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Bible College

So my time at Bible College began. We had about 30 students, mainly from the greater Auckland area. Most of these I haven’t seen since that time. The exception would be Bev and Peter Mortlock who are now pastors of a large church. The married couples lived in the old Caughey Preston homestead and the singles lived in an annexe built over the classrooms of Hebron College, as it was known then. Lectures were held on the ground floor in the front room, and the dining room and kitchen were down a short passage. When visitors were expected we would gather in the dining room. One such time a visiting preacher Jack Winters shared ‘the Father Heart of God’. It was a very moving experience as the Lord demonstrated His love through Jack’s ministry. These are some of the lecturers who taught us in 1981: Rob Wheeler (Principal), John Corin, Ian Williams, Richard Colgrove, Howard Branham, Allan Arnold and John Carter. They gave us a wide range of topics to increase our knowledge of the Christian beliefs. A memorable time was when I was hearing about Melchizedek who was a fore-runner or a ‘type’ of Jesus. I felt like I was going back in time being with the people at that time; in short, a revelation from God. Some of the students thought I was nodding off when in fact I was receiving from the Lord first hand. This would have been a lecture about Bible History.

One subject we had was Homiletics; the art of preparing a sermon. I did mine on ‘service’ using John’s Gospel chapter 13 verses 4-17. I focussed on the difference between washing someone’s feet with a hose as opposed to washing them using a basin. With a hose you don’t have to make contact with their feet, but if one uses a basin then you must touch and remove the dirt from their feet. I had a bit of hose, a basin and a chair for props. My fellow students were in peals of laughter when I produced the props, especially the hose. As we read the rest of these verses Jesus explains the way in which He wants us to serve each other. I shared an experience of how two people helped me overcome some rather deep hurt by using Jesus’s way of serving. I then told them of a time I had helped someone in a very practical way. This left me carrying a smell that others noticed. In my case this smell took some time to go away. There are even times that people lose their reputation as a result of helping folk, but still they will do it out of love to see the person restored. At the end I was asked by one of the Pastors why I didn’t go on to do the foot washing part. I replied it would have taken the rest of the day and I would have needed their help to proceed. Greek is the subject I got the lowest marks in. I have never been good at picking up languages probably because of my hearing loss.

It was about this time that the Lord started to show me some of the history of worship while reading the account of the transfiguration of Jesus in Matthew chapter 17 verses 1-8. This is also referred to in the other Gospels. I felt as if my mind was being enlarged to the point that I could no longer contain it. The presence of God was so close that I felt I was there with those in the account. All I wanted to do was get closer. Oh, I felt so humble and yet so totally amazed, as I bowed in worship to my Lord. This reminded me of Mary, sister of Lazarus, who poured the ointment on Jesus’s feet and wiped them with her hair as an act of worship.

We would be in church on Sundays and hear a new song. When we came back after lunch we learnt the song and practised it. One time I remember some of the young ones danced on the tabletops to the song I Will Bless the Lord and Give Him Glory. Occasionally Rob, who lived in the grounds, would come over to us and we would sit on the floor or chairs and just listen as he talked about different people in the Bible in an informal way just as you would imagine Jesus with his disciples. What lovely times they were. One time I remember it turning into a sing-a-long around the piano. We took turns in playing the piano ‘Holy Spirit style.’ I played songs that I’d never played before, nor since. While I was at Bible College I experienced inner healing from past issues that were hindering my spiritual growth. Bill and Vicky Salisbury, our house parents at Bible College were a great help and support to me during that time. We became firm friends until 1986 when they went back to Australia to live, and I went to Youth With A Mission. It was a parting of the ways for us both as we lost touch with each other.

I was able to live off my savings that year. I never thought of going to WINZ for assistance as I didn’t think it would have been available in those days. I do know some of the students had to work in order to pay their fees. Aunty Lucy and Mum came to my graduation at the end of the year where I graduated with a Diploma of Theology.

Transition

I stayed on in Auckland and was asked to stay with an elderly lady who wasn’t very well, for a couple of weeks. My cooking skills were minimal in those days and I don’t think any of her relations had any idea that she was as ill as she was. I offered to move out so they could move in. Soon after my departure she died. It was rather a difficult time for me as I went there as a complete stranger with no one to introduce me to her.

