Chitwood Updates

January 20-February 9

2009-01-24T23:13:00.001-08:00

Where has the time gone? Ken's 18 month internship with the Manawatu Parish is completed! Our final week of work was spent busy with writing and printing his world religions book for the parish (I did a whole read-through-edit...phew! Ken wrote a great book!) making a care package for the youth attending Parachute (the largest Christian music conference in the Southern Hemisphere), hanging out with Jen, Sam, Tony, and a few other church families, eating lots of yummy desserts at his youth farewell party, and having the the new pastor and his family over for tea.

Pastor Lee was installed on the 25th of January followed with a parish luncheon. We had him and his wife Anna and their son Owen over for tea earlier in the week to introduce ourselves. They are really excited to be here in the Manawatu beginning their ministry. We are so thankful for the way God orchestrated the whole event - Ken and I being in the Manawatu during a period of vacancy and then right before we leave, a new permanent pastor arrives! Woohoo!

The week of the 25th was busy cleaning our house out so that by the 1st we could be moved completely out of the flat. On the 30th we enjoyed spending the night out with the LaGrow's at their fishing cottage. It was fun to have Steve teach us how to spot fish in their crystal clear creek. When we got back to Palmy and finished cleaning the flat, we moved in with the Satherley's, who were kind enough to open their home to us for our final week in New Zealand.

Ken and I were formally done with work on the 1st of Feb. We spent the next few days tramping at Tongariro completing one of New Zealand's "Great Walks," the Northern Circuit. It was great to enjoy New Zealand's wild and rugged beauty once more and experience a hard long backpacking adventure together over an active volcano! The rest of that week was spent saying final farewells to various families and our formal farewell/de-installation was on the 8th with a parish wide lunch at the park. We then played music one last time with Trinity for their evening service and enjoyed the potluck that followed (we were really full by the end of the day with two potlucks!!)

Monday we left New Zealand. We left home to head home. The Lord has been good to us and we thank you for your constant support and prayers for us while we have served in the Land of the Long White Cloud, Aoetearoa.

p.s. I will do a final upload of pictures once we are back and settled in the States...

December 30, 2008-January 19, 2009

2009-01-18T19:13:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! The past few weeks have been full to the brim for the Chitwoods. On the 31st the movers came to pack up all our stuff. That meant the 30th we were busy as getting things organized and trying to determine what items we need in the next 18 months and what items we don't need. We don't plan to open our boxed until after South Africa in July 2010.

Goodbye boxes

Once the movers came (they were fast! 4 hours tops...) we hit the road for Riversdale to bring in the new year with the Satherley's and Jurgen's. It was a great few days with them, relaxing in the sunshine, reading books, walking on the beach, playing golf...what a way to bring in 2009.

New Year's pig

The Satherley Clan

Happy New Year 2009!

Enjoying sunny days with Butch

Ken teeing off

Lovin the sunshine

Castle Point (not far from Riversdale)

We got back to Palmy late on the 2nd. On the 3rd we had Tony and Rachel Cuttle over (Rachel left for an internship in Australia on the 7th, so this would be our last hoorah together). It was fun playing card games, eating pizza and hanging out together. Then we packed up our car and on the 4th we were on the road for our two week summer holiday!

The first week (the 4th-9th), I was busy in Hamilton attending a summer choral conductors conference with distinguished choral leaders from around the world (America and Australia). It was an honor to work with David Childs, who will soon be conducting his own piece at Carnegie Hall, as well as Jerry Blackstone from U of Michigan. I left the conference feeling 100% more equipped to conduct and 110% on fire to teach music in Dirkiesdorp come March.

Fun signs in Hamilton

The New Zealand flag reflecting in Hamilton

Waiketo University where the conference was held

While I was at that, Ken took Pepper to Raglan, a beach town with the best surf beaches in NZ. He also worked a lot on his world religions book and stopped in to the Mormon Temple to speak to some elders for more info for his book.

Mormon Temple in Hamilton

Raglan Beach

For the first part of that week we stayed at a campground in Hamilton, and then we moved to Pastor Warren's backyard for the latter part of the week. He made us a great bbq on Thursday evening and we had a great time chatting with his family. Friday night the conference ended with a performance - it was great to sing in a choir again.

