Right so, a lot has happened since I last updated and I apologize for the lengthy time that's between. I hope you can all keep up.... I am no longer in the kitchen, someone has come in and taken over. Today was the official last day because I had all my sales reps come in and meet the new girl Lara. Actually Lara and I are good friends, we are staying at her house when we go down to Queenstown for outreach. It has been hard handing over the kitchen, in many ways it's like a child and you just need to let go. I didn't think it would be hard but it was and in some ways still is but I'm easing out of it. My last meal that I will be cooking will be on Wednesday September 7th, 2011. I'm excited but I'm not sure what I'm making yet.
We leave for outreach in 11 days!!! I can't believe how fast it's come up!!!! I'm super stoked though, I love my team, they are epicly amazing with a lot to offer! I may be bias but we have a really sweet team! I'm stoked to see how God is going to move and how he is going to use us. We are a bold team, what I really love though is how much like family we are. We just enjoy each other! God has blessed us with an open honest team, not saying we won't have our difficulties or times of trial but that we will work through them with the goal of coming out stronger in mind.
Through all this transition, I also had to move rooms! I am now living in the main house with all the students and 2 other staff. To be quite honest I am loving it! Although it's noisy and reminds me of my grandparents house to where you can hear everything and anything I am enjoying being so close to the students. It's a privilege to be in there with them. I think I'm being blessed with rest because I'm not getting to bed until 12:30 and getting up at 6am, but feeling well rested!
Change is the most normal thing I will know in my life. I quite enjoy it because it's something to be tested and stretched in. We need to remember that there will always be hard times and times of learning new things, it's when there isn't you should be worried. Over all this time here what I have learned is conflict resolution gets easier to where you can enjoy it (not always, just saying), we need to have a "whatever" attitude, forgive quick, love the ones around you, encouragement is huge! So much stuff has come out of this and so much more is about to come out from outreach!
We did sermonettes last night just a 3-5min speech incorporating the gospel somehow. Leaders didn't have to do it, but half way through Josh looked at me and said "lets free ball it off the cuff!" In my head I was like, I had a feeling he was going to say that, so with 2 min to prepare myself I gave a 3 min speech on 1 Cor 1:25-31 incorporating the bible. It was actually really fun, I haven't done that since high school in forensics. I love public speaking, it's so much fun!!!!
So that's pretty much the lowdown on what's been happening in the life of Courtney.... Not to sure what' else to say so Enjoy where you are and what you're doing, you don't know how long it will last! Much love!!!!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Queenstown Lowdown
"Part of the fabric"
Well this past week we were in Queenstown with the entire school. It was to put it in to words: epicly steezy! We piled into three vans last Saturday and headed south six hours. We decided to ride down in our outreach teams which was awesome because it gave us a chance to bond and mesh better with our teams. Josh and I split the driving which was nice because this isn't a straight shot drive, it's mountainous, going over the southern alps. I must say I really enjoyed my time there, it was glorious! The whole school was awesome it felt like family. It was only the school staff and students that went down, no one from the base came which in a sense helped us rely on each other for things instead of doing it ourselves. We had a speaker on inductive bible study which was awesome!
On Sunday Josh and I went to the vineyard church that we will be mainly pouring into. I have been there before and know the pastor and the people that go there. Right when I walked in the door Janet the pastor came up and hugged me and immediately started praying for me. Then they took us out for lunch after the service to discuss when we come down in September. She told me "Courtney, you are part of the fabric here, you understand what we are doing and what we are about, I want that for the rest of your team." It was awesome to hear that because they are a holy spirit lead church, they only have about 10 people in their whole congregation, they are not about numbers but about the ministry that God has them do. It struck me though, thinking wow, I've only been to this church a few times and they consider me part of the fabric not just a fly on the cake that comes in for a quick fix. It was sweet to connect with them again and to be around "family".