Pastoral Care

Bill and Vicky Salisbury were the pastors of a small local church in Otahuhu. They offered to have me stay in their house while they went on holiday for six weeks. While I was staying there I helped look after the church. Another lady, who worked in the weekdays, helped me in the weekends with the services. I experienced what a pastor’s life was like: taking the phone calls, arranging the home group, helping the worship team and doing the housework without a washing machine. The washing was done in the bath. That meant wringing the clothes by hand- sheets and all! To earn a bit of money I would do ironing for church members and painted some doorsteps. I walked everywhere as I couldn’t afford bus fares. Mum came to stay with me that Christmas. What a culture shock it was for her. She had never seen such poor and needy people before and wondered how long I would stay with the church. My response was “as long as I’m needed.” It was during that year the church closed because it was not showing signs of growth. Looking back I’m so thankful that the Lord had it all in hand.

On The Move

When Bill and Vicky returned I stayed with a girl in a house but we were not compatible so, with the help of my very good friend Carol, I moved to a flat in Middlemore for about three months. It was a lovely sunny spot on the corner of the section. Mum came down from Whangarei to help me buy some second hand furniture and a fridge. Someone from the church loaned me a bed and some blankets. I really enjoyed my time there. Aunty Lucy and Uncle Allan came to visit me from Westmere while Mum was down. One day when I was making some scones, I could feel some heat and wondered where it was coming from. The tea towel had caught on the oven element. Eeeech! The flames were coming up to meet me so I ran to the tub and turned on the tap and put an end to that! Unfortunately some ashes dropped on the carpet. When I moved out to work at Meadowbank I lost my bond as a result of that mishap.

Camp

During Easter that year I went to Mangawhai Heads with my friend Wendy and a youth group from her local church. It rained from the time we left home until we packed up to come back again. In spite of the weather it was a great weekend where the youngsters experienced the love of the Lord in a very real way as the Holy Spirit moved amongst them bringing healing. They were not accustomed to altar calls, so I watched and as the Lord showed me, I prayed with one person who was set free from bondage and came into the joy of the Lord and remained that way for the rest of the time at camp.

While I was at camp I saw an advertisement in the paper for a job at the Meadowbank Home for the Elderly. I applied and was successful. It was a live-in position, so I had to give up the flat which I had really enjoyed living in. That job was a split shift and a relieving situation which demanded quite a lot from me. I had to remember the names of sixty people and work on three different levels. When they wanted me to do nights in the hospital area I declined, so that job came to an end.

Epsom

Almost immediately I was offered a job at Knox Home and Hospital on Ranfurly Rd in Epsom. I got an interview and the job opened up before my very eyes. Knox is a rest home for the elderly with a hospital, rest home and frail ambulant facility. It served about 120 people when I was working there in the 1980s. There were also about ten units, like flats. Part of my job was to keep an eye on these residents once or twice a day.

I knew this was God’s provision at this time so I wanted to dedicate my work to the Lord in gratitude for what He had given me. I also decided to do my best for my employer, love the people and accept any remuneration they chose to pay me. When I later purchased my home unit in Mt Albert Rd I dedicated it to the Lord as well and He has never seen me wanting for anything. Even today I feel safe and protected by Him wherever I go.

At this time I had to find a flat in Newmarket. My friend Carol came to the rescue again and we found a flat on Middleton Rd. It was next to the Police Station where you heard the comings and goings throughout the night and the odd siren go off. I stayed there for fifteen months. One day I returned home from work to find that I had locked myself out. I walked around and found an open window so I was able to climb in. I thought that a policeman might ask me what I was doing but no one did. I was quite disappointed! Vicky asked me if I would take in a girl who was living in a shed at the back of a garden centre and looking for work. I agreed to take her in for five weeks so she had a time frame to work to. She was a lovely, happy and attractive little thing. On one occasion I went with her to an interview and waited for her. As she came out there was a beaming smile for the job was hers. A few days later she found a place to stay nearer to where she was working.

Singing

It was about this time I started taking singing lessons with Mary Newlyn. How did this come about? I made a Jewish friend who was working at Knox Home with me. She offered to introduce me to Mary as she had been learning singing from her. My friend left Knox Home a short time later. I found my own way by taxi to Sandringham Rd where Mary, a Christian, lived. She had about fifteen pupils, both children and adults. During the year we would have evenings where we would “Sing for our Supper.” One time I noticed I didn’t have a very good attitude to the mother of one of the students. I walked down the road to get fish and chips for our tea. Thinking about my bad attitude to the mother, I said to the Lord “You know I can’t stand her, please give me your love for her.” At the end of the evening we had a prayer time and I was able to pray for her with a real sense of God’s love. At Christmas time we would go to the shopping malls to sing Christmas Carols. We had training days for others who would like to see what was involved. Mary and I always prayed before these events and also prayed for the pupils.