Pastor Warren, BBQ master

The closing choral production

Saturday we enjoyed Hamilton gardens before hitting the road to Auckland. That evening we met up with Patsy and Mark, friends we made back in October at Segue. We had dinner together and then went to Botany Chinese Lutheran Church to attend their prayer meet. It was really awesome to be a part of it (Mark translated the whole time). Sunday morning we attended worship with them too, and afterwards Pastor David and Annie Chang took us out to an authentic "Beijing meal." That afternoon we headed out for Bailey's Beach. We made it at sunset. On the way to Bailey's, we went through Dargaville, the kumara capital of NZ. yum!

Flowers from the "English gardens"

Our "campsite" in Auckland

Enjoying lunch with Botany members

Sunset as we went to Bailey's Beach

Ken in Kumara heaven

Monday morning we took a look at Bailey's beach and decided to move on (it smelled and wasn't so great looking either.) We went up to see the Kauri forests and Tane Mahuta (the god of the forest). It was really neat to see some of these huge ancient giants! We also saw Hokianga Harbour, which took our breath away as we turned the corner of the road and saw it. Pepper enjoyed running on the beaches there. We stayed that night up the road at a off-the-path campout. It was a beautiful location. Before the sun set, we went to Koutu beach to see some boulders that looked a lot like the Moreki boulders on the south island. When we got back to our camp, we met an Israeli couple and ended up talking with them late into the evening (or should I say early morning??!) They gave us a really neat keychain before we parted ways.

Tane Mahuta

Ellie hanging out with the "god of the forest"

Besides big Kauri trees, there's some huge ferns!

The road turned and this was our view!

Hokianga Harbour

The night we stayed off the beaten path at a farmer's backyard turned campground with this view...

Moreki-like boulders on Koutu Beach

Tuesday we got a nice cup of coffee in Rawena and took a walk through the mangroves (trees that grow in salt water!). It was neat to see some jellyfish living in the waters too. After that we took the car ferry over and worked our way up to Kaitaia, stopping at Shipwreck Cove (where Captain Cook ran aground) as well as enjoying some tastings at a winery. In Kaitaia we ran into Pastor Warren and his family who were also on holiday in northland as well as a family from CA there - small world! Then we went to Lake Ngutu for a dinner (cheese, crackers and wine) before watching the sunset on 90-mile beach and camping off a road out there. 90-mile beach is fun because it's considered a highway, so the speed limit is 100kms, although you don't want to get caught out there in high tide.

Ellie in the mangroves

Our car ferry transport

Sunset at 90-mile beach

Wednesday we went up to Cape Reinga, the northernmost point of NZ where the tasman meets the pacific. After that we enjoyed sledding down sand dunes at Te Paki (including one called Psyco - it was huge!) Then we drove down to Kerikeri where we stayed for two nights. The first night rained, so we stayed in our car (ugh). But Thursday was a beautiful sunny day that dried everything out. We went on a few hikes that day - to see Rainbow Falls and to see Marsden Cross where the first sermon was preached in NZ on Christmas Day 1814. Also in Kerikeri we saw the oldest buildings in NZ, from 1822 and 1832!

Cape Reinga

Which way to where?

Close up of the lighthouse

Te Paki sand dunes (Ken way up there!)

Good times

In Kerikeri, the two oldest buildings in NZ

Rainbow Falls

Marsden Cross

Pepper enjoying the trip

Friday we went to Waitangi and saw the grounds where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the Pakeha and Maori people stating that both could live together in this land of Aeoteroa. After that, we went sea kayaking out to an island. It was really neat to have the whole island to ourselves! We ended the day with some fish and chips before heading over to Sandy Bay where we found a place on the beach to camp.

Waitangi grounds

The Marae

This Waka was made to commemorate the Treaty of Waitangi

That island behind us is where we kayaked to/around

The Hundertwasser toilets in Kawakawa

Sandy Beach - free camping on the waterfront!

Saturday we made our way to Whangarei to see the Whangarei Falls. Then we went to Leigh to snorkel at Goat Island. The waters were really clear and we saw a sting ray! That night we decided to splurge and stay at a B&B.

Whangarei Falls

Getting ready to go snorkeling

Amazing brew pub in Leigh

Sunday we began the long trek home to Palmy, stopping one last time in Auckland for a beer at NZ's first microbrewery. On the ride home in Taupo, we saw the brightest rainbow and then saw the beginning of a funnel cloud! Talk about an exciting trip! We got safely home late around 1030pm.

