Hobbitland.

Well, after 10 months of planning and preparing, I have finally arrived safely in New Zealand.  It is still extremely surreal that I am here... Living in ChristChurch... for 6 months... WHAT?! Yeah. Nuts.  Seriously, I have not really been able to find the right words and I have been here almost 3 days...

Sorry that this is my first post since my arrival, but it's been a crazy couple of days between adjusting to being here, getting situated in my new Kiwi home, and meeting all the staff at ReChurch.  I PROMISE that I will write more starting... Well, TODAY! HURRAY!

I left Chicago on Sunday... three long flights, two layovers, and one helpful travel buddy later (shoutout to BEN!), I finally landed in NZ on Tuesday.  I arrived at the airport in ChristChurch in the morning and was greeted by Hamish (the pastor of ReChurch) and his wife, Molly, as well as my host family (Yolande - Yo for short - Neil and Ethan - who is almost 3). After this, we headed right over to the house where I will be living and dropped my things off.  Not too long after this, Hamish and Molly picked me up and wanted to take me on a quick tour of the city!  They KNEW how exhausted I was... and looked (yikes)... but they knew how important it was to keep me up and adjust to the time change... 19 hours ahead of Omaha and Chicago to be exact... We went to the Botanical Gardens downtown, visited the Cathedral square at the center of town, went to the Canterbury museum, and went to the Pier along the beach.  After this, I had dinner with my host family and basically just sat around with them the rest of the night and had tea.  Kiwis are HUGE coffee and tea drinkers... which is perfect for my lifestyle! I will fit right in in that area of life.  I, miraculously, stayed up till probably 10:30.  Don't know how that happened, but it was good.

The next morning, I woke up and met up with Molly so we could go to the bank to finish setting up my bank account.  However, after a couple mishaps, we ended up missing my appointment (read my Bethisms blog for the story, ha ha ha!) but ended up rearranging it and meeting with the banker later in the day.  After the meeting, I sat around and had tea with Yo, we went to the local mall to pick up dinner, and then that evening, I went to coffee and a movie with some girls that go to ReChurch.  It was great to start getting connected with more and more people... even if most of them are older than me, married, and have kids.

Today, I had my first orientation day for my internship with ReChurch.  I met with Hamish and the communications director and we discussed my personality profile, my strengths and weaknesses, and discussed conflict a little.  Tomorrow will be my second day of orientation and we'll talk more about cultural encounters and such.  The rest of the day involved lunch, unpacking my bags and organizing my room (FINALLY!!!!!!!), going to the beach, dinner, and then Bible Study.

Even though I have had much time to sit and relax and reflect on my experiences in NZ so far, it's been really good staying busy.  I have loved meeting more people and getting right into things and being really active in what is going on around the city and with the people I am living with and interacting with the most over the next 6 months.

I will make sure that my next posts aren't just broad daily recaps! Love you all.