History Makers, Rebecca & Angels!

Wow! Thursday 5 April was an incredible day! Only 2 days earlier I had pretty much given up hope of gettting to Illinois for the Worship Revolution Tour concert. Then God provided an angel (named Amanda) who is also a big Delirious fan to pick me up from camp and drive the 8 hours with me to Quincy, Illinois! 8 hours proved to be 9 hours when deep in conversation we missed a turn and went the wrong way for a quite a while before realising we were heading north towards Chicago-whoops! It was snowing when we left camp which I guess is crazy for this time of year and the outside temp was below freezing! We finally got to Quincy at 7pm and ran into the concert at about 7:05-Rebecca St James had just started. She sang some of her songs (including Wait for Me!) and some other worship songs-she led the worshippers brilliantly and challenged us to worship God through purity in our relationships. After an intermission, Delirious played-their performance was incredible! Sang mostly songs off their latest album, Mission Bell, but of course threw in History Maker and Over the Mountains. They challenged us to be Jesus in the community and that our worship through music can change lives out there. They got us to face the outside walls of the theatre and shout to the north, south, east and west like there was no roof on the building so the community could hear us. Man what a noise! It was so freeing to worship God in that environment-the music inspires such a response! I am pretty sure its the best worhsip service/concert I have been to-Third Day at Parachute Festival would be right up there too tho, back when it was at Totara Springs. Then Amanda and I drove 8 hours back to camp-I was falling asleep, I dunno how she stayed awake to drive all that way. An incredible 20 hours with stimulating car conversation and the most awesome, inspiring concert. Thanks so much to Amanda for taking me and thank God for History Makers, Rebecca and Angels!

Sports and travel.

I am not enjoying the fact that I am not currently playing any sports. I havent done any physical exercise since I left NZ. Not good!! But I last week I got satellite TV and bought the Satenta Sports channel which has rugby and soccer 24/7! All the Super 14, Tri Nations, World Cup, Air NZ cup, 6 Nations, and all the english, irish, and south african rugby. It also has aussie rules and rugby league! And on the soccer front it has English premiership and all European championship games and all internationals! So its pretty sweet! I still hope to find some soccer or volleyball even if I am coaching!

Last week I spent 2 days in Muncie which is where our YMCA head office is. Its 2 hours south of here east of Indianapolis. I was making a movie with my director for an important meeting. I also managed to get the technology to all come together for the meeting and it went flawlessly! It was a bit of a challenge as had to change laptops at the last minute and incorporate another slideshow of financial graphs and charts etc! but I like that challenge and pressure!

This last weekend Mark and I left at 6am Saturday morning and drove to Chicago again. This time we were at another big convention centre beside a hotel on the south side of Chicago. This expo we took a mini motorbike and a horse saddle and a wakeboard with a short piece of pvc pipe to put under the wakeboard so it was like a low see saw thing. We got kids to stand on the board and try to balance the board on the pvc pipe. We had a ski rope they could hold onto to help themselves. Well we had no idea it would be a hit! We had kids lined up from 9am till 4pm! The show closed at 5pm. At times I counted 16-20 kids crowded round our little booth with their parents! Their was a camp across from us with no one at their stall—they had 1 guy who looked disinterested and they had nothing really much as a display. We have a big colourful display board we put on the table at the back of our booth. Sat night we stayed in the hotel next door to the centre which was real nice. I spent ages in the indoor heated pool after dinner in the restaurant. I have been in hotels a lot lately! Sunday was just as crazy. We had lines again all day. We gave out about 800 brochures in the 2 days!

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on computers! We have a new one so I had to set that up and then for the summer I will be working with the multimedia stuff which includes making movies of each camp and getting photos on the internet each week and getting kids to write journalistic stories of camp.

Little things and a BIG wedding!

