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...