NZ's first microbrew

Monday we spent the day cleaning house, laundry, the car, catching up with our families, and making plans to hang out with the new pastor and his family this week, as well as some friends. These next three weeks in New Zealand are going to fly by! This trip made us realize just how much we will miss the country and people here...it is a gorgeous place.

Thanks for your prayers - we were very thankful for safe passage around northland for our summer holiday. Other than a few bug bites and two rainy nights, the trip was amazing! We are just amazed at the beauty of God's country and in Him allowing us to see it. What a blessing...

December 23-29

2008-12-28T13:01:00.000-08:00

Christmas in the Square

Merry Christmas! This season is always really busy for church workers, and doubly so for those of us who work at a pastor-less church! Tuesday was filled with last minute preparations for Christmas Eve - Ken finished his sermon, I practiced a lot of piano, and we did grocery shopping to get what we needed for our traditional Slovak Christmas Eve dinner.

Pakutahowa (NZ Christmas Tree)

Christmas Eve service went wonderfully - my choir sounded great and Jen and I sang a duet (O Holy Night) that brought many to tears. Ken's sermon was titled "Beautiful Feet" and spoke on Isaiah's prophecy of how beautiful the feet are that bring good news. Ken tied that into Christmas, how Jesus is the fulfillment of that prophecy and how "beautiful" his feet are as they walk to the cross and get nailed there for us and our sins. How "beautiful" those feet that rose again, bringing us life and salvation. And how "beautiful" our feet are, as believers, who are called to go and spread this news to others.

Christmas Eve Choir

Jen and Sam

Before the service Ken and I did our traditional Slovak meal - it was a bit odd not having all the family around for it, but we made it our own and I felt pretty proud that we were able to pull it off! After the service we came home to open presents - Pepper had a great time with that! (see the pictures below for proof).

Ken preparing the fish

Our little Christmas Eve

Opening presents

Pepper enjoyed this

Merry Christmas from the Chitwood's!

On Christmas Day we went to Trinity in Feilding where I played music and Ken led the service. Following the service we went to the Cuttle's for Christmas dinner - it was really fun to be with them and their family. We played lots of fun trivia games and had a $2 gift exchange game where you pick a gift to unwrap and then the next person can either pick their own gift or steal from another person. Ken and I walked away with a really awesome elephant pencil holder and some NZ playing cards! Talk about jackpot! haha. I brought over a plate of Slovak cookies that were almost all eaten within the first two hours! Their grandparents came over as well and treated Ken and I just like family - even gave us some gifts! We enjoyed getting a picture book of NZ as well as some Cinnamon Toast Crunch and chocolate Pop Tarts (the Cuttles have family back in the states who mailed those over!) Yum! When we got home late in the afternoon, we took Pepper on a special Christmas Day walk and then ended the evening with The Nativity Story.

Christmas Dinner at the Cuttles

Pop tarts and CTC!

Lesley and Brett Cuttle

Trinity in Feilding

Yum - these went really fast!

A lovely day for a walk in the park

Friday Ken and I went in to work - we boxed all our books and things as well as finished last minute office details. We won't be back in to the office now until late January. Ken will take his work on the road with us when we go on vacation since the first week of vacation I will be at a choral conducting conference, so he will finish writing his world religions book as well as some tips/resources for the new pastor.

Saturday was Ken's 24th birthday! So we celebrated by going to the rugby museum (something he's wanted to do the past 16 months!) and then went out to dinner. It was a really nice relaxing day.

A dream come true

Us in the square

Palmerston North Square

Mao Bar

Pepper celebrating Ken's birthday too

Sunday was my last time playing music for St. Luke's! After the service we went to the Nelson's for a bbq and had a really nice time visiting with them and Paul and Carol Argyle. We've made some great friends at both St. Luke's and Trinity that will be sad to say goodbye to...

Monday Ken went on a 22-mile run! Yuck! While he was doing that, I worked on the inventory of our stuff. The movers are coming on the 31st to pack us up! It's amazing how quickly everything is coming!

Thank you for your prayers for Themba - we have now raised about 1/3rd of what we need! But please continue to keep us in thought, especially as we await some important papers to come from South Africa so we can work on our visa as well as apply to defer a student loan. As nerve wracking as it can be, I rest in the Angel's words to Mary in Luke, that NOTHING is impossible with God. May it be done as He wills! Amen.

