Overview One of the Steiger School

Hello Everyone!

I've been in New Zealand for almost two weeks now and it's been an amazing mix of intense and thought provoking lectures, great times with my old and new friends, beautiful surroundings, and nice time to spend alone seeking God. The school is located in Waekanae Beach area, made up of beach homes, retirees, and young families. The school is held in the St. Michael's Anglican Church building and our housing is within a mile radius of the school in different houses that we rent out from private owners.


There are 35 students this year; 15 from the United States, 6 from Poland, 6 from Brazil, 1 from Finland, 2 from Germany, and 6 from New Zealand. I live in the guest house of a larger house that are both home to eight girls total. We share two bathrooms, which lends to our not having had any quarrels over who takes too long in the shower. In the evenings, we have a dinner-cooking and cleanup schedule in which we take turns as pairs making dinner according to a menu of receipts for which we're given groceries each week. I share a bedroom with Ania, a friend of mine who I met in Poland this last summer. We call her "Ania Mawa" which means Little Ania, because there's another girl from Poland who's name is Ania and is much taller than Ania Mawa.

Most of the people at the school I know either from living in Minneapolis or from being on tour with No Longer Music in Poland and Brazil. Most students have been involved in some way with Steiger. There's a large group of Steiger-connected people in Poland who put on a festival with bands, all sorts of workshops, lectures, and discussion groups around topics relating to Christianity. No Longer Music played there last year so I got to know a lot of the people involved. The church in Brazil that's connected with Steiger organized the tour in São Paulo and almost everyone here was involved in some way with the tour. One couple from New Zealand are the parents of Rob, one of the facilitators of the school and the synthesizer/computer generated beat player for No Longer Music, who very recently proposed to his gal Leah. So there are all kinds of fun developments, and lasting friendships being built.

I've started exercising! Every morning at 7 before class, a small group of us runs for about 30 minutes. I still can't stand running long distance, but I love that I'm being consistently active. It's a form of discipline that I've been neglecting for the past 5 years. I've been playing volleyball too, whenever a game is struck. Also, one of my childhood dreams was fulfilled, bittersweetly. I was able to get my hands on a surfboard and go in the ocean. Unfortunately, the waves were way to choppy to learn on, and I didn't once stand up. But I'm sure that by the end of my time here, I will have become a pro.

The lecture times have been very good. The first week, David Pierce who started Steiger with his wife Jodi (Jodi is the main facilitator of the school), as well as No Longer Music spoke to us about his experiences, struggles, failures and times of success in starting ministry. Because of his willingness to follow God no matter what he asks and no matter the difficulty, he's learned some incredible lessons. It was great to be able to hear him talk about them and also to ask questions. This last week, Mark, the pastor at the Salvageyard, the church connected with Steiger in Minneapolis, has been talking about different topics relating to leadership. He'll continue speaking this coming week.

Our time is scheduled out very well between lectures, work shops, prayer, work duties, mission work in Wellington, and personal time.

Monday is our free day, with surfing as a possibility at 5 pm. (!)

Tuesdays and Thurdays are the same schedule and Wednesday is similar until after lunch. Personal prayer time from 8:30-9:00. Worship from 9:00-10:30. Lecture from 10:50-12:00. Lunch and cleanup from 12:30-2:00. Then either I have an accountablility meeting with Rachel, who is part of No Longer Music, from 2:00-3:00, or have work duties from 2:00-5:00, where we do different community service projects. The past two weeks we have gone door to door installing "gizmos", water saving weights for toilets, for the Kapiti Coast District Council. The range of responses was very amusing, and sometimes positive. Most people, if they have newer toilets, have double button flush, which means the gizmos are not necessary. Anyway, in the future, we'll be doing different projects for our neighbors in Waikanae Beach, as well other service projects. Then from 7:30-9:30 workshops are held.

Wednesdays are different from Tuesdays and Thursdays starting after lunch. From 2:00-3:30 are accountability times as well, but if I don't have a meeting, this is time to use for creative ventures musically, artistically, or graphic designly. From 4:00-6:00 all of the guys get together amongst themselves, and all of the gals get together amongst themselves.

Fridays we start with small groups where we pray for each other from 8:30-10:00. Then from 10:30-5:00 or beyond is time for us to spend praying and seeking God.
We were encouraged to put some structure to this time, otherwise it's more overwhelming than productive. I try to pray around these areas; Thanks, Ministry Needs, Personal Needs, Friends, Family, Future Husband, Hopes, People of Influence, Politicians, Public Figures, Personal Change, Areas of Weakness, New Creativity, Renewed Revelations, having honest discussion with God, Listening, and praying for each other. I'm far from being used to this much time for prayer, and have generally felt unfocused. I've been discovering how and where I don't pray best though, thus I'm slowly figuring out how and where I do pray best.

Saturdays we go to Wellington for outreach of sorts. These first two Saturdays, we've been getting a feel for the city. The first Saturday there were two groups of people. One group split up into about 5 teams to interview people with three questions. The first was "What is a Kiwi?", the second was "What makes life interesting for a New Zealander?" and the third was "What is the purpose of life?" The film team is working on editing the responses, but as far as I know, the different teams got a really good and varied view of the people who live in Wellington. I was part of the other group who walked around in pairs or more to get a sense of the city. I went with Diego, a business advertising design major from Brazil. We took photos of storefronts, advertisements, and grafitti as well as picked up any printed material we could get our hands on. We got a very good handle on what was going on from week to week just from the printed material. We also walked down a street that is known for prostitution. Prostitution is legal in New Zealand. It brought back memories of Brazil and immediately reminded me of God's broken heart for the women as I felt it in Brazil. This last Saturday we participated in a gay and lesbian fair handing out water from our stand as well as helped with cleaning up after the fair was over. We did this in order to show God's love, not to put ourselves in a position of argument or preaching. I was able to head up the creation of our display posters. It was a very short notice project, so full collaboration wasn't possible (which is something I'd really like to do here) but there was some, and they were painted as a three hour group effort of four people. We'll be spending time praying individually and as a group to find out what God wants for us to be doing with our time in Wellington.

Sundays we go to one of three services of our choosing. One is St. Michael's, the church where the school is held. The other two are held in the town of Waikanae at St. Luke's, one in the morning and one in the evening. The rest of the day is free and free to do our cleaning chores at the house, that I'm heading up due to my experience as a professional house cleaner. These girls are messy.

Well that pretty much sums up my time here so far. I'll be posting more developments and photos semi-regularly. Thanks for being interested in my life and for your prayers.

Love,
Christa