God likes Country Music??

Today as a group we went on a silent retreat to Tyler State Park. Where we were given the instructions to just go and find a place or walk around or do whatever but we had to do it without speaking at all and just try and listen and see what God can tell us when we take the time to stop and listen. Now this is something that I am still very much a beginner at so I wasn't sure what I was doing, but I was willing to give it a shot. So I just was walking for a bit around a beautiful lake that they have there and just stopping every now and there somewhere where I was alone and I would just pray a bit and read the bible and well to be honest I wasn't really hearing much from God. The day before in Class when we had been talking about hearing from God a girl shared of an experience she once had where someone had suggested she try asking God an icebreaker question and it had worked for her so I thought why not lets give it a go. So I stood there and then just said out loud "so God what sort of music do you like?" and immediately all I could think of in my head was country music, so I am not saying that is all God likes or even it that is write I am just saying that is pretty cool that God could talk to me about such an insignificant subject like that imagine what else he will talk to me about.

Life as a Gateway student

Well here I am at Gateway and week one has come and gone already. The week started with a few highs and lows as I was overjoyed to meet up with friends I had known from my time on the Ship(8 people in total), but at the same time I had to say goodbye to most of the IMS(Introduction to Mercy Ships) class, who after spending 2 days with I had become quiet fond of and they had really included me in their group even though I wasn't doing their course.

So in my Gateway class there are 30 of us in total with a varying range of ages and backgrounds so it makes for a good mix.

I just have to say that so far this course has really been nothing like I expected although to tell the truth I don't even know what I expected. When people asked me what the course was about back home before I left I just said something along the lines of "It's to tell me more about the organisation and to teach me Marine basic safety and some theology too" or something like that. Well it has been so much more so far and its just been the first week. We spend pretty much 8am to 4pm in a classroom just learning some really amazing stuff. I am not really a note taker but I have just been filling up the pages hoping it will help me remember.

We have been learning stuff like Kingdom principles and Spiritual Warfare as well as How to hear God. Just the kind of subjects that I had never really learnt too much about so had kinda avoided I guess and thought it wasn't really for me and now I am learning how much it is for me. Our speaker for most of the week was Dean Sherman and he did such an amazing job at getting his message across and answering any questions we had no matter how small or stupid sounding.

All I can say is after this first week I hope and pray that the rest of the course will go as well and that I might retain some of this great information.

Just to Top it off

Just to Top it off when I got to the US and went through immigration and customs they didn't even mention or ask to see any information on an outgoing flight. Although I am thinking that it may be because they can access that information when they scan my passport. Oh well whats done is done now and I can't take it back. Apart from that my travels went rather well, I got about 4 hours of sleep on the plane so I wasn't too tired when i arrived in LA and the my other two flights went well except for a 45min delay on my last flight to change a part in the plane. I eventually arrived at Mercy Ships IOC (International Operations Center) after travelling 32hours in a 12 hours time slot thanks to the international dateline, I left New Plymouth at 10am and arrived here at 10pm on the same day 32hours later.

A Wonderful day of exciting and costly stuff ups

Well today was already going to be an exciting day as I prepared to travel back in time a day and go to the US. I mean I was really excited about the fact that I got to have lunch twice today, but as it turned out the day was already full of excitement even before leaving Auckland.

I arrived in Auckland from New Plymouth after a great 4 days with my uncle, aunt and cousin. My plane was on time and everything was going well, I found my way over to the international terminal and found the left luggage place and then headed off into town. Now my plane was to catch a bus into the city and go and visit the Walls (a family I know from my last time serving with Mercy Ships) at the Mercy Ships NZ office. Now I had found the right bus and got off at the right stop then walked to what I thought was the right street, but then after walking from one end to the other and then back of this rather long street I saw a post office building then it finally dawned on me that I had the wrong address, you see I had mistakenly written down the Mercy Ships NZ postal address from the website thinking it was the street address. Oh well not too much was lost so I went and had lunch and a bit more of a look around the city before hoping on a bus back to the airport.

Once back at the airport I walked from the domestic terminal to a nearby hanger where my cousin works for a company flying smaller planes. I found the place ok and then went in and picked up my second big bag that I had left with my cousin for 4 days and walked over to the international terminal. Once there I picked up my other bag from left luggage and proceeded to check in.

Now this is where the fun really started, after making my way to the front on the que and then to the desk everything seemed to be going well, until as the lady was looking through all my paper work tickets, visa wavers etc she said "oh you don't have a ticket for departing the US". I said that I didn't think that would be a problem because I had the visa waver for 90 days and I was going to book a ticket over there. She then said she wasn't sure and went out back to check with her supervisor. After about 10mins she came back and said that her supervisor wasn't sure either so they were calling the US to find out, so then another 10mins later she came back and said sorry but you will need to purchase a departing ticket or they won't let you in. She then said she thought I could purchase a fully refundable ticket from air NZ for a return flight to Auckland and then just cancel it once I was over there and had a new ticket, but when I went to the air NZ help desk the guy told me that there actually were no fully refundable tickets anymore and they all came with a minimum US$300 cancellation fee. So he suggested that I go to flight centre and book a ticket from New York to London as it would be cheaper, so that is what I did I got a ticket from New York to London and it cost me NZ$1850 and has a cancellation fee of US$250. So after doing that it took all of 5 seconds to check me in and get me a nice isle seat near the front of the plane.

So after checking in I went up and went through customs then found myself and nice comfortable seat and pulled out my laptop, just when I had there was an overhead page "Could passenger Timothy Benson, thats passenger Timothy Benson please report to the customs area. I was slightly confused as to why they needed to see me and then as I was walking back down there it hit me. I checked my pocket in me jacket and realised tat I had dropped my passport along with my boarding pass in my rush to get through customs. So as you can imagine my walk quickened up a fair bit, but to my delight when I got there after answering a few questions they produced and handed me my passport and boarding pass.