December 16-22

2008-12-16T13:20:00.001-08:00

This week has been a blast! We had dinner parties and events just about every evening! Tuesday evening we enjoyed a time of fellowship with Lawrence and Judi Satherley (our Kiwi "parents"). I was busy Tuesday afternoon baking sweet and savory muffins for them as a Christmas gift.

Wednesday Ken took the day off and went to Feilding to hang out with Tony and do a Star Wars Marathon (including the newest movie, Clone Wars)! Needless to say, I was intrigued and joined them half way through. It was a really fun time, ending at 12am Thursday morning!

Thursday evening was the PLT Christmas party at Chris and Denise's home. It was a really fun evening visiting with everyone - you can tell the leadership team of the Manawatu Parish are not just leaders, but really good friends. There is such love and commitment to both the parish and each other among them. Really cool!

See the white rectangle dish on the left of this photo that's empty?? That was my dish that I brought over - guess it was yum!

Ken and the blokes outside

Our Kiwi "parents" Judi and Lawrence

Look at those awesome desserts!

Friday morning Carol came to the church to help Ken and I decorate the Christmas tree! It was a lot of fun - we rocked out to some carols on the church music system while hanging the chrismons up. Made me think about Mom and Dad being out last year to help decorate the church tree with me...That evening was Ken's first official FREE night from youth! As of last week, he is done! So we decided to meet up with Jen and Sam for a beer after work since we hadn't had a chance to talk with them in a while.

Carol and I with the finished product

Saturday evening we went to the Clausen's for another Christmas party. Roger also showed us a slide show of his latest motorcycle adventure - all across Europe! He rides with Jo and Garreth Morgan, two Kiwi riders who do a lot for social justice through their rides (as well as write books - we have their America ride, "Backblocks America," that is filled with pictures of Roger Clausen - and he signed our book too!)

Sunday morning was the Children's Christmas production. It was a cute show about finding out who is Jesus. Ken gave the devotional message following the production. That afternoon we had choir practice - two more members joined up (yeay!) and we sound really nice. I am looking forward to Christmas Eve. Sunday night Ken lead about 14 people in a James Bond Bible Study (only Ken could do this!) - we went and saw the film, then had a discussion about the nature of evil and being sinners and saints. It was a really good discussion - some of the participants had never thought about our lives in Christ that way (that in Him we are saints, but at the same time we will still sin). There was a lot of good discussion and I think some people walked away with a bit to think on. One of the members thanked Ken for all the studies he has led in the parish this year for adult education - there is such a hunger to learn and grow in the faith here. Please keep these adults in your prayers that they continue to desire to learn more about their faith!

Because Christmas is coming up so quickly, Ken and I decided to work again this Monday. He is still working on that world religions book. Four people have signed up to buy one so far. He is also preparing sermons for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (he will be leading services at both St. Luke's and Trinity and I will be doing all the music, along with my choir). We also took Pepper to the pet store today to pick up a chew bone (Santa will give it to her come Thursday morning). She choose a pet Christmas Cracker - meaning it is a rawhide bone that is shaped like a Christmas Cracker (the kind you pull the ends and goodies come out from the middle) - and her cracker is filled with more rawhide goodies inside once she chews it threw! She saw us wrapping her presents earlier this week and got sooooo excited! She already tore a hole in one of them that's under our little charlie brown tree! What a cutie.

As we come into the Christmas season and end advent, we are reminded that the faith we have in Christ is not so much different than that of our forefathers in the faith. Before Christ, believers were long awaiting the time when Christ would come. Now Christians today celebrate when He came as a baby on Christmas, but we too await the time when He will come again with glory at the end of time! May you and your family have a blessed Christmas this week - enjoy the festivities of parties and fellowship as we celebrate together the birth of Christ. Merry Christmas!

December 9-15

2008-12-13T18:08:00.000-08:00

The holiday season has definitely begun! Wednesday evening was our last all-music-team-meet of the year to look at next year's Jan-March roster, review the past year, and have a little Christmas party together! It was a great meeting and everyone seemed to enjoy the devotion, fellowship, and Christmas celebration together. Ken and I also had our last music team practice - we lead worship on Sunday, and that is the last time our whole team will be together! Lots of lasts...although I pray that these are only OUR lasts, and that the music team will continue next year with new leadership, and that the all-music-team-meets will also continue under Pastor Lee (the next one for roster April-June is already scheduled in for March!)

