I'M GOING TO NEW ZEALAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As you may have deciphered from the title of this blog post, I got accepted to YWAM and will be off to Tauranga, New Zealand around January 9th or so. (I have yet to figure out when I'll be leaving so I get there at the right time, because I know it's a REALLY long flight, and it's all a bit confusing figuring out when I'll actually arrive because New Zealand is 16 hours ahead of us on the East Coast.) And yes, I'm a tad bit excited about it. ....That was a lie..... I'm SUPER excited about it! I'M GOING TO NEW ZEALAND, PEOPLE!!! Let me get into the story of how all this fell together and the numerous times God showed me that I was, in fact, on the right path.

I'll start this off with a nice little story. My cousin Rachel started having doubts about if God really wanted to her be an interpreter (this is now her 4th year of taking sign language in school) so she asked God to start confirming her path for her. She started meeting deaf people in restaurants, public places etc. and was very thankful that God was making it pretty clear to her that she was to continue on her path. Then one day He sent her a sign that she LITERALLY could NOT miss. She was at the beach with a couple of friends, and enjoying the view, when two people sat down directly in front of her, so that she couldn't even see the ocean around her. Later she noticed that they were talking and expressing themselves with large gestures, and then she realized that this wasn't just an expressive conversation, it was calculated. She got up her nerves and decided to go talk to these people. It turned out that the older woman was deaf, and the one beside her was her daughter. The daughter is the same age as my cousin, looking to go to the same college as my cousin, for the same major as my cousin. Yay God!

So, what does this have to do with me? NOTHING. Just kidding. After hearing what my Daddy did for my cousin, I was like "Dad, can you do the same thing for me? Send me something that I just can't miss!" I asked that probably 2 months ago, and it wasn't until about 2 weeks ago that I received my answer. New Zealand started popping up in pretty much everything. One day my mom came home from school and said "There's a guy at Global that went to New Zealand with YWAM." ...That's cool. I didn't think to much of it until later, I mean, there are like 6 different bases in New Zealand anyways, what are the chances he went to the same one I'm going to? I stowed that away and kept going on with my life. I started watching a man named Todd White preach online, and one time the video wouldn't load, so I decided to check out the comments. (This was the first time I even looked at any of the comments on his videos by the way) The second comment read "I wish Todd White would come to New Zealand." Interesting... Then I was watching an episode of Mythbusters, where they were testing an old myth about exploding pants. I was like "Yay! Esploding pants!" Anyone want to take a guess where this myth came from? NEW ZEALAND. So I'm kinda starting to get the picture by now. Remember the guy my mom had mentioned? Well, he came over one night for supper, and guess what? He went to the same base that I'm now going to. He even worked there for a while! A week or so later, I was going to a conference at Global Awakening, and talking to this guy who had gone to New Zealand and I said "You know what? I'm pretty sure that God wants me to go to New Zealand, but I really just want one more sign that I couldn't possibly miss." The speaker that night was a man named Bob Hazlett. He was about to start his lesson that night when he started getting words of knowledge for the people who had come to hear him speak. Then he said "I feel like this is for someone watching online, but it's possible that it's for someone here too. I keep hearing New Zealand. Is there anyone here who is from New Zealand or something like that?" Well, as soon as he said "New Zealand" I looked over to my dad and sister and said as quietly as was possible at that moment "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME." But it didn't stop there! Another episode of Mythbusters had yet another myth (again about pants) from New Zealand. Just last week as I was posting notes from the sermon I put together, there was a post about "My Road Trip Through New Zealand". God is good!

Even though God had made it very clear to me that this was His will, I was still doubting that it was really going to happen, because I still had to go to the doctor's office, and get her to give me the "all clear." This appeared to be a HUGE problem at the time. The last time my doctor had seen me was in may of 2012. I still couldn't walk up a flight of stairs, or do much of anything. I figured that my journey would stop cold in it's tracks when I went to see her again, but as I drove down God just kept saying, "Trust me, Peter. I can do exceedingly abundantly beyond what you can imagine! In fact, don't just expect her to give you the go ahead, expect her to say 'I think it's actually a really good idea that you're going.'" And that's exactly what happened. In fact, God took it a step farther! She then gave me her email address so that as soon as I get something set up for people to donate to help me get to New Zealand, I could contact her and she would donate! So my biggest "hurdle" turned out to be a big blessing instead! I got the letter saying I was fit for travel, emailed it to the base in New Zealand, and when I woke up the next morning I had an acceptance confirmation in my email inbox!

So, in summary, GOD IS GOOD. Something that he said to me at the beginning of this journey was "I make paths straight, but for me to guide your feet, I need you to start moving." God cannot direct the feet of a person standing still. Start walking into what he has for you and if you start getting of the path, he'll make it clear to you, and he'll give you a way to get back to the place you were intended to go.

For those of you wishing to donate to make it possible for me to get to New Zealand, I will hopefully have a way for you to start donating here shortly. I'm trying to see if I can set up an account with a church so that all donations will be tax-deductible, but I may have to just set up a Pay Pal button here on my blog. The money would go to my Pay Pal account and I would then send the money donated to the base in Taraunga, or use it for paying for travel costs. Blessings!