I made a hockey bag smell good!

After 15500 miles travelled, 30hrs of flying, 16 hrs of living in airports, dressing for 0C and stepping off the plane into +28C (and sweating accordingly), 3 days of being on the road without having a bed to sleep in, going through 3 extra batteries on my Ipod, I finally rolled into a hostel in downtown Christchurch and first thing headed straight to the shower. I smelt so bad I wondered that anybody was able to sit beside me. One of the worst things was that I had no deoderant or cologne to mask the smell (great new rules in the airports nowadays). I felt so great to finally be clean and not sticky from old dried up sweat anymore.

So here I am now safe and sound in New Zealand. I already love being back here. First thing I bought was a bag of pineapple lumps and a bottle of ginger beer. Next thing will be hokey-pokey ice cream. I head down to Wanaka on the bus tomorrow (7 1/2 hr bus ride, it's actually no big deal at all) to visit many of my friends down there.

I have wondered a bit if I am really supposed to have come back here to New Zealand. God provided just amazing chances to be able to witness to two different people and make an impact in another person's life in less than 20 hrs. I met a girl in Singapore that was heading to New Zealand to work for one year and she overheard that I was going there. So she started asking me a bunch of questions about that and then we got to talking about why I was going to New Zealand and I was able to show her some of the truth about what Christianity really is and how we view God and Jesus. And hopefully some people from our school will be able to meet up with her when they are hiking around on outreach.

And then on the plane ride from Singapore to Christchurch, I met somebody else as well and I was able to share with her again about the truth of Christianity. It was a God thing that we met because I was originally sitting in a window seat in a row of 3 and when the plane doors closed there was some spare room in another row of seats so the two people beside me moved to that row. I fell asleep during take-off and when I woke up there was a woman sitting in the aisle seat. When I woke up she immediately made a comment about how nice my smile was and how she could see that I had a joy inside me. I was able to share with her the source of my joy (she had some background in Christianity but also Buddhism and some other religions) as well as to help dispel some mixed up notions that she had about our religion as a whole (how come all the different denominations and why the bickering between them? - unfortunately a valid question and something that does not honour God at all). It was only at the end of the plane ride that I found out she originally had been sitting in first class and for some reason or another she came back to sit in economy. Definitely a God thing.

So really cool. A good start to this mission that I am currently on. I don't have much else to share right now. I already miss people back at home and would love to hear from you when you get a chance (jesseaarsen@ualberta.net) Take care and God bless!