And that brings us up to this point as I sit here in the Airport waiting for my plane to board, typing this up to post later.

Discovering my Grandmother's roots

Well I am now staying with my Uncle and Aunt in New Plymouth, NZ in their lovely house by the beach. Today we decided to go and see if we could find the farm where my Grandmother (who i never knew) grew up. So we set out from the house with my cousin as our driver and my Aunt as tour guide to see what we could see. We drove through the beautiful country side until we found an old Lighthouse for us to go and look at. It was originally moved from Wellington where it was causing ships to crash and then put up in 1881 in Cape Egmont and has remained in operation since. One reason this lighthouse was particularly interesting to me was because one of my ancestors had at some stage been the lighthouse keeper there. From there we drove on and found the road on which the farm my Grandmother grew up on was, but upon driving down the road we realised that the actual house was no longer there and the whole area had changed unfortunately so my Aunt didn't recognise it as she had not been there for about 25 years. That was a bit of a let down but ok, because I at lest got to see the area in which she grew up. We then traveled a bit further along to the next little town where we visited my mum's cousin Elva who was able to answer a few of our questions about what has happened down the road we were on and what happened to the farm. We stayed for a bit of a chat and a drink before heading off again to the next little coastal town of Openaki. At Openaki we stopped at a nice little cafe for lunch and ended up bumping into Elva again who had come to town for a lunch meeting. From there we headed up to a nice look out over the bay at Openaki where they have a nice little surf beach in the cove. We then started to head back and popped in at the big oil refinery they have out that way and went to the information visitors centre they have set up there and gave ourselves a bit of a tour it is a pretty neat set up with the oil rig about 33km off shore and pipes bringing the oil back straight to the refinery on the land. We then continued home and took a bit of a detour down a beautiful coastal road right along side the water and we came across the local Boat club where someone had built a full size replica of the lighthouse we were at earlier and had put the original light from the other in there on display. From there we headed off and took another detour and this one went past a house owned by one of my mother's other cousins and it is where Tom Cruise had stayed for 6 months while filming "The Last Samurai". We went on further to our real detour destination where we climbed up Maori Pa ( A former Maori fortified village). They built these on little hills formed by the volcanoes in the area and they were fortified by several stone walls and wooden fences as well as trenches around the edge of it. this site is now protected as there are very few of these remaining and it was quiet interesting to see as we climbed up there were a lot of large holes in the ground that were dug out into small caves and these were used for storing supplies and then at the very top there was some remains of where they would have had a small fire place inside their shelters. From there we drove back home after what was all in all a really good day site seeing and learning about my family on my Mothers side.

A day in Auckland with Aunty J

After spending the night with my cousin Josh at his place, a good friend of the my family Juliette (known to me as Aunty J) came and picked me up to spend the day with her. She took me up one tree hill (a good lookout in Auckland and a famous spot that now has no trees on it though) and then gave me a visual tour of Auckland with its history to go with it. It was good to look out and see the city from up there its like a mid point between its two harbors and also good to see the stereotype that NZ is covered in sheep is true as there were even some sheep right there in the middle of the city at the bottom of one tree hill. After that we went back to her place for a nice bit of lunch followed by a trip to Hunua Falls, which were flowing quiet nicely as it had just been raining that morning. After that went for a nice winding drive through the country side around the outside of Auckland. Then back to her place for a nice cup of tea, after which she took me back to the airport so I could fly to New Plymouth.

Arrival in Auckland

Well I left Brisbane on Time and set off on my adventure. The flight was a good one that went really fast. This is the first time I have flown with Air New Zealand in a long time (if ever) and they have a new entertainment interface for the screen in everyones seats and I was a bit shocked to find that I had the choice of about 85 movies for just a 3 hour flight when i am more used to having a choice of 6 at best for a 8 hour flight with other airlines. Anyway I arrived safe and my cousin Josh picked me up from the airport and then took me to see the planes he flies and took me inside the one that was on standby and he was on call for and i got to sit in the cockpit while he showed me how everything works with it, so that was a really cool experience. 

The Final Countdown

Well the time has almost come. I am in the last days before my departure of my next great adventure in life, I have a mere 4 days left in Brisbane with my family and friends before I am heading off. My First stop on this journey will be in New Zealand where i will visit some of my relatives, some of which I have not seen for a very long time. I will be spending 5 days total in New Zealand and will visit both Auckland and New Plymouth. This is something I am really looking forward to, but am also very nervous about as I haven't seen them in so long its like going to see strangers yet family at the same time.

After my time in NZ i will hop on another plane and head for the place where everything is bigger and better(or so I have heard), the big T, Texas. Now this will be my first time in the USA and I am really looking forward to it. While in Texas I will be doing a training course with the organisation Mercy Ships called their Gateway course, this course is like a candidates/orientation course for people who want to volunteer long term with the organisation. The course will go for about a month and I hope and pray that i learn alot from it.

After the Gateway course I plan on making the most of my first time around that side of the world and visiting a few friends i have over there in North America.

After that I will be heading back to what will become my home for at lest the next 2 years hopefully and maybe even more if thats God's plan, the M/V Africa Mercy. This is the only ship that Mercy Ships is currently operating and stays along the West coast of Africa offering specialised Surgical and Medical care, It will be in Benin when i join it. I have previously spent and year living on board this ship as a volunteer crew member, but this time will be a bit different. first off there is the fact that I am going for a longer period of time and also the last time i was on the ship I was self funded and this time i will be relying on my faith in God that he will provide for me through other people donating so that i will be able to pay the crew fees and other expenses i will have.

Well that is a little preview of what is to come for me and I will try and keep you all updated as I go along from stage to stage.