Okay, let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. I am in Wanaka New Zealand and I’ve been here for 29 hours and I don’t really want to leave. Yeah, it’s that awesome. Today the weather’s not as good as yesterday and yesterday I didn’t take my camera out so you’ll just have to wait for photos and a couple new videos.
God’s awesome and he’s given me a really cool place to stay and some cool people to hang out with so far. Not to mention amazing trails and mountains to climb and a mountain bike to ride all over them. He’s also given me a phone to use so that work can contact me. That is they’ll be able to contact me once I get the job. I’m trusting that God will give me that too.
The Church that I want to connect with here is called Lighthouse Church and is geared around worship and young people. Could this be an intro into something bigger? For those who are unaware, because I haven’t told you, I’ve got an interesting new idea that will alter the course of my travels.
I am in the process of applying to the YWAM base in Davos Switzerland to join the team there as a Staff member for the Snowboarder DTS beginning in November. The commitment is 12 months, which could be split into two 6 month Snowboarder DTSs. It’s incredibly exciting to see God move and encourage me about this direction. I don’t know if I will be accepted or not, but sometimes it’s the journey and not the destination that counts eh?
And on that note I guess this is a good place to mention that I am seriously considering full time missions work. Where? And doing what? I have no idea. Someplace where I am needed and serving people, the rest God can take care of. Don’t worry too much, I’ll visit.
Cool story, a couple nights ago while laying in bed I had one of those moments, or maybe it was an epiphany, and it was about how awesome God really is. How awesome I that? SOOOO AWSOME! And then more. It was really cool to feel that.
Well, I won’t bore you with details, I’ll get a few videos uploaded in a couple days though and they’ll give you the details and entertain you.
Matt Clarke
Go Big or Go Home!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Roaming the North Island
Over the past week, since DTS graduation and commissioning, I’ve been working my way around the North Island. Auckland, Tauranga, Rotorua, Wellington. Now I begin heading south with a bit more purpose. I’ve got a few people to meet along the way, but then I’ll end up in Wanaka. Let’s hope that I can arrange some accommodation before I get there.
While in Wellington, a few mates from the DTS and I toured around on our own and visited some of the LOTR filming sites. For example, the Hobbit hideout when the nazgul approach them on the road in Fellowship. The quarry where Helms Deep Battle Scenes were done, the location where close ups were done on the Anduin river, and the gardens in Isengard. It was cool to see the exact locations where the filming happened, but as I have seen the landscape along the roads and in the wilderness I can’t help but dream about hiking through the hills and to top it off the LOTR sound tracks keep playing in my head.
Unfortunately those dreams of hiking will have to wait. Hitching and Snowboarding are first so long as Jesus remains the center of attention and doesn’t tell me to go elsewhere or do otherwise. Of course I’m going to meet up with a few people that I got to minister to while on outreach. I hope to spend a day in Christchurch locating a guy from the street that we got to talk to. And another day in Picton with a guy from the church that we chilled at.
No idea what else to write. It’s been fun here, and there’s more to come.
While in Wellington, a few mates from the DTS and I toured around on our own and visited some of the LOTR filming sites. For example, the Hobbit hideout when the nazgul approach them on the road in Fellowship. The quarry where Helms Deep Battle Scenes were done, the location where close ups were done on the Anduin river, and the gardens in Isengard. It was cool to see the exact locations where the filming happened, but as I have seen the landscape along the roads and in the wilderness I can’t help but dream about hiking through the hills and to top it off the LOTR sound tracks keep playing in my head.
Unfortunately those dreams of hiking will have to wait. Hitching and Snowboarding are first so long as Jesus remains the center of attention and doesn’t tell me to go elsewhere or do otherwise. Of course I’m going to meet up with a few people that I got to minister to while on outreach. I hope to spend a day in Christchurch locating a guy from the street that we got to talk to. And another day in Picton with a guy from the church that we chilled at.
No idea what else to write. It’s been fun here, and there’s more to come.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
End of Outreach
The end? Who'd think something this awesome could come to an end? But alas, all good things must come to an end so that something even better can occur. This last and final week is called re-entry. Discussing how to close off a season as intense and incredible as the past five months.
Some people reading this are probably curious to know what happened during the past six weeks while I was out on outreach, but at the moment I’m not in the place where I can pt all of that into words. Finishing off a DTS does not mean that you’ve now got your entire life together, you do not know what tomorrow will bring or how you will respond to it. Finishing a DTS doesn’t make you a guru on how to live the perfect Christian life. What does finishing a DTS leave you with? Hope and confidence. I know that I can make a difference, I have already made a difference to people. Here looks like a good place to slip in an outreach story.
