Well, I'm home...

We got home at 2 in the morning, the snow made the roads really treacherous. but we made it safe! PRAISE JESUS! i'm so glad to be home with my family, friends, and everyone. The trip home was probably the longest day of my life: i left for the Palmy airport at 8 in the morning on Friday the 18th, got to LA at 6:30 am on Friday the 18th (international dateline). and got home at 2 am Saturday the 19th. The trip was made easier by the book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, the movies and people on the flight over the ocean, and the Byerleys picking me up for a few hours in LA.

I got to see my Dog! and she was excited to see me! Ben Olson braved the foot of snow and made it all the way out here! still waiting to see my nephews and nieces.

I am SO SO SO SO SO SO SO happy to be home. but it is still sad to leave all the friends i've made over the last few months. there are so many jokes no one else understands, so many memories no one else shares. it is only fitting to end this blog with a mewithoutYou anecdote:

Such distance from our friends
Like the scratch across a lens
Made everything look wrong
From anywhere we stood

And our paper blew away
Before we'd left the bay
So half blind we wrote these songs
On sheets of salty wood

I'm in Auckland

Well, i'm finally on my way home! I believe this is what they call "bittersweet".

I hope it won't be too hard readjusting to normal life. i think i'll be fine. but i will definitely feel the absence of all the people i've spent my life with these last 3 months. hopefully i will see many of them again someday.

can't wait to see you all when i get home.

cheers!

-Charlie

Work is Done

I have finished my work with Arahina Training Center. Now i have one more week before i go home, so i'll be able to stick with the Pratts, go to the beach, and maybe try to learn to surf! yay!

Its hard to say goodbye. everyone is leaving, and its hard to say goodbye.

-charlie

V for Awesome

Ben Vickery came back!!!!

I was afraid that the end of term was going to be very boring, but its turned out to be great. With Ben coming back, and Josh's sisters coming, and a whole bunch of parties, its been a blast. one more week of term, and then we finnish work at Arahina!

Ben Vickery gave me his old iPod, so that is sweet. he is pretty much the man. he has to leaqve on wednesday though. oh well, 2 more weeks before i get back home!

-Chahoocharlie

3 more weeks

it has been a good trip, i've grown, i've changed, i've made friends here, but i can't wait to get home and worship at my own church. work is going well, we are almost into end of term cleaning. fun fun. pray that i won't get nervous about flying home. i sometimes get worried about finding my gates and checking in, and getting lost. lol. i'm sure i'll be fine.

-chahoocharlie

Light-switch

There is really only one difference between New Zealand and america, by wich i mean, all the differences fall under this one. and that is: the lights turn on when the switch is down, and off when the switch is up.

New Zealand really is beautiful. i'd like to come back, but not to marton. And yes mom, i finally got my hair cut...

Sam fulfills her lifelong dream of lying on a hedge after we finished weeding.

Peter Elder roasting a marshmellow.

From left to right: Peter Alexander, Josh Bryan and Ben Pratt

Peter Atama

Time for a haircut.

friends come, friends go

so you spend a couple months with people, all day every day. work, play, vacation, worship, pray, everything is done together for months. and then people leave. and it feels like your guts got ripped out. people you've known for 2 weeks become deep friends because you work alongside them, pray for them, worship with them, se them grow and change, and then they have to leave.

i think i can finnally begin to understand what its like to live at a training center for 5 years, or how my mom feels when we have to give away the foster babies we care for. now its time to learn how to trust God with everything.

-The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

-Charlie

Off to Hastings we go!

We leave in about an hour for a christian conference in Hastings. should be fun. Its supposedly warmer in hastings. I hope so. Its been freezing cold again here in Marton.

-charlie

This one's for mom, with love...

There is a verse in mathew which says, a prophet is not without honor except in his own town. So, I finally realized that, like the verse, the mark of a true servant is when they faithfully serve at home. Because at home a person doesn't get the praise of men. Thats somethig that i missed for most of my life. Sorry mom, I know you tried to tell me.

one other thing is that I didn't realize until now that people who didn't have blogger couldn't comment. But I changed that now. ANYONE can now comment on my posts. yay!

A cool thing that happened yesterday: we were fasting and praying yesterday, and one of the things we prayed for was money to pay all of arahina's bills, and when we got the mail, we got a check enough to pay all the bills!

God is Good.

chahoocharlie

holidays

Well, holiday is over, but it was a good time. it started with a tramp up to a hut, we had a good time. then the next day me, nathan and ben pratt went to rotorua and stayed at a guys house for a couple days, that was fun. then we went to the camp, the kids were all really fun, we had worship times and we were all dancing and singing and the little boys always wanted to get up on someone's shoulders. then we went back and started the next term. its been going well, the weather is finally warming up. we went to the beach, and the water was really clear, but the sun was behind the clouds most of the time, so you can't quite see how blue the water is.

And then God does the Completely Unexpected...