Sometimes its the little things that make the difference. Both positively and negatively! This week I've noticed a few. This week I met the cook (Renae) and her husband (Mike) who is head of maintenance. Renae is a Settlers of Katan player so on Wednesday nite I found myself invited to Richards house to play settlers and I got fed some great dessert! I lost Settlers to Renae by one turn but now I know how she plays a little and I can't wait for many more games! Other little things were finding I can buy an extra sports channel for only $15 a month which has all rugby competitions in all countries including the World Cup live and all English and European soccer--awesome!! But on the flip side the Cricket world cup is $200 for all games live--i just want to see NZs games and cant afford that! But again on the flip side of that I found Radio Sport streaming online and I live in the same time zone as the West Indies! So I can listen to Brian Waddle! Thursday nite all the staff went to Steves house for dinner and had a great feed and then played this cool game called Apples to Apples. (I think Renae is a big game lover so I'm happy about that!) Then there is the "little" issue of waiting for my first pay cheque--I understood it would be this week but now have been told April 2! And as already mentioned lack of internet and phone line and lack of my own transport are more little things. So some positive and some negative, the little things make the difference. You notice these things more when you are trying to live over the other side of the world. I am conscious that this trip is different to past trips in that I am planning to be here a lot longer and want to be able to function without always feeling like the alien! In my country I know how everything works but over here I know nothing!

Well Bekis wedding was a huge highlight for me. I had always planned to be over here for it and today was the day. Being St Patricks Day and as Beki lives in Dublin, Ohio you will see in the pics below she wore green on her dress and the bridesmaids dresses were also green. The ceremony was simple and elegant--flowed nicely and had live string instruments. Beki looked stunning of course and had her 3 sisters as bridesmaids. I hadnt met Kevin before but Beki tells me I'll like him and he seems nice! I met Beki back in 1999 when her college roommate Heather picked me up from Columbus, Ohio to take me to Kamp Kanakuk in Missouri. We stayed at Beki's house in Indianapolis on the was thru and Beki and I have been great friends ever since. Really like a sister to me, Beki has always been there for me and I for her over the past 8 years. There have been many emails and phone calls and 4 visits by me. We have and still do encourage and challenge and pray for the other one in our life journeys. Thank you Beki for your friendship--its unparalleled! God bless you and Kevin! Was great to see Charity again and also Heather and the Shepler family.

Bekis wedding

Cutting the cake

Kevin and Beki (centre) with Charity and me

Camp Crosley on Little Tippecanoe Lake!

What a huge change in seasons! Today was a beautiful warm sunny day! Daylight Savings began on Sunday meaning a longer evening and I’m sitting here in my lounge with the windows open—the air is warm! I’ve been at camp for 10 days now and all of last week was cold with snow everywhere. I finally left LA after waiting around in the airport for ages cause of delays at Chicago. Landed at Chicago in snow and my onward flight to Southbend was cancelled. So i had to get a hotel for the night-it was snowing and cold! The next morning I went back to the airport and got a bus to Southbend. It was a 2 hour trip and the further we went the heavier the snow got. At Southbend my camp director met me and I went to ask about my bags. Of course they were still in Chicago so they delivered them to me 24 hours later. At Camp Crosley I have a little cabin/house about 40 metres from the lake edge and fairly close to the main camp buildings. It has 2 bedrooms and a lounge/kitchen area and bathroom. It has heating and air con and washer/dryer so I have pretty much everything I need. I managed to get satellite TV as my director has it in his house so I can get it for $5 /month! 250 channels! I don’t have a phone line or internet tho which is a pain. Cell phone plans are expensive and pre paid hardly exists and they make you pay for incoming calls so don’t think I will be getting a phone. I have internet at the office and hope to get mobile internet on my laptop. So far work has been in the office on the computer. I have my own office space and desk and computer/phone etc. I have been going through all the files stored on the network server and sorting them into logical folders. Quite a big task!

Early morning at Camp Crosley

I disturbed the birds--this is the only part of the lake not frozen over so the birds are all here!

my cabin/house

pics at Camp Crosley

View from my house to the frozen lake!

Stuck in Chicago

View from my hotel window in Chicago!

