Heading home!

We are headed home after 6 months of ministry and traveling in 5 continents, 21 countries, 17 flights and 168 days out of the states. We have a long journey ahead of us to get there! On December 20 we will travel for 40 hours. We can't wait to see our family and friends. We have had the privledge to serve these past 6 months and wish to continue following God's will and serving Him the rest of our lives. We have full faith in God, He is in control.

Jesus was born into this world both completely divine and completely human. He brought light to this world. All those who believe in Him will be saved. Merry Christmas and thank you God for sending your son to die for us!


***Classifieds***
Two hard-working young adults seek employment. They are heading back to the states and seeking jobs, opportunities and more ways to serve. Tell your families and friends. Any interested parties can contact them at rainerpowell7@gmail.com

Chocolate...

We finally did it! We got to go to a chocolate factory. We toured the Cadbury Factory in Dunedin. It was awesome. They made us wear little hair nets. We learned the history of the company and how to make chocolate. They gave us samples throughout the building... which had the most delicous smell! They even had a 1 ton liquid chocolate drop down a silo. Good times....

O2 Cool

It gets hot. We 'followed summer' around the globe the past 6 months and sometimes it was hot! It was rainy and cold many, many places for days and week, but for alot of the time, it was hot in the places we slept (tents, church classrooms, safari bungalows, bedrooms, hotels, motels, bunkrooms, and trailers). Rainer carried our O2 Cool fan all over the world for us. The first month or so when we didn't have power it used massive batteries. Then, we had to use our converter for all the different outlets all over the world.

...after about 3 weeks of Rainer hauling around O2 Cool in a very heavy backpack, with huge batteries and flight restrictions, Rainer realized that it still had the dead batteries in there...

O2 Cool sightings...

Very puzzling....

Haast to Queenstown via Wanaka. We visited 'puzzling world' in Wanaka. Lots of interesting visual illusions and a huge maze. We had to search for the four corners and then back to the beginning. We had a great time looking for the corners, but after that, it took us so long to find the end! haha

We continued on to Queenstown, the adventure capitol. The landscape is amazing!

Lake by Wanaka

Backwards clock

Lost?

Hmmm?

When we stepped on the stairs, the room felt level and balanced

Hobbit Rainer

Giant Rainer

Deer farms

Queenstown from above

Their crayfish looks like lobster!

On the road again...

We drove down the west coast. We visited the pancake rocks in Punakaiki, had lunch in Greymouth, and walked through Hoikitika. The waves were huge along the coast. Biggest we’d ever seen. We spent the night in Franz Joseph town at the foot of the glacier by the same name.

In one day Rainer and I visited a glacier, hiked through hills thick with rainforest-like greenery, and hung out on the beach with seals. It was crazy. We walked up to the Franz Joseph glacier then ate lunch around Lake Matheson, in view of Mount Cook and the Fox Glacier on Mount Tasman. It was a gorgeous day so we drove down to Gillespie’s beach for Rainer to fulfill his dream of being on the beach in view of snow-capped peaks.

Then Rainer decided we needed to take one of the hikes from that beach. We took the longest hike, about 4 hours, to a seal colony on the beach side of a huge bluff. We walked on the beach, through the forest and one time I was knee deep in mud! We finally got to the beach and slowly walked up on a seal behind a rock. They startle easy so we had to be very quiet. After watching it for 10 minutes and spying others swimming in the surf, we moved closer. The seal saw us, turned, widened its eyes, showed its teeth, lunged towards us and hissed… I was so scared! Finally it ‘ran’ into the sea and swam away. So, how do you fight a seal??

Pancake rocks!

Huge waves!

Does anyone think this looks like the end of the 'Goonies'?!

Coming through the rocks

Cool waterfall


In the Getz

Huge waves up close!

What's left of a 1932 Gold mine

A ladder down to the beach on the seal hike

Beautiful

Waterfall at the beach

Our 'friend'

Running away

Swimming away...

On the beach, with glacier in the background

Another waterfall

The famous Mount Cook

This is where they bottle Coke-Cola from

Beach & glacier

Franz Joseph Glacier

Willing and Abel Tasman

When we told the local chef that helps out at the YWAM base that we were driving Auckland to Queenstown he said, 'you know there's a ditch in the middle'.

We crossed another body of water on a ferry. Although it wasn't as rough as the English channel, it wasn't smooth sailing either. We dropped our rental car in Wellington and picked up a different one in Picton (same company, same booking, but each island likes to keep their cars for themselves).

We went with Kerry and the Bubbly Grape for a fantastic wine tour outside Blenheim. It was a really cool experience. We went from well-known vineyards to a local place where the owner poured tastings for us. Cool afternoon.

Yesterday we left Abel Tasman National Park. One of the most beautiful places. It's where rolling green hills/mountains meets the ocean. We found a neat sandbar to explore and watched horses walk in the sea at low tide. The next day we tried out the beach at Kaiteriteri, played some mini golf and then discovered the coolest zipline in the park! We laughed forever riding on this thing... and it was free!

Off to the west coast of the south island for a few days. Back to our road trip norm which is Rainer driving, me in the passenger seat- which is on the left or course, but still weird. Out of the speakers we alternate between a Robert Morris study on listening to God and Dan Patrick's daily podcasts.

On the ferry

We also went to a chocolate shop

Rows and rows of grapes

At a vineyard


Rainer guarding the hut he found while exploring

Rainer far away on the sand bar

Zipline!

This was the best part... the big swing at the end of the line

Dan from New Zealand

When we were in Kenya we made great friends with Dan from Napier, New Zealand. He returned from Africa a week ago, so we decided to go visit him! We drove through the beautiful countryside and met Dan in downtown Napier, which is on the East coast of the north island. He showed us around the town, we walked the pier, checked out all the sailboats and then met his parents. They prepared us a delicious feast!

On Friday Dan took us all around downtown checking out his favorite spots. Rainer and Dan took on putt-putt while I continued to look around. It was great to catch up and talk about our experiences in Kenya. Eventually we said goodbye to our Kiwi friend and drove on down to Wellington to catch the ferry in the morning.

At the overlook in Napier

Putt-putt by the ocean

At Dan's house