Canberra

Mary told me about a team that was going on a crusade to Canberra, Australia, with Stuart Gramenz. She put me in touch with them and I went. I met the team at the airport and we were billeted in an area close to the city. The weather was cold and windy the whole time we were there but we prayed together in the square. Someone asked what we were looking for on the ground as we bowed our heads. “We are praying,” we said, “would you like to join us?” After that we would break up into pairs and walk around the streets and talk to the people and tell them about the crusade. If they wished we would pray for them. The crusade was held in a large sports pavilion in Canberra and lasted five days. I believe this is when I was introduced to the healing ministry as I began to see legs grow and headaches go when I prayed. Stuart Gramenz came to New Zealand and had some meetings in Wellington which I went to. I had kept in touch with a couple I had met on the Canberra trip and was able to stay with them. Again I had the opportunity to pray for healing. A young Asian woman joined me and the Lord really moved as we prayed for many people. Legs grew and headaches went! One lady had a problem with hearing voices. They went as well. What a glorious time we had. This happened while I was still working at Knox.

Dove Ministries

While I was going to Royal Oak Baptist Church, Alison and Frank Patten introduced me to Bill Subritzky’s ministry where, through his training days, I learned much more about healing. Bill would have his meetings on Tuesday nights at Greenlane Christian Fellowship. Someone would pick me up and drop me off after the meeting at work for the night shift. In the morning I would go to bed for an hour then take a bus to Pat Subritzky’s ladies’ meeting on Wednesday mornings. One time I was praying for a lady who had an eye problem which was healed after I prayed for her. I said to her that Jesus is the healer and to give Him thanks and all the praise. It was exciting to see the Lord moving in our midst as He so often did. I was in the worship team for a while too and would pray for people at the end of the meeting and saw different kinds of healing take place. At one stage Mum was staying with me so I asked her if she would like to come. She agreed to come and my friends Mary and Brian Holden came to pick us up. When it came time for prayer she went forward and received a real touch from the Lord as Bill prayed for her. A few days later she returned to her home to Whangarei and some of her friends who noticed a change in her said “What has happened to you?” Mum said “I’ve been to Dr Bill’s meeting.” I had to laugh when I heard that she had called him Doctor Bill.

Aglow

I was beginning to get itchy feet as I hadn’t had a holiday from work for 18 months. The Women’s Aglow conference was coming up and I wanted to go to that so I asked for the time off. It wasn’t until I reminded them at work that my holidays were overdue that I got the time to go. During the conference I sensed the Lord was telling me to resign. As usual, I had no idea what the Lord was up to next!

A Home Of My Own

While I was working at Knox Home, Vicky and Bill encouraged me to buy a home unit. At that time I didn’t think I had enough money to get a deposit, but as I looked at my bank account and some debentures, I realised I had two thirds of the amount to buy a unit in Mount Albert Rd. Somehow I knew that if I didn’t buy in 1982 I wouldn’t have been able to get into the market at all. I took six months to find 673 Mt Albert Rd. It was a miracle as I was able to purchase the unit for $48,000 instead of $53,000. I remained there for twenty three years. I continued to work at Knox Home and Hospital until I went to Youth With A Mission (YWAM) in 1986.

Learning About Missions

I was going to a house group linked to Royal Oak Baptist when I met someone who was serving on the Anastasis, one of the boats that belong to YWAM. She was telling us about her adventures on board and how life-changing it was. I wondered if I could do anything like that. There was a course for the youth called Kings’ Kids which I had heard of but I was too old for that! I then discovered that there was a course for older people called Crossroads. “Ah,” I thought, “does this happen here in New Zealand?” I asked around, only to find that I would have to go to Australia or Hawaii. We had a YWAM Base in Onehunga at that time and I found out the addresses to enquire about getting the application forms for both Australia and Hawaii. The application forms arrived within days of each other. It took a while to get all the details they required. That done, I had to wait for the results as to which school would accept me. When the replies came in, to my surprise I was accepted by both of them! Now I had to make up my mind whether it would be Australia or Hawaii I would go to. After weighing up the pros and cons, I prayed about it and decided that Hawaii was the place the Lord wanted me to be. At the time I had recently recovered from a period of depression. My blood levels were out of whack. After being rude to my doctor, she put me on iron pills which proved to be just what I needed, although I had to keep taking them the whole time I was away.