The first week and a half of outreach in Fiji, a number of the guys were involved in a construction team, fixing things around the village wherever we could help. With very limited supplies and tools, and the chill attitude of the people, we disbanded the team whose focus had been stairs. In the town of Koroko (sp?) there was a lady who’d had a stroke and had been unable to walk and get around for years. Once the physiotherapist on the outreach had worked with her she made a special request for the construction team to be reassembled for one last mission; to provide stairs that this Lady could walk again. For what you do not yet know is that the only form of stairs her house had, was a stump at each door as a step up. With inferior nails and tough as rock wood, we struggled with hand tools to get the stairs us. At the end of the day we put in a mean set of stairs. You know what? By the time we left that village, she’d gone from sitting around all day to walking on her feet with crutches, unassisted by anyone else for the first time in years. This woman’s name is Elanore, and God loves her so very much.
For those who know me you know that I didn’t often shed tears, well I tell you what; I do now and even typing this story out has brought tears to my eyes, and this is only the part of the story that I was involved with, there is much more.
I don’t feel like typing out more details about outreach at the moment but upon request I may do so.
Right now my heart turns to God and those wounds in my heart that he wants to heal that I am trying to keep hidden. Here’s the funny part, I don’t even know exactly what they are. These next four days are going to be amazing and then, well then I’ll be alone. The sixteen four staff and team leader shall all go our separate ways, some will go together for a while, but for the most part we’ll be apart from people we have been in constant connection with for five months straight and I am not looking forward to that. On the other hand, this season of my life is closing, and I move on to the next season knowing that God’s walking alongside me and eagerly waiting to show me something cool, and I’m going to have one response: THAT’S AWSOME!
So, I hope that it’s good for you to hear from me again. PLEASE, continue to let other people know about this blog if you think they’ll like it or not. I want to share what I’ve learned and experienced that I might encourage some of them.
This is matt clarke
Go Big or Go Home!
Some people reading this are probably curious to know what happened during the past six weeks while I was out on outreach, but at the moment I’m not in the place where I can pt all of that into words. Finishing off a DTS does not mean that you’ve now got your entire life together, you do not know what tomorrow will bring or how you will respond to it. Finishing a DTS doesn’t make you a guru on how to live the perfect Christian life. What does finishing a DTS leave you with? Hope and confidence. I know that I can make a difference, I have already made a difference to people. Here looks like a good place to slip in an outreach story.
The first week and a half of outreach in Fiji, a number of the guys were involved in a construction team, fixing things around the village wherever we could help. With very limited supplies and tools, and the chill attitude of the people, we disbanded the team whose focus had been stairs. In the town of Koroko (sp?) there was a lady who’d had a stroke and had been unable to walk and get around for years. Once the physiotherapist on the outreach had worked with her she made a special request for the construction team to be reassembled for one last mission; to provide stairs that this Lady could walk again. For what you do not yet know is that the only form of stairs her house had, was a stump at each door as a step up. With inferior nails and tough as rock wood, we struggled with hand tools to get the stairs us. At the end of the day we put in a mean set of stairs. You know what? By the time we left that village, she’d gone from sitting around all day to walking on her feet with crutches, unassisted by anyone else for the first time in years. This woman’s name is Elanore, and God loves her so very much.
For those who know me you know that I didn’t often shed tears, well I tell you what; I do now and even typing this story out has brought tears to my eyes, and this is only the part of the story that I was involved with, there is much more.
I don’t feel like typing out more details about outreach at the moment but upon request I may do so.
Right now my heart turns to God and those wounds in my heart that he wants to heal that I am trying to keep hidden. Here’s the funny part, I don’t even know exactly what they are. These next four days are going to be amazing and then, well then I’ll be alone. The sixteen four staff and team leader shall all go our separate ways, some will go together for a while, but for the most part we’ll be apart from people we have been in constant connection with for five months straight and I am not looking forward to that. On the other hand, this season of my life is closing, and I move on to the next season knowing that God’s walking alongside me and eagerly waiting to show me something cool, and I’m going to have one response: THAT’S AWSOME!
So, I hope that it’s good for you to hear from me again. PLEASE, continue to let other people know about this blog if you think they’ll like it or not. I want to share what I’ve learned and experienced that I might encourage some of them.
This is matt clarke
Go Big or Go Home!
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