Thursday Ken went to dinner with one of the youth as well as prepared for the Friday evening "break-up" (that's what kiwis call end-of-the-year parties). He prepared lots of Christmas games, food, and had Elf the movie available to watch. There was a great turnout and all the youth seemed to have a really fun time!

Saturday we finished some last minute Christmas shopping for people here in the Manawatu, went to Trinity to practice for Sunday evening, and then ended the evening watching Elf again while decorating our gingerbread house!

The box of goodness!

Pepper relaxing with a Christmas bone

Laying the foundations

Ken about to enjoy his Christmas tree

Putting on the finishing touches to a yummy project!

Sunday morning our team play music, Ken lead worship, and after the service Lawrence and Judi took us to lunch with their family. That afternoon Trinity had a family advent craft event that we attended - unfortunately no families from St. Luke's came and there was low attendance from the Feilding community. Ken and I led music for the service and following that there was a bbq. It was neat to remember that last year my parents were here celebrating with us! Everyone at Trinity remembered that and asked how they were doing.

Trinity BBQ

Advent crafts

Monday we did some work in the office and began packing up some files. Ken is busy finishing up that World Religions book he is writing for the parish based on their last adult education study, as well as preparing for sermons/worship leading over the next two weeks. I am busy editing my last Olive Tree (we go to press sometime this week), and creating services up through February so that Pastor Lee has something to work with when he begins his minsitry. That evening we went to the LSM Christmas party, which was really nice! I got to use one of my new dishes from the wedding that I hadn't used yet. I felt like a real married woman (hahaha)!

The LSM/Office party

Thank you for your prayers for Themba - this past week the Lord provided more donations from people in the Manawatu. We are now at 10% of our fundraising goal. Please continue to keep this in your thoughts and prayers. Also please keep one of our youth in your prayers as they are going through some difficult situations and emotions. Pray for their safety and that they would go back home.

This past Sunday we read Isaiah 61 in church - I suggest you take a few moments to read it too. It really spoke to us this week as Isaiah is speaking this about himself, but also as a prophecy about Christ. For us today, Christ fulfilled the reading, but also has commissioned us like Isaiah to go and bring His Good News to all! May this be a blessing to you this Christmas as you share the love of Christ with those around you.

December 2-8

2008-12-07T17:34:00.000-08:00

This week was much quieter than the past two, seeing as though all our company has left! But it was good for Ken and I to get back to our usual groove of life. It's hard to believe that it's December...in only eight weeks Ken will have completed his internship!

Last Tuesday was the last adult Bible study (until the 21st when Ken is leading a James Bond Bible study...leave it to Ken to be able to do that!!), so this Tuesday we just took it easy and relaxed at home enjoying the Christmas tree and music. Wednesday evening was music team practice and Thursday evening was Ken's last PLT meeting. Friday evening was the last normal Reflex youth night - they finished their remix Bible study (listening to modern pop songs and seeing what the Bible has to say about it). It's been exciting to see all the new youth that have been consistently coming for the past month. There are about four new girls. That evening, two of them asked for a Bible. What an awesome God-thing!

Saturday was a sunny day, so we took full advantage of it and hit the beach! But after taking Pep on a long beach walk, we went to relax on our towels and read, but the flies were obnoxious! I don't know where they came from or why they were attacking us, but they wouldn't leave us alone (including Pepper), so we packed up and went to the Manawatu River Beach. The water was perfect so we decided to wade in - Pepper enjoyed playing where she could touch, but she was quite nervous about going in where she had to swim (although when I went out, she followed me!) Ken decided to swim across to the deep area and jump off the rocks. Good times! Although we did come home with too much sun - I got quite the burn!

Sunday Ken lead the children's message. He decided to teach about the Advent ABC's - A for Awesome, B for Birthday (Jesus') and C for...(my que) - CHOCOLATE!!! Or at least that is what I said from the middle of the congregation with chocolates in hand. He then proceeded to explain that C is not for chocolate, but for Christ/Christmas. That just as we love chocolates and want to share them, we should also want to tell others about the Awesome Birthday of Christ! It was really fun - probably one of his best children's messages ever!