This week taught us as a school and staff how to rely on each other which was awesome! God is so good and knows exactly what he is doing. One cool story I will share among many is Monday everyone went to the hill to snowboard but I was super tired so I stayed back to sleep and do some devos. Well that turned into more of sleeping and praying which was awesome because I had been craving time with the Lord. I was having a kinda hard time getting into it just because the temptation to sleep was too great & I kinda lost my feet with all the transition going on. That was when I had been sleeping for about 2 hours and I received a text message from my kiwi dad, it was one word, "Whatever" That was all I needed. I thought about it and I lost that mentality of being flexible, learning things will work out. Instead I adopted the mentality of I need to get these things done, otherwise I'm screwed! So I had been working in vain rather than working for the Lord. For those of you that don't know me very well, I used to say this word a lot! Mainly because everyone has their own way of doing things so instead of letting it upset me I would just say whatever. God is good and funny like that, when he sends little words from people that love you and when it's unexpected it's even better. It was a moment of pulling me back down to earth and saying Courtney, just be.... So that's what I encourage all of you with is to just be and not to get caught up in the things that we have to do but rather take a step back, and say whatever, it will all get done! :)
One last thing I would like to share before I go is, that in Queenstown I also learned some things about co-leading. I have introduced Josh on here before so I won't go into to many details. Anyways co-leading is interesting, I have realized that I'm very independent, stubborn and a few other things. Josh is like a brother to me which is awesome because I can be honest with him and he can be honest with me. I can be upset with him and he still knows I love him. When we were driving up I was thinking about it that I thought I knew a lot about relationships but until you are with someone 24/7 I have realized you don't actually know until you experience it. It's trust building, open communication, being secure in your friendship/relationship, having the confidence in the other person, knowing that the other person wants the best for you and the list goes on and on. I'm sure those who are married can shed more light on this than I can because by no means am I an expert. I must say I'm enjoying being stretched in a new way, it's fun how much you learn about yourself and how you react affects the people around you. Like, I'm responsible for 6 other students so if Josh and I don't have unity between each other then we can't expect it between the rest of our team. Not saying that's going to happen but how you lead is how the people you're leading will react. I'm not taking it as pressure but more as something we need to be solid in, and sure we will both have bad days all of us do, but at the end of the day if you can look at the people around you and say I love you and hug them then you know tomorrow is a better day!
This week taught us as a school and staff how to rely on each other which was awesome! God is so good and knows exactly what he is doing. One cool story I will share among many is Monday everyone went to the hill to snowboard but I was super tired so I stayed back to sleep and do some devos. Well that turned into more of sleeping and praying which was awesome because I had been craving time with the Lord. I was having a kinda hard time getting into it just because the temptation to sleep was too great & I kinda lost my feet with all the transition going on. That was when I had been sleeping for about 2 hours and I received a text message from my kiwi dad, it was one word, "Whatever" That was all I needed. I thought about it and I lost that mentality of being flexible, learning things will work out. Instead I adopted the mentality of I need to get these things done, otherwise I'm screwed! So I had been working in vain rather than working for the Lord. For those of you that don't know me very well, I used to say this word a lot! Mainly because everyone has their own way of doing things so instead of letting it upset me I would just say whatever. God is good and funny like that, when he sends little words from people that love you and when it's unexpected it's even better. It was a moment of pulling me back down to earth and saying Courtney, just be.... So that's what I encourage all of you with is to just be and not to get caught up in the things that we have to do but rather take a step back, and say whatever, it will all get done! :)
One last thing I would like to share before I go is, that in Queenstown I also learned some things about co-leading. I have introduced Josh on here before so I won't go into to many details. Anyways co-leading is interesting, I have realized that I'm very independent, stubborn and a few other things. Josh is like a brother to me which is awesome because I can be honest with him and he can be honest with me. I can be upset with him and he still knows I love him. When we were driving up I was thinking about it that I thought I knew a lot about relationships but until you are with someone 24/7 I have realized you don't actually know until you experience it. It's trust building, open communication, being secure in your friendship/relationship, having the confidence in the other person, knowing that the other person wants the best for you and the list goes on and on. I'm sure those who are married can shed more light on this than I can because by no means am I an expert. I must say I'm enjoying being stretched in a new way, it's fun how much you learn about yourself and how you react affects the people around you. Like, I'm responsible for 6 other students so if Josh and I don't have unity between each other then we can't expect it between the rest of our team. Not saying that's going to happen but how you lead is how the people you're leading will react. I'm not taking it as pressure but more as something we need to be solid in, and sure we will both have bad days all of us do, but at the end of the day if you can look at the people around you and say I love you and hug them then you know tomorrow is a better day!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
The Team
This is my team! In the back we have (L-R):
Kegan, Josh - Co-leader, Josh, Scott
In the front we have (L-R):
Skyler, Katherine, Me and Rebecca
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