My home had to be rented out and I had to find someone to take care of my cat. Mum said “Why on earth are you doing this so soon after buying your home?” I believed this was the next step in my journey. I put all my belongings in the back bedroom and let it out for five months as a one bedroom unit for the princely price of $90 per week. Aunty Lucy offered to let me stay with her until I went and also said that I could come back to her place when I returned. What a blessing that was.

Another blessing was learning to hear from God about everyday things. While I was packing my bright red suitcase at Aunty Lucy’s the day before I was to leave, I couldn’t find the pair of white shoes that I wanted to wear for the journey. We unpacked the case… still no shoes! It wasn’t until 3 o’clock in the morning that the Lord prompted me to look up high in the hot water cupboard where my nursing uniforms had been put away out of Aunty Lucy’s way. In the morning I asked Aunty Lucy to pull the uniforms down and out tumbled the shoes.

Struggles

Mum found it hard realising that I was flying on my own to Hawaii. In some ways she thought I would change my mind. There was a bit of friction about that. I had no intention of doing that as I was quite certain that the Lord had guided me. On the day I was leaving, the Concorde plane was to land just before I was due to fly out. It was the largest plane to have ever landed in New Zealand at that time. Because of the crowds expected at the airport, Bill and Vicky came to the house to say goodbye to me. We were interested in the Concorde because Mr Wenham, a friend from Whangarei, was an engineer who had been involved with the design of the plane in Britain. While I was working in Whangarei, Mum and I had become good friends with Mr and Mrs Wenham who had retired to New Zealand from England. Mrs Wenham used to take me to choir.

YWAM

It was a long flight to Hawaii arriving there at 1 o’clock in the morning. There would be just five hours to wait until I would fly to the Big Island of Hawaii where PACU, the Christian University, was based. I asked if I could wait in the airport but was told that I couldn’t so, because it was a balmy night, I discovered a phone booth and decided to sit on my suitcase and read a book. A security guard kept an eye on me and escorted me back to the airport when it was open again at 5.30 am. Daylight was just dawning as I flew over to the big island and I saw the sun rise like a big golden ball in a cloudless sky. I thought that there would be someone to meet me but there wasn’t so I found a taxi and asked him to take me there. We drove around the campus until someone appeared from their unit. They looked after me then until we found one of the leaders. It was the weekend and I had arrived on a Sunday. It was a bit of a challenging start because it seemed like no one was expecting me to arrive that day. Eventually I was shown my room. Having put my case on the floor, I looked around to find that there were two other girls in the same room. One had moved in and the other was yet to come. I crashed on the bed until 5 pm that evening when my roommate offered me some food and helped me unpack. I was glad that I’d arrived when I did as I was able to get over the jet lag in time to start lectures. Dean Sherman was our School Leader who welcomed us. All the other students had arrived by then: sixty-two of us. Some were married couples with families and the children went to school on campus. In my room I had a Malaysian lady whom I discovered was a doctor and another lady from the States that I never really got to know. There were folk from Canada, Germany and a small group from Asia and of course the United States of America. We were shown around the campus. It was a short walk to the kitchen and dining area and the accommodation wings were behind there. The administration office was separate but only a few minutes walk away. The lecture room was simply a roof on four poles with the stage end covered in by a wall. It was great to work in as there was a gentle breeze most days and I don’t remember any rain while I was there. Kona, the small township, was within walking distance of the campus. If you were driving, the speed limit was eighty miles an hour. If we wanted a pick-me-up after a hard day we would go down and have an iced coffee and what was known as mud pie, which was a crushed dark biscuit base with coffee ice cream and whipped cream on top. Yumm, I can still taste it just as we did as we sat near the palm trees and looked over the ocean. The shops were small in a kind of a rustic circle and there was a man with a parakeet on his shoulders who walked and talked to folk that were fascinated by it. Sometimes the bird would jump on your shoulder if you were standing by. There was a twenty-four hour grocery store we could go to when needed. It was amazing to think you could buy food in the middle of the night!