So i'm in Rotorua and on thursday night we last minute decided to go to a concert (rapture ruckus, julia grace, and parachute band) me, nathan, ben, and a bunch of guys from roto. the concert was about an hour away in tauranga. we show up, and we find the other guys sitting in their seats. so, we're talking with them, and then all of a sudden there is this scream, and christina from the airport was there with the whole YWAM crew. evidently the YWAM people are working like 20 from the church where the concert was, i am like 4-5 hours away in marton, and we end up at the same concert. wild. 

i had never heard of either of the bands, but i decided i was going to go have as much fun as possible. so we ran down when rapture ruckus came out and moshed as best we could. i reckon it wasn't a very hearty mosh pit, but we had a blast, i was jumping for like 2 hours and got blisters on my toes. me, ben, and one big canadian YWAM guy had the best time smashing around. when parachute band came out it was more worship music, so we were jumping and lifting up hands, and then dancing, it was a blast. i was SOOOOOO sweaty afterwards, it was nasty. 

we are going to the camp today, and the kids will get there on sunday i think. they will be from the ages of 8-12. should be fun, the rest of the pratt family is on their way. after the camp, we will be starting the next term at arahina, and its back into the routine. 

cheers, 

-Charlie

Chahoo!

ok, here's some people:

This is from the left top: Sammy, Sadie Anne, Kyla, Ben Vickery
Then me and Pete Alexander

Ben Vickery. You cannot see it in this picture, but he is a lot like Taylor danaher and Johnathan Rhodes. Its wild. He is also a really good artist, and he drew the word 'Jesus' in Celtic runes, its amazing.

its really hard to get pictures of people. we are always busy. but we finished end of term cleaning, and we are pretty much on holiday now. in 2 weeks the next term starts. while we are on holiday, I'm going to be going tramping (hiking) and working at a youth camp with the Pratt family. Mr. Pratt is in charge of the workshop, and I've worked a lot with the two oldest boys. OK, until next time.

cheers!

-Charlie

I haven't forgotten about this blog!

Wow, i haven't been able to access the blog for a while. but luckily I'm getting it on the list of approved sites, so hopefully I'll be able to post more regularly. lots has been happening, work has been good, and the food hasn't been too bad. ;-)

the trip here was fantastic. at check-in for my flight, i met a guy who was headed to NZ on the same flights as me. so we hung out during our 12 hour lay-over in LA. we went to Venice beach, and i put my feet in the pacific ocean for the first time. then we met a christian girl who was headed to NZ with YWAM so that was pretty cool. then on the flight over, i was sitting next to a christian guy from Auckland. so THAT was really cool. and then i said goodbye to all of them and took a flight to palmy where i was picked up. thank God i got here on Friday, because the weekend is usually relaxed. we went to the beaches on the west coast. beautiful. they say only 1 day in 30 is it clear like that. and it "just so happened" that it was the day after i got there. God is good.

the people are great, we have a lot of fun. we have one more week before holiday, and after holiday the next term begins. I'll be with the Pratt's helping at a youth camp for most of the two week break. so that should be a blast.

there are some people here at the center who came from Australia, and they need a lot of prayer.

this place was beautiful.

there was a freakin seal just hangin' out.

Cool Caves.


some of the waves that were crashing were way more amazing than this one.


people were fishing out there...


and caught a shark!


Surf shop


Mt. Doom.


cool rock


Sadie Anne with a Starfish




i'll put up some pictures of people when i can get them on my flash drive.

wetas can hurt you, they say never let them touch your bare skin. we actually found one while clearing some woods, it was small, and i held it with my work gloves. they aren't very common.

two things i have realized since being here: i feel like my whole life has prepared me for this trip, and this trip will prepare me for my whole life.

and i have never been more comfortable getting out of my comfort zone!

Oh, and Happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!!!

Cheers!

We Fear The Weta

On account of me doing grounds keeping while I am in New Zealand, I thought it would be prudent to do some reconnaissance on the potentially hazardous. Positive aspects of working in New Zealand include:
-Only 2 poisonous spiders (and one is an endangered species)
-No poisonous snakes (unfortunately, there are no snakes at all)
-Poison ivy is rare (woohoo-haroo!)
-It is a pretty safe place.

I did however stumble across something of peculiar interest. Some of you may recall a particular film industry related company called Weta Workshops. They did work for The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, etc... And one of their trademark symbols is an cricket-looking insect. I recently found out that that cricket-looking insect is, in fact, a weta... and they get pretty big. They can also bite you, and while not poisonous, they can still hurt. A lot.

I am not actually very concerned about this, but it serves as a good analogy to the things bigger than insects. So many things, unseen, un-experienced, before. Today I leave for Arlington, and tomorrow for New Zealand. Maybe everything will go as planned, I dunno. But the one thing I AM sure of is that I am not in control of anything! And that's a good thing. Not a bad thing.

And I'm sure I will try to avoid the angry wetas. But evidently, according to the picture, they don't just go around biting people, it is sitting so nicely on the person's hand. ooo, behold another metaphor: the things we usually fear, or worry about, aren't really that important in light of eternity. Unless of course the weta on her hand is dead, in which case they still could be ferocious, biting, beasties with anger management problems. And in that case my analogy is pretty much hosed no matter how you look at it.

oh well, I'm not too worried about the wetas. but i probably will still try to avoid them if i can...