Huntington Beach

Tracy & Katie Lindquist training. I had a game with Dave Lindquist (Tracy's Dad) and some other guys)

Los Angeles

Yep I'm in LA--Huntington Beach to be exact. 11pm March 1st I left Auckland on a new Boeing 777-200. I had a bunch of trouble with my hand luggage weighing 14kgs and only allowed 7kgs. My check in bags were 4kgs underweight so I had to go back to check in and take 4kgs of stuff out of my hand luggage bag and put in a big plastic bag to be checked in. The empty hand luggage bag weighed 4kg!! Then all the way upstairs to the viewing deck to find Mum and Dad who had said goodbye and were waiting to see me go thru to the gates. Gave them a bunch of books to cut my weight down more and then my bag weighed 8.5kgs and they were happy with that. Also had my laptop bag which weighed 6.5kgs. So I got to LA about 1:40pm local time after a rather bumpy ride at times. One bump got a considerable reaction from the passengers as we dropped a bit of altitude! Customs was pretty quick and easy with no questions asked whatsoever. Homeland security is sure secure! But then I guess I have a visa from a recognised government agency so that probably helps me. Jessica met me and took me straight to Huntington Beach where I found Tracy Lindquist playing beach with her sister. Her Dad was playing with some other guys so I joined in with them for a game. It was sunny but only about 15 deg and a cold wind. Home to Jess's place for a shower and relax until dinner. We went to Taco Surf--a cool mexican restaurant by the beach. Of course I had Dr Pepper! Then a drive to Signal Hill which is a bump near Long Beach and from the lookout up top you get awesome views of LA city in all directions. So many lights! (And so much smog!) Got some icecream on the way home and now it's bed time as tomorrow I fly off to Chicago and then South Bend Indiana where it is cold and snowing. Tomorrows high will be about 3 degrees I think! Will post some pics soon.

February is hot in Nelson

Been back in Nelson for just over 2 weeks and its been hot and sunny and this week even hotter! Waitangi day we had the Tasman Open Beach Volleyball tournament which I played with Hamish Ballagh. We finished 4th after having 3 match points to finish 3rd and stupidly losing it! Anna and Bella also finished 3rd. It was the best beach tournament we have had here since the pro tour used to come to Nelson. Check my Tasman Volleyball website for more details and pics. My temp agency couldn't find me any work so I have done some volleyball coaching and administration etc, built the Hope Church website and had 3 days working for a guy from church preparing his driveway for sealing. Last Friday night was touch finals. We won our semi 4-2 against Waimea College and then played Nelson College in the finals. It was 2-1 to us when Tim's knee gave way, letting a try in to make 2-2. I then made a run down the side line almost full length of the pitch before a diving defender touched me and then he dislocated his shoulder as he landed! Second half and we were missing Tim and let 3 quick tries in. We couldnt come back from that and final score was 7-4. A great game tho!

My cousin Danella and her husband Rick have been living here as they have just had their first child-Thomas. So I have seen plenty of the baby and been learning plenty about having them!! Only 3 days left in sunny Nelson before I head to Auckland for the Volleyball NZ Beach Champs on the weekend and then 4 days at Mum and Dads before flying to the USA.

Americans at Stanley St Beach Volleyball

My best softball pic!

Young Life sports camp team

Sports Camp & Parachute

Friday I drove down to Totara Springs and joined in with the Young Life team for Sports Camp. Camp staff put me in this team as I knew no one that was going. But it was the perfect team for me. First most of the teams were island teams and I'm just a skinny white boy from the south island but the Young Life team had no islanders in it. Second Ed Roper was one of the team leaders. I worked with Ed at Kamp Kanakuk back in 2000! So that was pretty crazy! God put me in that team for sure! Was a pretty cool weekend, despite losing soccer semi in a shootout and getting hammered in volleyball! I came 6th in the 3.3km cross country so was pretty happy about that. Our girls came 2nd, 3rd, and 4th! Our soccer team was pretty awesome but our semi was against the other good team in camp. Nil all at full time meant a shootout. Our first penalty was a miss and then everyone on both teams put the rest in. I took our last shot and put it in in my usual spot! The keeper didnt even move for my kick--had no chance!! We realised at the end of the camp when we saw the total points that by winning the soccer and then one other final such as the mens hockey (where we felt the referree robbed us by disallowing a goal) we could have got enough points to win the whole camp overall! We finished 4th out of 11 teams and runner up in the sportsmanship award. Our girls won hockey and indoor soccer and us boys won indoor hockey. We also won lawn bowls and one hole golf. We came runner up in mens hockey, softball, girls indoor hockey, cross country, and kayaking. Ken Youngson, founder of Quantum Sports was the speaker and challenged us to guard our hearts. Our hearts are so important as athletes. If our hearts are in the right place our sporting performance will be better. Also met Eroni Clarke--he gave his testimony.

