How great is our God!

"How great is our God!!" I just love that song. That is how I am feeling right now. Everywhere I go on this trip it is just screaming at me, "God is SO good!" The places I have seen literally have taken my breath away and left me speechless. I have seen some of the most beautiful places on earth and I am positive of it.

The past couple of weeks have been so crazy. School, eat, homework, eat, homework, sleep. That has been my life for a little bit. Last Wednesday we went to this little town called Arrowtown. I may or may not have fallen in love with it. It is an old gold mining town that looks like it could've jumped out of an old western that my daddy would watch. It was perfect. We went on a tour of the whole town and it was just the cutest little thing I have ever seen in my life. I looked at my friend Stacey and said, "I am living here." And I was 110% serious :) I love it! I love the history of the town.  We had an hour or so to look around so I walked around and looked in all the shops. Adorable. If I had unlimited amounts of money I would have bought everything! Then for lunch I got a meat pie (one of my new favorites!) and a diet coke, of course. :)  The rest of that week was school. On Friday the Queenstown Jazz Festival started. Oh, I just loved it. Everywhere you went in the town had someone playing music on a street corner. So neat! On Saturday some of us woke up and went to the market that is set up all around the lake with the mountains in the background. Perfect. Seriously, what a great way to spend Saturday! We had great weather and just enjoyed looking at all the handmade gifts! We had lunch at Fergburger which is a famous burger place in Queenstown. SO yummy! It was like home :) It was a great Saturday!

Sunday was the Milford Sound tour. Milford Sound is considered to be the 8th wonder of the world. It was a five hour bus ride. Which was incredible. It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. Snow capped mountains were all around us the whole time. It was breath taking!  I loved it! When we got to Milford Sound we got on a boat and rode around. It was SO cold! A bunch of our group went down to the bottom/front of the boat and just goofed off. SO fun! It was so windy, I looked like a lion with my hair blowing in the wind. My friends found it very humorous. Haha. I loved Milford Sound!

Monday was just school, but Tuesday...Tuesday was my BIRTHDAY! I turned 20! AH! I had a great birthday! We had classes all day so that was a bummer, but that night a bunch of us went to get dinner at a place called Devil Burger (I know, terrible name-GREAT burger!) It was so fun, then we had cake! :)  Mrs. Pam, our director, got me a chocolate cake with chocolate icing! My favorite! It was a lot of fun!

Wednesday was our last day of classes. Holy moly. This semester has FLOWN by. I cannot believe it is almost time to leave New Zealand. I am actually in denial about it.

Thursday at 9:45 we boarded the bus to go to Mt. Nicholas to go camping at a sheep farm, this was my favorite little weekend trip we have taken so far. I was in love with this farm. I seriously think it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I was taken away with how beautiful it was! When we got there we had lunch and then  toured the sheep farm! We saw a sheep dog demonstration. So neat! After that we played some team building games! They were so much fun! It was just a chance for us to get to be silly together. I loved it. After that we ate dinner, which was so good! We had chicken, steak, and lamb, home grown potatoes (so good!) Cous-cous, salad, bread and other salad-y things. Then for dessert we had rubbarb crumble with ice cream. So so so delicious! We all sat around and played Mafia, which was so fun.

Then had a HUGE bon fire. We had a devo around the fire over looking the lake and snow capped mountains. What an incredible night. Seriously, I would've sat out there all night. The whole time we were singing I was sitting facing the water with my back to fire and there were times that I literally could not sing because my breath was gone. At one point we were singing and we were singing the lyrics, "Do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. YOU ARE MINE!" And I just choked up and thought, "What more do I need to know?" I love that song. It is what I need to hear every moment of every day. God has redeemed ME! He called ME by MY name. I just love it.

This morning we woke up and had breakfast. Majority of the breakfast foods we ate were grown at the farm. One of the best things I have had in a while! We had Manuka honey which is made in NZ and I saw the bee hives where the honey I had eaten lived. So cool! We went on a hike and walked around the mountains. I have never seen more beautiful things. I have never seen water so blue and so clear. I have never just wanted to sit and stare at one scene more in my whole life. I just love NZ. I don't know if I have said that enough  ;) We got a tad bid turned around at one point and had to do a little bit of bush-wacking which was definitely interesting. We were all under the impression it was going to be cold. Wrong! It was quite warm. We had to walk through some muddy areas which left my white tennis shoes to be a lovely brown color. How sad, right? haha. I just loved the sheep farm! I had no complaints about the whole time we were there. LOVED it.

We have Saturday (tomorrow) and Sunday off. Monday and Tuesday are finals and we leave NZ Wednesday to go back to Australia to get on a cruise ship to go to the Great Barrier Reef. I know, I know I live such a hard life ;) Before we get on the plane we rent cabins at Mt. Cook for a night! I am so excited!! We are going to go a glacier tour. I cannot wait! Then we drive to Christchurch to get on a plane! So soon. I am so not ready to leave New Zealand. I have grown to love this place and am not the slightest bit ready to leave. I know the rest of my trip will be great but it is just hard to believe it is 2/3 over. In no time I will be boarding the plane from Tokyo to go back to America! So soon. Next time I write I will most like be in the Christchurch airport-done with school and ready to be on a cruise ship! Woohoo! :)

I have lost my mind...

