One week in

Well, I’ve spent a week in Oxford, New Zealand, and I’d say I’m doing very well.

New Zealand, where
… the major highway of the country is four lanes across at its biggest.
… they drive on the left side of the road.
… beet root is served with almost every meal.
… food energy is measured in kilojoules instead of Calories.
… dinner is called tea.
… the countryside is even more beautiful than I imagined.
… the ocean is barely out of sight when the snow-capped mountains appear.
… people are friendly, nature is cherished, and life is good.

I’ve met so many interesting people! There are folks from all over the world at YWAM Oxford – the United States, Canada, Germany, Holland, England, Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and, of course, New Zealand, are all represented here. I live in a house with 19 other girls (we share three bathrooms) and, believe it or not, it’s working out very well.

We wake up early for morning devotions at 6:30, followed by breakfast at 7:30. Everyone has a morning work duty at 8:00 (mine is cleaning one of the bathrooms in our house), then morning activities start at 9 (classes, worship times, etc.). We break for morning tea at 11:15, followed by another lecture time, and lunch is at 1. Afternoons are always different, with base and community work duties, study time, outreach preparation time, etc. My base work duty last week was helping to restore the prayer path – a nature walk that used to go around the whole base, but has been neglected and partially destroyed with recent construction projects. It rained that day, but that didn’t stop YWAMers from their work! I spent the afternoon harvesting stones from a ditch for my teammates to use to line the path. Here’s an interesting bit of trivia – there are no poisonous snakes in New Zealand, so picking up a large rock is no cause for alarm! Nice, eh?

My DTS – Earth Care – has eight students and three leaders. Two other DTSs are going on at the same time – a Backpackers’ DTS, which is a much larger group with 22 students and seven leaders; and a Crossroads DTS (for students older than 30) with seven students and five leaders. We are part of different schools, but we do a lot together – we will have some class times with the other DTSs, the backpackers and earth care students live together, and we all eat together.

Speaking of eating, we have fantastic meals here! A professional chef serves us here as her ministry, and she is amazing! My favorite dish she’s served so far is pumpkin and carrot soup. And she makes a mean chocolate chip biscuit (cookie)!

Formal classes start on Monday, and I’m looking forward to it. We’re learning a lot about listening to the Holy Spirit, and we’ve had some powerful worship times. What a wonderful thing to have so many people from all over the world and vastly different walks of life all together in one place, with one very important thing in common – a love for Jesus Christ. I’m so glad to be here, having this experience. I can already tell that it’s going to be something very special.

Here’s my address in case you’d like to send me any mail (I’ll be here until mid December, and I love mail):

Angela Steele
c/o YWAM Oxford
PO Box 47
Oxford, North Canterbury 7443
New Zealand

Here is a link to some pictures. In case you aren’t familiar with Facebook, click on a photo to see a larger view, then click the photo to see the next one (you do not need a Facebook account to view these photos): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2047811&id=80403321&l=f681055f8a

Cheers!