Saturday night I drove over to Mystery Creek to attend Parachute for the evening. Met up with some Nelson mates and saw a bit of the Lads with Kristian playing with them. Hung out with Chevy (Kristian and Chevy got married last weekend in Nelson and I missed the wedding). Then watched Rebecca St James in her first ever Parachute performance. She played a mixture of her older and new songs and even included "Wait For Me"!! Thousand Foot Krutch followed her on Mainstage but were a little dissappointing with the lead singer seemingly without much voice--could hardly hear him. He also had nothing much to say between songs. They used a kiwi guitarist for the first time also--dunno where their guitarist was. The song "Absolute" sounded good tho.

Was a cool weekend and made some good mates from the Young Life team. Nelson sports camp is just as good--less sports and less people but the food is way better at Teapot Valley!

Crazy month

The Pro Beach Tour for 2007 is over! Boxing Day we left Nelson in the Biopaints WRX and drove to Auckland. 2 days there and picked up Sara and her Mom from Vanuatu and then Tiffany from USA. Drove to Tauranga for beach tournament. Check out the new website for Anna & Bella for more details on the trip. We drove 4000kms in just over 3 weeks, in Wellington my car window got smashed and a couple of small things got stolen. I played at the Matarangi tournament with average results--can't expext much better with a new partner who was a young guy fairly new to the beach. I really want to play the whole tour next year and if can get paid to referee I may quit being a sandy and just play and ref next year. In Auckland last week we finally got better weather after a lot of wind and overcast days and even some rain. Had a great finish to the tour. I now have my new laptop and it is soo good! Tomorrow I am off to sports camp at Totara Springs for my first time which should be great. And Saturday night I will go to Parachute to see Rebecca St James and Thousand Foot Krutch play. Should be a great weekend. Also this week I was approved for my visa to the USA so the plan is to head over there the first or second of March. I am already doing work for my camp by recruiting staff for the summer. I can't wait to head over but first I will have about 3 more weeks in Nelson. Sarah and Tiffany flew back out this week and so did Anna and Bella so its just me left here now! I can't handle the mosquitos at my parents place when I'm trying to sleep so tonite I'm at my sisters house!! Lol this blog is jumping all over the place. Just brought 230 bales of hay in tonite for Dad. It's so hot! Off to shower and bed.

What a day!! God is good!

Today started like usual with me at the computer checking emails and working out my plan of action for the day. I was looking at my list of businesses I had asked for sponsorship and was thinking I would not do any more work this week on that. I just had to pick up 2 profiles from companies I hadn't yet heard back from. I was waiting for a lady to come and look at my TV and she had sounded like she was pretty keen so I was happy about that. Well then God seemed to kick a whole series of events into action! My phone rang and a guy said I had emailed him yesterday asking for sponsorship. He asked if I had got any yet. When I said no he said "I'll do it"!!! I was taken aback and then he said "I'll do the whole lot!" I wanted to jump up and down and then I heard a voice at the front door and knew the lady was here to see the TV. I was chatting to Bella on MSN and trying to type to tell her we had sponsorship all at the same time! I walked to the front door so they could see I was on the phone. Anyway then the lady bought my TV, then I rang Bella and Anna to tell them all about it. Anna was crying on the phone!! So we began a hectic day of talking to the printshop, visiting the sponsor company-Biopaints, buying clothing, getting the logo from the design company and taking it all to the print shop- Imagegear, and praying they will get it printed this week! At one stage I had parked my car in Trafalger St and completely forgot about paying for parking. I got back to my car to find someone had put their unused ticket under my window wipers and I still had 20 minutes left! In the Warehouse I needed 10 cents to not have to break a $20 note and a lady in the next que just pulled out 10 cents and said "Merry Christmas!"

