Firstly, I must apologize. It has been a solid spell without any updates to this blog, which has been partially due to working, faffing and general slackness. Again, I'm sorry.
BUT.
This particular blog has a special significance. Not in the crazy, disneylanding, road-tripping kind of way, but in the mere fact that It has been a full year since Paul and I left New Zealand for a new adventure. And I happen to think that is pretty cool! So, I thought I'd attempt to condense a year of travel into a single blog - not to specify all of the details and stuff we've done - but to simply put into words how we got here. Here goes.
It's so wierd to think that a year ago, we were just a couple of freshies flying out of Auckland airport, unsure of what to expect in a country we really knew little about, except that it bordered the United States to the north, and that it offered some pretty good snowboarding. For those of you who are still clueless of the destination, I am talking about Canada. Vancouver Island to be precise. We already were, in a sense, set up. We had the job at a kids’ camp organized, and all we really had to do was get there from the airport. Nevertheless, it was an important experience. We were out of university and out of New Zealand, and ready for something new. Camp signified the beginning of our travels, adventures and shenanigans to come. Yeah.
Camp was, in many ways, the perfect start to our expedition. We just lived, talked and breathed it. Accommodation was provided, food was available (if not always edible!) and loads of fresh faces were always about. It was great to meet so many new people and establish new friendships and connections for the future.
By the end of camp, however, we had little idea of exactly what we were gonna do next. The little bit of cash we got at the end of it was a helpful buffer, but hardly enough to embark on a Canadian tour of sorts. We needed work fast, and that was all there was to it. Thankfully, we had a weeks’ time to think about it as we stayed with our friend Mel and his awesome family in Salmon Arm, B.C. This was a great time of re-coupe ration after the hecticness of camp, yet Paul and I were plagued by the fact that after this week was done, we would be on our own in this huge unexplored mass. We frantically began contacting the oil rigs on the arctic fringe of Northern Canada, hoping to score work as some bottom-of-the-barrel labourer amidst the freezing temperatures. We had little luck however, so figured we needed to just trip it up there, and talk to them directly, rather than deal with the tired receptionists directing your calls to either answering machines or to painful online applications. Yippee.
Unsurprisingly, this time was filled with prayer. I mean, we weren’t quite at the desperate stage, but we were getting close. Paul had only about $800 in his New Zealand bank account, and I had only a bit more. Yet despite all sources pointing to pushing the ‘panic button’, we didn’t. It might sound a little hippy, but we really knew it was going to work out, because God was in the picture. We figured that if we tried our absolute best to find work and a place to stay, God was more than willing to meet us in the middle. Indeed, my relationship with God grew drastically during this time. It’s an amazing and refreshing feeling to diligently seek Him in times of need rather than want. We needed this to work out.
Literally the night before we were to leave Salmon Arm, I got a facebook message from my friend Jen who I had met from camp, albeit for a week. She was living in Calgary, Alberta, and was house-sitting for a friend of hers. She said that we were welcome to come stay for a bit. We obliged, and jumped on the infamous Greyhound bus the next morning. We stayed at her house for a couple of nights, until she needed the place for a youth night she was running. She kindly offered to have us stay for the weekend at her parents’ house, so we did. Her family was great. There was immediately a real connection between all of us, it was uncanny. On the last night of our stay there, we were still unsure of where God was going to lead us next. Yet we were strangely calm and completely unphased by it all. The next morning, Jen’s parents greeted us with not a goodbye, but a proposition. They had been praying, too, and really felt that God wanted them to have us stay longer. We couldn’t believe it. It was such an amazing blessing; a testament to what relying on God alone can do. We had a job within the next few days (again such a blessing) and ended up staying in Calgary for about three months. Praise the Lord.
Our next adventure involved moving to the little ski town of Fernie, B.C. We had hooked up a job working at the ski resort for the winter, as well as living in a flat and reuniting with a few of our good friends from camp. This marked the first time we had actually lived entirely independently since leaving New Zealand in May. We would have to work, pay for utilities and buy groceries and cook. And live with a bunch of guys. So naturally the living was not always clean, but we had the time of our lives. Highlights included learning to snowboard, having our first white Christmas with an awesome family (thanks the Francks) and of course meeting some more awesome people along the way. Love you all.
Back in Calgary, we had realized that we were in fact eligible for an all-new one year working visa in the US, as long as we had completed our application before April 2009. Yet in typical ShaunPaul fashion, we left it until the last minute. We naively thought that it would be a similar application process for the US visa as it was for the Canadian one. In short, a doddle. However we soon realized it was going to in fact be far more difficult. But it had to be done, and we knew it was all going to happen. Pronto. So, after countless pages of paperwork, haircut, phone calls, photo id’s and interviews later (where I got hauled out of the building by security – another story entirely), we got the visas. We later learned that we are in fact the first New Zealanders to get a visa of this kind. Crazy huh. Anywho, we booked the flights into L.A Airport and flew out of Canada and into a new and untapped foreign experience. So here we are.
I have come to expect things from God. An experience [I will recollect later, I promise] I had taught me that we should never be concerned with ‘waiting’ on God to perform or help us in times of need. The truth is He is in fact waiting on us, waiting for us to believe. If we do our utmost in times of need, God will always meet you in the middle if you expect that from Him. One year overseas has been a time of fun, growth, maturity, and, I think achievement. As cheesy as it my sound, Paul and I are proud of what we’ve managed to do. From dreaming of travel on the couch at our Cook St flat in Hamilton to the hustle and bustle of Orange County, California. For me, I’m stoked. I have a feeling that this journey is going to continue for a wee while yet. If you’re still here with me, thanks for reading this little note of nostalgia. I know that it’s not all related to the current ‘American Adventure’ theme of this blog, but its important to us and how we got here. So to everyone, thanks for being part of this experience thus far. Thanks for caring, and we hope to see you soon – whatever hemisphere that be in. Over and out.
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