Yes, I went skydiving.... I originally signed up thinking I could back out if I freaked out, well that was so not the case. I was sitting in class right after chapel and Pam (our director) came in and said "Okay, you are going skydiving in an hour." If only there was a hidden camera to get our reactions! We were all shocked!! Actually, I don't even think shocked begins to explain it! Well when she got to my name she asked if I was going...before I could even get an answer out my wonderful classmates responded with a extremely loud, "YES!" oh how I love them...

Seriously, though. Best thing I have ever done. It was incredible! I am not into really extreme things like that. But, I LOVED SKYDIVING!!! It was such a rush. And what a place to do it. Queenstown, New Zealand is seriously the most beautiful place I have ever seen. I could see snow-capped mountains and crystral clear blue water. Incredible!

New Zealand is incredible. I am in love with it. I do not want to leave.

Lots of tests and quizzes and papers...my next blog will be much longer to catch you up on everything.

Gold coast and the rainforest

School has officially started in Australia! OH, MY! It is such a hinderance from the beach ;) Just kidding Mom and Dad! I have been having such a great time. School is hard, but not as bad as it would be if I was in Searcy.

We went to Binna Burra Rainforest the other day! It was a crazy experience. When we got there we were taken to our rooms. We open the door and oh my. It was about as big as our rooms at the Outback. But with FIVE more beds in it. Let me tell you...it was quite the experience! When I hear the about the rainforest I think warm weather...not in our case. It was freezing!! SO SO COLD! We ate a great dinner and then listened to a talk about the lyre bird. Then headed off to have Milo (their verison of hot chocolate...not as good) and Tim Tams! Tim Tams are these cookies and I don't know how else to describe them but as yummmmmmyyy! :) Then it was off to bed. The next morning we got up and got ready to go on a 13 mile hike.  It was so cold still. We hiked, and hiked, and hiked... It really was beautiful! God is so so good! It was such a neat thing to get to do.

Sunday after the rainforest a big group of us decided to take surfing lessons at Surfers Paradise.  What an experience!! It was crazyyyyy. The day we went was a really windy day! Which means really rough waters. It was so much fun! I got knocked down a whole whole lot. The waves killed me! haha But it was so much fun! :)

So far I love Australia, its been such a great experience and such a blessing!

More to come, more frequently too :)

Life down under

Oh, my. What an adventure so far.  I wish I could've been undating more but this is the first time I've had internet for an extended period of time! So I will update about the trip so far!

Sydney:  Incredible. Seriously, I loved it.  It reminded me a lot of NYC. The first day we got there checked into our hotel which was across the street from this cute little park! So my roommate and I went to get coffee and drink it at the park.  We went on a harbor cruise that day.  It was so so neat! We got to see all the multi-million dollar houses that surrounded the harbor.  We also got to see the famous bridge and the Opera house.  SO neat.  After a long day of traveling we went to dinner and all were in bed by 8:30.  A lot of the trip included musuem tours.  Not my favorite.  Although some were extremely interesting.  Some of my favorites were the Hyde Park Barracks and the St. Mary's Cathedral.  St. Mary's was one of my favorite things we've done so far.  The buliding is incredible! So so beautiful.  We went to see Wicked on the second night we were there! It was really great! We toured more museums. One night a group of us saw The Johnny Cash Story at the Opera house. So neat! It was really cool to get to see a play in such a famous theatre! We took a tour of it earlier that day also. We got a free day where we shopped and explored the city. We did so so much in such a short period of time.  It was such a cool experience to see the things I saw.

Outback:  Well, that was quite an adventure! When we arrived we were told that we would be living in dorm style rooms.  I had no idea how true that statement would be.  There were four girls to a room about 10 by 10 with two sets of bunk beds and very little room to move.  It was very interesting!  The showers were seperate from the rooms.  The first night we had zero hot water.  And I mean ZERO. We learned a lot about the native aboriginal people and how they got there. We got to see Ayers Rock! SO neat.  It was such a neat experience.  The restaurant at the hotel where we stayed was a grill it yourself place. Very fun! :) The Outback was such a great experience that I am so glad I got to experience it!

Seeing all these amazing things just reassures me about how great the God I worship is! He created all that and still chose me!

I am officially in Brisbane with a constant internet connection so blog updates will be a lot more regular :) I'll keep you updated.  Pictures will come soon... I have taken 750ish so far! :)

An adventure lies ahead....

The idea of blogging has always interested me and made me nervous at the same time.  But with the adventure that lies ahead of me over the next three months I decided (after much encouragement from my mom and her friends) that I was going to start a blog so I could share it with everyone.

On Monday, I leave to go to Australia, New Zealand, Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, and Japan for three months.  I am completely overwhelmed with so many emotions about this journey I am about to go on! Excitement and nervousness are the two that stand out most in my mind.  I am going to miss what is familiar to me.  I am not a huge fan of change so this is different for me.  I am going to miss my family so much.  They are my world and it will be hard not seeing them. It makes it easier for me knowing how excited they are for me! Not being at Harding with my friends will be hard also, but they are also filled with excitement for me.

God had blessed me so so much in my 19, almost 20, years of life. Hence the title of my blog :)  The fact that I am given the opportunity to go on this trip is incredible.  I am so looking forward to the journey God has placed in front of me. I cannot wait to see what He is going to show me through this! Can't wait to share it with everyone!