:)

Back in Sydney after a few days of traveling mostly on the coast including Newcastle, Hornsby, Cronulla, and Richmond(but that was inland). I'm on my own for the next few days, Andrew left yesterday :(. A great surprise tho is that I found out another student from Capernwray is in Sydney these next few days too...God provides a way for me not to be alone, thank You. So these next days I plan to spend a lot of time in the word, also reading the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan(thanks to my friend Shelly...what a great Christmas present and its amazing so far and I only just finished chapter 3!), I'll be taking day trips out of the city to surrounding areas because I got a train/bus/ferry pass for the week, and well lately I've been reminded that I really need to be living with everything I am for God and to glorify him. I must confess that before recently I forgot for a while how important that is. " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it:'Love your neighbor as yourself.' " Matthew 22:37-40.

ps. Please pray for Andrew's sister Sarah, who is in Haiti right now. She has an orphanage/ midwifery place there. She is ok from the earthquake and is helping now with all the damage. Just pray for Sarah and Haiti in general. Thanks

AUSTRALIA

I'm in Australia and man is it hot here!! But so beautiful and wonderful. The first 2 days i spent in Sydney and yesterday took a train up north to Newcastle. Beaches, Cafes, shops and just meeting new people is awesome. I'll try and keep you posted.love, elizabeth

3 weeks...

The last 3 weeks have been good with the family. We have seen amazing landscapes and done some crazy adventures. One of which was a 3 day trek in the Milfred Sound=wow! and the boys went bungee jumping some other day. We have been through a lot of cute little towns and seen mountains and beaches and fiords and rolling hills, all part of what makes NZ great and a total display of God's handiwork. Today is the last full day we have here and then the family is back home and I am off to Australia. Wish me luck :)

quick update

I hope everyones Christmas was lovely! Ours was good and interesting thats for sure. Not your normal white Christmas with chestnuts roasting over an open fire...instead we river boarded down rapids and went off water slides and jumped off cliffs...so fun! The rest of the day was pretty chill and we had a nice family Christmas dinner together. The next day we rode ATVs in  an off roading thing and then drove to Te Anu and stayed at another campsite. This morning we are off to Milfred Sound on a  boat tour..gotta go :)

Merry Christmas!

Hello all and Merry Christmas! :)
The family has been here for a week now and I can't believe how fast the time has gone. So far we havc stayed in a night or 2 on the north island and then on the south: Nelson, Greymouth(saw pancake rocks in the morning in Punakaiki then beautiful scenery down the west coast the rest of the day), Haast(on our way there we stopped in Fox Glacier area and took a helicopter up to the glacier and hiked on it...WOW, super beautiful, then drove through more awesome landscape and ended up in Haast at a kind of a sketchy place), and tonight in Queenstown(but during the day we did an intense jetboat ride and walked around town a bit and had a meeting for our hike in a few days. the hike is 3 days long in milfred sound...reminds me alot of ABS so I am pretty excited). Soon we are off to eat at a small family owned recommended restaurant.

I just wanted to say from me and the rest of the family..we wish you the best this Christmas season and dont forget what it is all about, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who came as a humble baby, lived a perfect live in love, died for our sins and the sins of the world and now lives again in our hearts. Thanks God for that sacrifice.

Family's Here

It has been way to long since my last blog, please forgive me. I guess I just got really busy with the end of the semester finishing up. It was really weird saying goodbye to some people that, realistically, I might never see again. The semster finished up great though. And now I am traveling with my family and we are currently in Neslon in the south island, Horay! They got here late friday night and drove to the Lodge(where ABS was). We stayed there with Andrew and then the next day headed into Cambridge to see the school (Monavale) and get some groceries. Then off we went! Our first stop was in Waitomo caves area where we did an undergroud caving tour and saw the famous glow worms...very beautiful, and stayed the night there. The next day we headed more south and did a bit of driving and ended up in a small beach town on the west coast, Hawera Beach. Then the next day was more driving in the beautiful landscape of NZ and south to Wellington, where we took the ferry to Picton in the south island. The ferry was SO ROUGH in the start, up and down and up and down, but as we got further out it leveled out a bit-felt a little sick though. Once in Picton we got right on the road and drove to Havelock for some seafood (altho I ordered pupmpkin soup, yum!) and then made our way to Nelson to stay the night with a couple my parents met on their Israel trip. And thats where I am now. So what has God been doing in my life lately? I really enjoy my quiet time with Him every morning and seriously it makes or breaks my day, I just feel malnurished(spiritually) if I dont spend time with Jesus. And I am excited that I have that desire. I've been reading 1John everyday-great book. Its only 5 chapters, I recommend taking 5-10 minutes and reading it. I guess thats my challenge to you all. (1 John is found in the end of the Bible right after 2 Peter). Alright thats enough for now...I'll keep more updates and maybe some pictures coming.

back at monavale

hello there, elizabeth here and im back at monavale with 12 days to go. yipes!
but my family gets here in 12 days so i am realllllly excited for that. currently we have choir practice and lectures every day and we had our first 2 performances today and they went really well :)it seems odd to be singing christmas carols in summer like weather.

im also spending alot of time researching colleges, so keep that in your prayers. what else? oh! today in lecture we came across this verse and it pretty much describes whats been going on lately...
"Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory" 1Peter 1:8

key things in that verse is the inexpressible joy. ive grown so so so close with God and thats what i get from it. pure emotion and i just am glowing for Him. whoop whoop thats it for now.