau, New Zealand.

And there was much rejoicing.

This is only the beginning of the story of Jacquie's Adventures in New Zealand...