Lectures were from 9 am until 3 pm as we all had duties to perform. I got ‘two hours of pushing broom’ like the old song King of the Road says. My chore was sweeping the concrete space where people came and went for their meals. It was great as I got to meet some interesting people coming and going and I had time to talk or show them where to go to find those in charge. I would help to set the meal tables sometimes. We were responsible for keeping our own areas clean and tidy. In the weekends we had to do our own meals so we stocked up on Fridays. On Saturdays we had to do our personal washing. I soon found out that you needed to keep an eye out for your clothes because if they fell and stayed on the ground for any length of time they would be scorched as the sun was so hot. I lost a lovely white jacket that way. I just couldn’t believe it.

We were challenged in all sorts of ways: how we got on with each other, how well our relationship was going with God and later on time management. This became more apparent when we went on outreach or missions. Early on in my time at YWAM I had a friend in New Zealand who had a child suffering with cancer and knew it was spreading throughout her body. Her Mum wrote saying that things were getting worse. On receiving the news, all that I wanted to do was to pray for complete healing- in short, a miracle. However, when I went to tell my classmates and pray for the child, the Lord shut my mouth and didn’t even allow me to speak about it at all. Some time later I heard that the child had died peacefully in her Mother’s arms- a very real example of what the Lord can do when I was at odds with His plans. Sometimes He leaves the choice up to us, but this time I had no choice in the matter at all. I was amazed yet I felt safe as He was protecting me from doing the wrong thing on that occasion. This is when hindsight can be useful.

Fridays

Each Friday evening we would have a service in the open air lecture hall where the strains of music would waft over the campus for anyone who was within earshot. Everyone was welcome to join in. It was on one such evening that Loren Cunningham was speaking on landline from Africa, where he had a group of students connecting with people on the streets. One of them had seen a man falling from a second-storey window and rushed over and prayed for him as his head had split open. To his amazement the head was completely healed. Another of them, going a bit further down the street saw a funeral and asked if he could pray for the deceased. He did so and the man sat up.

Prayer

I was sitting with a classmate who said to me “Are you going to pray for Rose?” Rose (not her real name) was a fellow student who had a lot of back pain. “Yes” I said. She said “Can I come too?” At the end of the service we went up to Rose’s room. When we arrived her room-mate said she was asleep. I said “She had better wake up because I want to pray for her.” With that we went in and I prayed a very short prayer and laid hands on her. She stirred and sat up then said that she wanted to stand up. I heard click click click as her back came back into line and the hip no longer had pain so we all shouted and gave thanks and praise to the Lord. Hallelujah! Rose said she could hear the meeting from her bed and asked God why wasn’t she being healed. God used my classmate to encourage me to go ahead and pray. That way we all were blessed.

Now the Lord was showing me something else. I had to learn to let Rose tell about her healing at the right time. I was tempted to take the glory but God just said “Wait.” And I had to wait for three whole weeks before Rose told how she received her healing. Again it is keeping in touch with Him to know what he wants. Rose had asked me to pray for her once before and nothing happened so I walked off and said “It’s God’s job, not mine.” He is the healer. I didn’t get any feeling of guilt about it either.

Our lecturers came from different parts of the world. One that stood out to me was Dan Sneed who came from Texas. He was quite short and told it like it was, straight up and down, no pussy-footing around! It was almost embarrassing at times, not knowing whether to keep my head above the desk or hide under it. The humour was quite subtle. For all that, he was a very astute listener who, when you were speaking to him, made you feel at ease and didn’t allow anyone to distract him until we had concluded. To me this is the hallmark of a truly good listener. To this day, I have met very few who have this precious gift. Unfortunately I have discarded my notes and don’t recall the names of the other lecturers. There were sessions on the father heart of God, increasing our experiences with God, emotional and inner healing, the extremes in Christianity and spiritual warfare. I can remember Dean Sherman teaching us about spiritual warfare. He called it being a noticer or being aware of your enemy.

Intercessory Prayer

Intercessory prayer was practiced each day for half an hour in small groups scattered around the area, then we would come back together and report what country we had prayed for. This was written on the board to assess where the trouble spots in the world were by counting how many groups had prayed for the same country. This is how we found out about the Grenoble nuclear explosion four days before it appeared on the news. It was through intercession we heard about the Solomon Islands being badly flooded. Some six weeks later we were able to send a team with supplies before it hit the news. This kind of prayer really sharpens one’s ability to hear what God is saying. The secret is the time spent waiting on God, getting our hearts right before God and expecting things to happen.

