Matt Short

I have been informed that ALL of my outreach fees have not been covered but just a certain amount. I still owe a little over $1100. Apearantly my team will simply go without that in hand, and if anything else comes in I’ll put that money into my outreach’s. God is good and I have no doubts we’ll be fine, not to say I enjoy being what could be seen as a financial burden. But as I said, “God is good!” SERIOUSLY =)

Praise God for all He’s done and hopes to do in the near future

God Bless guys, and thank you for your prayers

That’s how I feel and what I told my team as we were walking away from the Medical Clinic, all sore arms, grumbly bellies, and Malaria medication in hand yesterday. Praise God we’re almost completely set for outreach. I took my team for vaccinations yesterday and found I needed three shots, haha, fun times! We’re all good now though. I can’t believe it either. Ten days out from one of the craziest trips I’ve ever taken….. AND I”M LEADING! God’s got a good sence of humour doesn’t He? =)

My finances have finally all come in, the base gift pool was able to cover the remainder of my fees for outreach. Praise God because I would have hated for my team to carry such a difference in the team finances.

Thank you all for your prayers, God has done an incredible work over the past 5 months. I am eager to see what He has for tomorrow.

God Bless, and please let me know if you EVER feel you need prayer, I’m more than willing to lift you up in my prayers 

-Matt Short

I appologize. I actually had to remove my previous post, due to it having information that should not be on the web. I’m not completely sure what I’ll be able to post on here about our trip as of this moment but I hope it won’t leave anyone too much in the dark.

God Bless and sorry for the inconvenience

-Matt Short

     So this past week was what we call Church Serving Week (week 8 of BDTS) where the school broke off into their outreach teams to serve in different areas around NZ. My team was assigned to Kiwi Ranch a small Christian camp which is on the north shore of the South Island in the Marlborough Sounds, more specifically in Curious Cove. It was a LONG 5 hour drive especially with only a handful of CD’s to listen to. =) We met our hosts in Picton where they took us by boat to the camp grounds. 

     We three Colorado boys and the Swiss married couple stayed in one house while the other two European girls lived up the hill. The camp was wonderful, littered with roaming random mamals such as bores, sheep, deer, horses, rabbits, possums and goats which commonly lead to enjoyable past times. Many times on Smoko (tea/coffee) breaks from work us boys could be seen from the dining room veranda running through the fields chasing the bores. 

     The work was vigorous, trying, and slightly adventurous at times. The girls, firstly, I must pay respect to who courageously took to cleaning pretty much EVERY cabin in the camp, a task that lasted the entire week. Us boys at least had many short tasks that seemed like play from time to time. Such work ran from damming a river with rock filled freezers, laying concrete, moving and burning old stuff, catching bores, to painting a wall with 6 layers of paint. All in all it was a good week of exhausting work. 

     Throughout the week we tried to practically simulate what outreach life might look like for the team. Thus we had team meetings and bible studies every day and worship/intersession every other day. This will become a very crucial part of our outreach experience and we must get this down well to work well in unity. I was very impressed by every ones devotion and participation and blessed by their attentiveness. 

     One of the most important things on my mind for this week was to get the team to just enjoy each others’ company and that DEFINITELY happened. I was blessed to discover the humorous side of every ones personality this week and LOVED it! I got some great pictures and would love to show you them so I’ll make sure to do that soon. IF you have myspace or facebook you can see many of them there. Let me know if you would like to hear anymore stories, because trust me, there are MANY! 

God Bless and Thank you for your prayers 

-Matt Short