Jesus is alive! That is what we celebrated during Easter and every day thereafter. He not only died on the Cross for my sins, but also arose from the dead! During our time of celebration at Hillsong Church, we sang: "The same power that conquered death, lives in me. The same love that rescued the world, lives in me." That is such an awesome fact…we simply have to live it in obedience!
We departed for New Zealand on Monday, 13 April. We live in a barn (we are not horses, but very blessed people) . We are fortunate to stay on the small farm of the Harpers, outside of Auckland, in a barn which was changed into a house. It is cosy and peaceful.
New Zealand is a very beautiful country. Where ever you look, there is water or green hills. In the begining it almost felt as if more and different beauty would be just too much, that I cannot absorb more, but God gives capacity to be able to continue to enjoy and appreciate. It is as if God gives fresh hunger to see and experience and learn in each new country. We know that our tour is definitely not over, that we still need to see and learn more. The wonder is that the learning goes together with pure enjoyment.
We've been in London, France, Switzerland, Germany, Thailand, Singapore, Australia and now New Zealand. The beauty and diversity of the world, of creation, continues to amaze me.The fact that creation is still continuing, is awesome .God surely is creative! The wonderful thing is that when we start to know the people of each country better, one surely sees that man is the crown of God's creation! What a blessing to spend time with the people that cross our path, it's so precious…
As we travel, we see that it will be easy to live in many different places. There are so many places in this world where a family will have a wonderful life. I meditated about this the past 2 weeks and wondered how one (if you can choose) determines where you live. The obvious things to go by are: "Where is my family?" "What is my culture?" "What and where is my job?" Another question that I've realized is an important one to answer, is: "where will my family be save(as far as I can control it)" If you've sorted that out, it still leaves a vast amount of places to choose from. I came to the point where I've realized that knowing where to live boils down to 2 things:
- Do you understand the Great Exchange? Jesus gave His life for me, my reaction is: "how and where can I serve Him?"
- Do you know your purpose in life? What is it that you were made to do?(your calling)
You see, if you can answer those 2 questions, you know that you can ask God where it is that you must be salt, to help bring out the real taste of life and to be light, to bring out the true colours of this life! Then you live there, you live life to the full, you are content and you know: "I am at the right place for a time such as this." That brings Peace (not the place where you are).
I realized that patriotism has very little to do with your choice, that is if you come to a point where you feel that you must make such a choice. Another thing I've come to realize is that one may never judge any person/family, should they make the choice to move. One can rather help them to make sure that they know they are in God's Will. And the last realization concerning this issue was that, even if you've made your choice on your own, you can still turn back to God and ask Him, in your new country, "where and how do you want me to make a difference?"
As we traveled through many different continents, countries and cities, I surely know: there is nothing like the local church, if the local church is working right AND that a person should belong to a church, a family. That is the starting point of living out your purpose(doesn't matter in which continent you are.)
We are scheduled to leave NZ in 5 days time. We've seen the white beaches and the black beaches, we've seen the green hills and the sea with scattered islands, surrounding us. We trust we will still see much more and the van Wyks (Enid and Vernon) We look forward to it.
We know: for now, we are at the right place. We have Peace and Joy and lots of it!
Thank you Jesus.
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