Back home Bella and Anna started on my extreme makeover. We had already bought me jandals (I lost my last pair in April and hadn't replaced them) so they started by dying my hair dark blonde. Then they waxed and plucked my eyebrows. Next was lighter streaks for my hair and then hair removal cream on my chest! After I washed all that out in the shower I was disturbed to find my hair had gone orange! In the middle of all this drama my phone rang and it was my brother Tim in Brisbane phoning to say that HP were going to replace my laptop with a brand new one and he should be posting it tomorrow!! I told him I was having a great day and said we had got sponsorship. He said he had been thinking about sponsoring and offered to build the girls a free website! So it's not online yet but it will be www.annabellanz.com. We were all again excited and exclaimed that God was indeed good and wow has He had a party with us today! Bring on tomorrow!! We are so excited as now we can focus on playing beach and not worry about the other stuff. Anna and Bella are now in the top 20 women in NZ and I am excited to see what they can do on the tour! Last Sunday we had the Brightwater Classic, the girls won and I came second in the mens with Cory Schroder. I think I am playing my best beach volleyball ever right now.

I leave Nelson on boxing day for the tour and don't plan to come back before heading to the USA beginning of Feb depending on the visa. So its a busy pack up week for me. I finished work last week and its so nice not to be working this last week here.

Vanuatu--Nov 2006

Saturday 25th

Flew to Auckland arriving 6pm. Jennie Tiers met us and took us to our hotel and then out for dinner. Not a lot of sleep as up at 4:30am to go to airport.

Sunday 26th

Flew to Port Vila-3 hours. Hot and humid! Debbie and Troy met us and Troy took us to Mele Village. This is the largest village in the whole of Vanuatu--3000 people. Here we stay in the chiefs area in a huge house which is very clean and has electricity. Much flasher than the rest of the houses in the village. We are treated like royalty! Awesome meals are prepared for us.

Troy is an ex MLB player from Texas (played for Oakland Raiders) and now owns Erakor Island Resort. After settling in for an hour another American-Doug-picks us up in his big Chevy Suburban and drives us to a resort called Club Ippique. We spend the afternoon here having a beach vball fundraiser. So we play beach and east a BBQ and swim in the lagoon. It rained real heavy tropical showers too. Meet a lot of ex-pats. Then back to Mele for a cold shower (no hot water at all) and dinner. Met Sara from USA is working with the Peace Corp on the island fo Pentecost. She's really cool and can speak the local gibberish-Bislama (a mixture of bad English and French!) so makes a great guide! It gets dark at like 7pm and light at 5am so we go to bed at like 9am.

Monday 27th

Awaken by roosters at 5:20am. I doze off some until Anna and Bella wake me again at about 7am. Its hot and sunny already so up for a cold shower and off to breakfast. French toast and bread and jam and sweet ripe bananas. After breakfast we catch the bus into town. Buses are just Toyota Hiace vans that work kinda like taxis but with set fares. Danny is our driver-he plays soccer for Mele and knows Batram, Clifford and Mike Fifi! Sara shows us around Port Vila, its much hotter and sunnier and stickier today! After lunch at a cafe (where Anna and Bella find grubs crawling in their muesli!) we go on a ferry across to an island about 400 metres of the mainland. Its Irariki Island Resort. Here we get fruit punch and swim in the pool and live it up for the afternoon. 4pm and Danny picks us up again and takes us back to the village. We meet other athletes arriving and then have an official welcoming ceremony. We are given lays to wear and the chief makes a speech, we drink Kava (yuk!) and have a huge meal. The hut we eat in is all decorated and again we are treated like royalty. 9pm-another cold shower and off to bed with the fan on full. I can see 2 geckos on my ceiling tonite!