Saturdays were free and Sundays we would attend one of the local churches. We had a coach tour around the Big Island, as it was known, to see the largest cattle ranch in the United States at that time, the black sand beach (ouch! it was too hot to walk on), a coffee plantation and the information centre where we saw a video of Kilauea volcano in action spewing up ash and lava. They told us some of the history of the island too. The weather was warming up and the swimming pool was great as I found a way of keeping cool by reading my books standing in the pool, placing the book on the edge to read. We would then write book reviews and have them marked. I enjoyed doing that. As I have a pretty good memory the Lord would often speak to me through what I was reading- just another way of hearing from the Lord.

Sometimes He uses you to bless others. I remember hearing that a family who were part of the student body had a child whose birthday they wanted to celebrate, but couldn’t afford to. I asked Jesus “What could I do?” A figure came into my head. That was the amount of money to give. So I gave it to the mother at lunchtime and they had the party that afternoon. He likes us to talk to Him.

Outreach

The lecture phase of the course was coming to an end. Now we turned our sights to the outreach or missions part where we would put into practice what we had learnt. We went to the Philippines, Hong Kong and Korea, stopping off in transit in Taiwan. In Taiwan it was like being under house arrest as we didn’t have visas to go into the town and had to stay in the hotel grounds. I put the time to good use catching up on writing postcards to post home. After dinner that evening we sat in the lounge. A pianist came in and played some pieces so I decided to sing some of the hymn tunes and he played them for me and that was the way I communicated with him. We had such a lovely evening. I’m sure he was a Christian. Next morning we flew out to the Philippines.

Philippines

We flew from Hawaii to the Philippines. It was hot and steamy. Looking from the door of the plane there was a sea of black-headed people, for most of us were a bit taller than them. President Marcos had been over- thrown and the civic buildings in Manila were looking very shabby as we drove past on the way to the YWAM base called Quiapo where we stayed for about ten days. Now the routine we were used to went out the window. We now had to organise our own time after devotions each day. Mary (not her real name) and I walked down to where the Catholic church was being refurbished and all the statues were lying outside while the walls inside were given a fresh coat of paint. We did a prayer walk around the church doing spiritual warfare and praying that those who worshiped there would come to know Jesus as their personal saviour. The streets were crowded and the footpaths were narrow which meant we often walked on the roads dodging the jeepneys and other traffic. Our passports were locked away and we wore very little jewellery so as not to draw attention to ourselves, as it was common to have one’s bag snatched. We walked in groups of three for safety reasons. Yet, we were very aware of the Lord’s protection as we moved about. There were several universities near where we were staying. Mary and I spoke to a Hindu guy who wanted to tell us about his faith. Then we told him about Jesus. He listened but didn’t wish to get involved at that point so we left knowing that a seed had been sown. I was reading the book of Esther as I thought the Lord was asking me to prepare for what He had ahead for me during this phase. We went to the rubbish dump where cardboard cartons and corrugated iron became people’s homes. They made a living by making things from the rubbish as a way of recycling. I asked the Lord whether He wanted me to work there. ‘No’ was the definite reply. We saw people who were looking after child prostitutes and the Seven Hundred Club who were making medical services available to the people. The hardships people faced were very different to life in New Zealand as they had no social welfare system.

Hong Kong

Our next flight was ten hours to Hong Kong. A very steep descent caused me to have earache. Fortunately it didn’t last long once I was on the ground again, but because the air was so thick and foggy I had a headache the whole time I was there. This time we stayed in the YWAM base not far from the cable car. Devotions and prayer were held in the mornings then we would spread out and do what was needed for the day. There were teams going to different locations and others coming in. It was quite a busy place. The building was an old British place made of red brick with a tiled roof. We helped doing practical things around the base. At first I was assigned to work in the kitchen until I found that my hands were swelling up into blisters. I had to go to a chemist to get some ointment for my hands which responded to the treatment very quickly. This enabled me to do more exciting things like making big paper flowers for a Pacific evening. Early in the evening we went down to the city by cable car. The hillside was very steep and I wondered how they could have managed to build houses so high up. We normally went by small buses to town as the roads were very narrow and quite windy. We weren’t dressed up to go into the fashion stores, but I wanted to buy a leather belt that you could put money inside to give my brother so we decided to go in anyway. The girls at the counter started giggling as we asked about the belt. In the end I was able to get one. When they knew we wanted to buy something they were quite helpful.

