Many of my friends would know that I've moved down to Dunedin on the 17th February. I apologize for not blogging since the beginning of the year but it's been busy since I've arrived here.
Things are great right now, I've met great friends, a great church and have had some great memories already. Believe that God has opened this path since the beginning of my journey.
Well, to recall what happened, I didn't settle in a day or two. It actually took a good few weeks to familiarize myself and let the feeling sink in that I'm alone..
But through the loneliness and hardship, I believe God's constantly watched over me and he's accompanied me. Reaching a point that I'm satisfied with being in my room alone because I know God's present in my room through the bible I meditate over and the comfort he's provided.
Some of my friends/blog readers just want to know everything that's happening..cause I don't really update through facebook often and don't get a chance to chat.
In saying that, I'll try sum up the past 3 weeks at Dunedin briefly..(sleep soon, have lectures tomorrow morning from 8 -_-)
Week 1: known as o'week,
orientation week is practically a week to confirm courses, get to know people and places. Well to be perfectly honest I didn't have any friends Monday morning after my arrival the night before. It was the first time to ever be this alone...unfortunately Monday morning there was a loud siren at 7am and to my surprise I didn't know what to do..I wasn't even sure if there was a fire and if there was, I had no clue where to go..I stayed in bed and waited for the siren to stop and I was clueless to the situation..minutes passed and the siren silenced. I checked outside and after some time a large group of people started to come back into the halls. Yeah, I missed the fire alarm, day 1. No one to contact or ask..just a good laugh now that I think about it, fob asian fresher -_-
Luckily that morning I made a few friends at breakfast. Everyone wore name tags and I met a guy named Jaume and Te Rana, we had small talk and I had to confirm my course at uni in the afternoon so I left and made my way to campus..
Arrived on time and found out that I didn't have anything else to do after my confirmation..from the experience in the morning I decided to talk to a guy who was also in line. There was nothing to do. We went to a cafe and his name was Emeka, he came from London to study commerce and during his stay here his ultimate goal was rugby, to play with the Highlanders and hopefully New Zealand.
The remainder of the day passed slowly. I arrived back in Salmond Hall in hope to meet new friends, every meal intended to have a conversation based on
-your name
-what you study
-where you're from
Honestly, it was a hard day to make friends; you don't know anyone because you came last night and everyone who came few days before had the jist of what to do and had friends. I remember that night reading the bible alone in my room,
Romans 14:13
'Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling blocks or obstacles in your brothers way'
I came to a conclusion that this passage were reassuring words of God. No one who is God's pupil will judge me and that I shouldn't judge people by what I perceive. Had a good nights sleep in hope that God will answer my prayers soon.
Day 2: sports day is an event where all the colleges (halls of residence) gather and have a competition in sports. It's like an athletics day but the events are all team sports and against other colleges. I was thankful to meet new friends in my favorite sport, soccer. We won, lost and drew but overall had a good outcome, meeting new friends.
Day 3: Ice Skating was on that night but from soccer the previous day I sprained my ankle so I went to the physiotherapy clinic recommended by one of the residential leaders. It was a long walk to the clinic but eventually I arrived and got it checked by a 4th year physiotherapy student. Nothing was serious and time had my recovery in its hands.
If you know me..you know that I love iceskating and regardless of my injury I went iceskating and it was..so fun! The night was good and made many more friends :)
Day 4: at Salmond College there is a main common room where we have a pool table, table tennis table and table hockey. It was one of the first times I went that day and it was great. Showed off my pool skills haha, and had a great time just relaxing that day with new friends.
Day 5: it was coming to an end of o'week and tonight was bowling. But the same day me and my friends bought cruiser boards cause the walk from uni to Salmond College took 20minutes. With the board it took a bit longer than 10mins. Well in the evening we went bowling.. Yeah..I also enjoy bowling.. Met even more new people from everywhere in New Zealand as well as internationals. Our college went to a local bowling alley, I scored 140 the first game and to my surprise they wanted me to play in the finals with other high scoring players.
(final outcome, not so good)
Day 6: Saturday we had a beach bash. We arrived at a beach 30min from Salmond College. We just enjoyed the sun and games while it lasted. The water was amazingly clear compared to Auckland's beaches.
Day 7: the lords day, after an eventful week it was the Lords day (Sunday). I wasn't sure where to go as there weren't many signs of Korean churches and unfortunately it was one of the rare occasions I missed out on church. I was really disappointed in myself and sorry to God. Mum wasn't too happy as well.
Looking back the bible was in the same position a week ago. I felt I betrayed myself and God, I get frustrated at others who don't attend church and that day I missed church, and I also didn't meditate daily..
Since the day I left Auckland I had no one to tell me off for anything I did. As long as I had money, time and friends there were no restrictions to what I could do. The freedom at uni was so different to high school and living at home. As I reflected back on the week I read the bible;
Romans 2:24-25
24) As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."
25) Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised.
I was reminded of myself and thought that it was a great verse to describe my present situation. We could assume that the circumcision is a sign of being a Christian, cause back when Paul wrote this book to the Romans it was known that Jews were circumcised as a sign of their religion. But as for us, we could compare circumcision with one of the signs in the 21st century which is a baptism. I've been baptized and reborn a new.
However as the bible says circumcision has value IF you observe the law. It hit me that night, when I knew I hadn't followed what God had wanted me to do, I've been sidetracked and occupied by the world. And the value of my baptism was gone, I was just another lost soul in the world. Through the observation I gained, I prayed and got myself back on track; to glorify God through every action.
I thank God for helping me and showing me what he wanted through the bible, I believe when you pray and seek he will without a doubt fulfill what is needed. He's waiting outside your door knocking, but you're preoccupied by what's going on that you can't hear him. Only when you focus to him and pray His resolution will become focused.
Concluding, as it's a real long post of just my first week, I want to say that whatever may happen set sight back onto your priorities. What is it that you need, is it facebook, shopping, that extra 10min in bed? Or is it our daily bread, His words of wisdom or His glory? Whatever you may do, constantly reflect on yourself, on your day and ask God, pray to Him. Then things can only get better from there because He's absolutely amazing!!
Enough for a single blogpost, will upload photos at the end of this for you all and more posts coming up on my blessed journey so far in Dunedin. :)
God Bless, and goodnight!
P.S. not sure how to move the photos and add headings to it...but it's pretty self explanatory mostly..
P.S.S. Last photo, I'm sleeping on the way to the beach cause we had a tour (Baldwin St, steepest street in the world) and I was pretty tired from the week..
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