Tuesday 28

Woken at 2:30 am by roosters crowing again! They crow all day and night--weird! Today me and the girls went to Breakers resort and swam and lay out again. It has a really nice pool and and a white sandy beach. I walk further down the beach to where they are diggin out sand for the new beach vball courts in town. They had got the loader stuck so I had a go but got it stuck too! The beach had plenty of rubbish on it--cans right down by the waters edge! Everywhere we went there was rubbish--no one seemed to care about rubbish bins. Back to town for lunch and Anna threw up in a garden on the main street! Anna and Bella went home to rest and I hung out with Sara.

Wednesday 29

Tournament sposed to start today! But the sand is still not spread on the new courts. The loader driver has no idea what we want so finally they let me in the loader and I spread the sand, we get the nets up and the Minister of Sports officially opens it. Got an interesting picture of Vanuatu time and how things work or don't work today. Sara decides to come over to NZ for our pro tour and Ory (my Israeli partner) is thinking about it too. Had a decent earthquake tonite! Also met McKenzie today-real name Mehlon?

Thursday 30

Girls played today-lost 1 won 1. Anna struggled with no energy from being sick. Real hot today but got more rain too. Weather changes real quickly. Spent $71 NZ on juice, powerade, muesli bars, chocolate and giant snakes-prob about $30 worth back in NZ! Ory took us out to dinner at the Waterfront--I had real nice BBQ ribs! Mehlon and Kelion hang out with us more--they are twins-12 years old and really good at volleyball. Real cute cool kids and really bright and fun.

Friday 1 December

Left the village today. I played 2 games with Ory winning both to advance straight to the semis. Went to Mele Cascades-- a nice waterfalls. Then moved to our new accommodation Erakor Island Resort. This is a really nice resort--just take a short ferry ride across to it. We stay in a dorm style room block. Sara comes over for dinner at the restaurant which overlooks the lagoon and is very nice. Early to bed but I'm starting to get the runs and so is Bella!

Saturday 2

Still got runs but feel OK so eat a good breakfast. Girls feel much better too. Semis and the girls play first but I need a toilet so I miss most of their first set. They don't play so well and lose. Then I play and win first set before my stomach begins to feel really bad. I end up hardly being able to move and lose the game. Then I collapse on the ground with pain and finally make my way to a disgusting toilet at the soccer stadium where I stay for about 30 minutes! I feel very weak and sick but after drinking water and resting begin to feel ok again. Watch all the finals--there are some very good men's teams here. Back to Erakor for showers before the awards presentation at the Wild Pig Bar. I win best male setter and Bella wins best female setter. Then we go to Shooters on back of Ory's Hilux. Everyone just climbs on the back of trucks day or night and drive like crazy around the city. Ory can be a maniac driver! There is no speed limits posted anywhere and road rules are look out for yourself! We only saw 1 police vehicle our whole time there and that was us passing it in an 11 seater Hiace with 14 people in it not wearing any seatbelts! Shooters was no good so took Anna, Bella and Darryn (Aussie ref) back to Erakor ferry and then Ory, me, Sara and her friend Melissa went to a house party. Mostly frenchies there and Troy and some others. Then we all decided to go to Yellow Submarine bar in town. Walked up the hill to Ory's truck where we saw a young guy lurking about. Looked suspicious so as he walked off I yelled out "Oy". He ran off and then we realized Ory's truck window was smashed and they had tried to remove the stereo. I chased but he had disappeared already. Went to town and danced in this club. Again most there were French and a lot of the guys either were gay or appeared gay. I wasn't that comfortable in there!! One guy in particular was quite disturbing--about mid 40's and wearing tight as jeans pulled right up with t-shirt tucked in and his dance moves just made us laugh and then feel sick!! He only seemed to want to dance with other men too. Freaky. Got back to Erakor Island about 4am-lucky the ferry runs 24 hours.

Sunday 3rd.

7am and Bella wakes me--I've had about 3 hours sleep. Pack up and off to the airport to fly home. It's been an incredible week and I really hope to return next year for some more "island time". I would love to go to some outer islands and see more of this country.