China

Our next stop was China. This time we went by boat as it was only 40 minutes away. I remember a song called ‘A Slow Boat to China’ which I recall humming on the way. We would return to Hong Kong when we had finished in China so we only took what we needed for a fortnight. I had a bright red shopping bag on wheels so I squeezed all I needed into that. On arrival we went through customs. I asked one of the officials to help me fill in my papers as they were too small for me to read. Every case was searched for Bibles-there were no exceptions. I had tracts that they didn’t find. We separated out so that we were less conspicuous and agreed to get a cab and ask the driver to wait for our mates to come. Then we went to the hotel and decided to go to another as they were charging us too much. We ended up in a ten story hotel whose owners we found were Christians. This is where I saw a Chinese typewriter with all the Chinese characters that made the carriage look like a big cylinder. We spent the first couple of days praying, then a small group went out. Later in the day a couple of us decided to investigate the shops not far from where we were staying. Chinese wasn’t our language but we found that they wanted to come and speak English to us as it was good practice for them. Window shopping was the best way to do this. There were hundreds of bikes wherever you went and they would ring their bells as we crossed the road. I don’t know how they knew which was their own.

One afternoon we walked out to a village to see the rice paddies and meet some people who showed us their homes and pets. There were pigs and chooks, and some bantams too. We left some tracts with them as we couldn’t speak the language. On the way home I saw a man carrying a side of pork on the bike carrier. It was sticking out on both sides of the carrier. It was a miracle that it didn’t get knocked off. People were working in the swampy-looking rice paddies as they were about to harvest them.

Prayer Walk

On Saturday morning we did a prayer walk through the small township where there were roadside stalls. I found some English-speaking Chinese girls who asked me for a Bible, then two other young girls came too. They knew each other as they were at university in Shanghai together. I didn’t have my Bible with me but I could ask our interpreter to try and find one in their own language. The rest of the team had gone ahead and left me behind. Someone realised I was missing and came in search of me. I hadn’t noticed, as I was having a good time with my newly found contacts. The team leader wasn’t very pleased with me until I told him about the students. I asked if I could invite them back to the hotel where we could talk more about the Lord. We set a time for 3 o’clock that afternoon. I arranged for the interpreter and one other team-mate to be there. We drank tea and had a really good discussion and I asked if they would like to know the Lord Jesus. I said they didn’t have to be in a special place or church; they could know Him there and then. They didn’t take the offer but I believed it wouldn’t be long before it was taken. Later I realised that the one who requested a Bible was a Christian, one was searching and the other was almost ready to make the commitment. When talking to the Chinese people about Jesus I found they really needed the whole Bible because of their ancient heritage. I started the conversation by telling some general knowledge about New Zealand and they asked questions. I was able to bring the Lord in by explaining that there were things we didn’t like about our countries, but when we knew Jesus, He would be able to guide us in ways that we could improve things. When we choose to give Him our hearts He protects us because we become part of His family.

Korea

It was time to leave China and return to Hong Kong to gather up the rest of our belongings and get ready to fly to Korea. We landed in Seoul where we stayed at the Methodist Mission for several nights. It was wall-to-wall people sleeping on the floor on mats. We needed interpreters here too, as the Koreans didn’t want to know anything about the English language at all at that time. Next day we went into the city which looked like a huge basin with very few landmarks. After lunch we went to Prayer Mountain which in fact was a low-lying hill. There were what looked like dog kennels dotted about the hill where people prayed and cried out to the Lord for various reasons. There were people lying on benches and others wandering throughout the lightly clad bush. You didn’t take long before you felt the presence of the Lord God Almighty and heard all kinds of prayers being prayed. I could have stayed there for hours in that beautiful atmosphere, but I had to keep up with the rest of the group or risk getting lost, not knowing the area. Yonggi Cho, who is an evangelist, had the largest Christian church in Korea at that time. We went there on Sunday and to hear them praying was like hearing rain falling. They have seven services a day to accommodate a million people. To hear the sermon we had headphones that translated the Korean language into English. Afterwards we were given a tour of the church buildings and told how the women were the leaders of the house groups and how the church developed.

Next stop was a resort on the coast where the sea is like a warm bath at 6 o’clock in the morning. When the Americans in our our group saw a Wendy’s burger restaurant they cheered, because it was one of the few fast food outlets we had seen. We were staying in a local hotel with average accommodation, more like the way the locals live. We would be up for a prayer meeting at 6 am, having breakfast at 8 am followed by devotions. Then we would prepare skits and go down to the beach. Performing the skits would draw a crowd and we used the skits to tell some Bible stories. Then we invited the people to the crusade in the evening in the hall just across the road. We would go along the beach in pairs with an interpreter, being careful not to stand on mounds as the people would dig themselves into the sand with only their heads sticking out. If you could get one person to come, they would bring the whole family. At one evening meeting I saw a lady I had spoken to that afternoon on the beach. She came wearing the same outfit that she had been wearing on the beach, and gave her heart to the Lord and I encouraged her to go forward. She was so surprised that I had remembered her. It was a blessing to me as well.

