N to the Z

This ends my trip to Mercer Bay :)

My last week here is wrapping up…It’s a bittersweet thing honestly. There is a side of me that misses my friends and family at home, but I have become a part of this church family and leaving them will be hard. It has been so amazing here. Words cannot describe the beauty of this place and also of the people that I have met here.

My last few days have been filled with many great things. Saturday night we had a big party for all of the singles and teens in the church which was a luau party theme. It was totally amazing! And we had about 8 visitors there as well. It was a “bring a dish to share” style party, but everyone had to bring a dish from their culture. I brought Chili Mac from Tony Pacos. Haha! I looked up how to make it, and had even brought some cans of their chili sauce, so it was super authentic! Everyone loved it! It was an amazing night though!

On Sunday, I got to share my testimony about how God has changed my life and about how He desires a personal love relationship with Him above anything else. I also got to share a song with them that reminded me of the battle that they are fighting daily, and to encourage them not to give up because God will always be there to give them what they really need. And after church, I got to go out to lunch with Meer, Olaf, George, Carlene, Kristine, Stewart and a few others. We listened to a live band out in a Cafe while we were eating. It was a great day.

Today, I went to Mercer Bay with Thomas and Jordan, two campus kids here. It takes about an hour to get to the beach, and you have to climb down about 300meter cliff while using ropes that some people before had just left there for part of the trip, and grabbing onto the bush to keep yourself from sliding down the rest of the way as it is almost near vertical…It was amazing!!! A real adventure and I only got out of it with 4 small cuts, 4 bruises and unfortunately, another broken camera :( Oh well, I used it for pictures here, and I guess that is all it was meant to be used for! tonight, I had a going away party :) People came over and we had dinner together and then they shared about me. It was really touching and just a great time to be together. I can’t even put into words how much I am going to miss these people…

End of our trip :( But so much fun!! :)

We were trying to find OP shops (Opportunity Shops…or second-hand shops), thus having to walk around a ton! One person told us to go up this hill and then turn to the left and we would be at one in like 15 minutes…We thought, “Oh, ok. no big deal, we like to walk.” Turns out there were like 5 lefts at the top of the hill and we had no idea which way to go!! We went up one of the hills for like 20 minutes…but when we saw nothing, we turned around and went back down. We found out later that we stopped only a few streets from it!!! Man.