Culture Shock

Before we set out on the outreach part of our journey we were warned that we might suffer from culture shock at some stage. It didn’t hit me until I got to Korea, which I found quite odd, being quite late in the piece. Hit, is exactly what it did. I wondered what I was doing there and felt like withdrawing but I was encouraged to talk about how I was feeling until the inability to cope and bewilderment left. It took about half a day before I regained my normal cheerful self. It had come quite out of the blue. Some of the others were very emotional- some became quite fearful. We all reacted differently. I was so pleased that we had been warned about it or some of us might have dipped out and gone home but we all carried on.

During my time in Korea I was asked if I would stay as they said that I belonged. I felt very privileged as some people wait years to hear how much they are appreciated. As it happened I couldn’t stay because YWAM was changing their leader for a Korean after having someone of a different nationality, so I couldn’t make any connections as they had not established their office for the new leader at that time. Of all the countries I had been in Korea was the one I felt inclined to continue with.

Japan

Japan was the final country to visit on our missions trip before we returned to Hawaii. There is a YWAM base in a suburb not far from Tokyo. It was quite spacious and airy and we looked out onto some bush and trees. Again we helped with the chores around the base then went to see how the locals lived in apartment buildings. A large paddling pool was outside one of them and the children were having fun. As I took my shoes off and rolled up my skirt so they could swim through my legs there was lots of laughter from the adults as they watched their charges. As I played with the little ones it kept me cool as well. One morning we went into Tokyo to see the largest apartment store known as Soho, where they have a clock which has figures dressed in national costumes of countries around the world. At midday each day you can see all the figures at once. As the clock’s two hands point to 12 pm it plays a song called It’s a small world after all. The shop had several entrances, so we had to remember which one we had come in by as we could so easily have got lost. Mum did get lost in the same store when she visited Tokyo.

At that time we heard about a very high suicide rate among the young students in Japan because of the high expectation parents placed on then to achieve. We were alerted to one such case but didn’t hear the outcome of it. We went to a Japanese Christian church and realised that they counted the cost before making a commitment to anything. But when they do, they are very loyal to the church they are involved with.

Highlight

The highlight for me was being able to meet up with a friend Linda who had come from New Zealand to meet up with some others that were going on the Bullet train next morning. I asked a Japanese girl if she would take me to Tokyo to meet Linda at a cafe meeting of Christians over the other side of the city. I told her I was willing to pay her if she would like to do it. She agreed after I had made contact by phone which was quite an exercise in itself. We went by train on the underground and spent the evening with Linda and got permission for her to stay the night at the base as she was leaving early next morning. On the way home that evening we sat opposite two students in the train. I started to speak to them and we found out that they knew about Jesus so I sang some of the hymn tunes I knew. We had a great time and nearly missed our stop. It’s great to think we have such a large family we belong to when we have Jesus in common.

On Saturday we went to a place where the road had been closed. A huge variety of bands playing all kinds of music were on either side of the road and the people walked down the road to listen to the strains of sounds they liked to hear. I wandered along and spoke to a punk rocker with disheveled hair and asked him if he had heard of Jesus. He didn’t reply so I just let it drop because I thought someone else might come along in God’s time and he would be ready to make the right choice. Getting a taxi in Japan is something of a challenge. You have to wave them down not like waving your hands up towards you but by waving your hands past your thighs, then grab the door handle, proceed to open the door and jump in, then tell them where you want to go and the price.

Home

We left Japan a few days later for Hawaii on Air Japan on a flying boat with an upstairs cabin which we had to ourselves. I had to wait for a week to get a flight to Auckland, so I worked in the kitchen at the YWAM base back at PACU. When I looked at my passport, I saw that I could have stayed in Hawaii until January. This meant I could have done a course in Biblical counselling in that time but I didn’t have access to more money so I had to come home. I realised I had missed the boat about what God was offering me at that time. Yet, I enjoyed myself so much that while the rest of the team were ready to go home, I was ready for more.