That afternoon I had my first choir practice for Christmas Eve - it will be a small group of five, but the songs I've chosen work well with small groups. We will lead the congregation in a Christmas Medley with a little interlude I wrote for the choir to sing between the songs, and we will also sing a special song about following the star which will be sung between the readings (right after we read about the shepherds following the star).

After choir, we went to Roy and Lois Price's for a Children's Ministry Appreciation BBQ. The weather was wonderful and there was a good turnout of volunteers to thank for their hard work this past year.

Roy and Ken working at the barbie

Everyone enjoying the sunshine

Monday was a day of relaxation (and a little pain from my sunburn). We also saw that the new LOST season was out to DVD so we picked it up and began watching it again - oh it is so good!

Otherwise, we are beginning the process of looking into movers. We plan on packing things up after Christmas, which is only a few weeks away! Unfortunately, movers out here are quite expensive!

Prayer requests: please pray for us as we begin the process of packing and moving. Also keep our Themba Mission in your prayers - we have fundraised $70 so far and also have airline tickets to South Africa from March - September 09 (Ken's uncle donated his airmiles for our tickets, but he could not book them through to June 2010, so is sending us home in September so I can be in Jaime's wedding). So we still need to raise $6030 as well as get two more round trip tickets for September 09-June 2010...this is a great lesson of trust God is teaching us! Finally, please keep the youth in your prayers that are searching and desiring to know more about God - what an awesome gift! Pray that this flame keeps growing in their hearts.

November 25-December 1

2008-11-30T00:07:00.000-08:00

Marla stayed with us until Friday, and then as she left, the Ross's arrived! Phew! It's been busy!

Tuesday I took Marla to the Hawkes Bay to enjoy some of New Zealand's fine wines. It was a super fun "girl day" as we went to a winery, tried some ciders, and tasted fine chocolate! The weather was glorious (with the high at 30c!) and we had a fun time chatting about everything and anything on the drive. Ken missed us and said it rained in Palmy while we were gone. :( But he was busy preparing for his last adult education course on world religions (Hinduism). He is trying to write a short book for the parish on the various world religions studied during this study as well as others we weren't able to cover - but it's turning out to be a much larger job than anticipated! That evening Marla attended the study while I caught up on some office work that needed to be done for Sunday. This Sunday is our big outreach Christmas/Advent kickoff service, so there is a lot that needs to be done for that.

Hawke's Bay

Best Mates

Baaaa!

BaaaBaaa!

Enjoying some wine tasting

The Girls

Wednesday morning we let Marla sleep in again as we went in to work. For lunch we went to the Bible College farewell lunch that some of the seniors put together. It was really nice to visit with some of the students and colleagues Ken worked with over the past two terms. That afternoon Marla and I got our hair done - hers got longer, mine got shorter! It was a fun switch, especially for the Bond party we had that evening. Since the new Bond film is released here in NZ on the 27th, we threw a party on the 26th to celebrate with martinis, card games, and a viewing on the last film. It was really fun with eight of us in total.

Marla getting her hair extended

Me before the cut

Now look at us Bond Girls!

Mr. and Mrs. Bond

Playing some card games Bond style

Pepper joining in on the fun

Thursday (Happy Thanksgiving!) I was busy preparing for the Erickson's to come over to celebrate Thanksgiving (the president of the LCNZ is also an American, although has lived down under for the past 20-some years). Marla made a yummy banana concoction, and of course we had a turkey and the usual Thanksgiving fare - this year was so much easier to cook since I had a lot of ingredients needed shipped over to me from the states! After dinner was over, we dressed up and went to see the new Bond film!

This pumkin became pie

Our second Thanksgiving together!

The American Crew

Yum

Us with the Erickson's

We dressed up to see the movie

Friday as Ken went to pick up the Ross's, I took Marla down to Wellington the long way (through the Hutt Valley) - it was fun to stop at the Paua factory, another chocolate shop, and enjoy a little of Wellington before she boarded her plane. It was neat - in Wellington we went to a Cathedral and were able to stitch a few stitches in an art prayer project the church was creating! How cool is that? I prayed for the people in Zimbabwe as I did my stitches as they are having such a hard time politically and socially - did you know their life expectancy is now the lowest in the world??!?

Bye Marla...

I didn't get home until early evening and was able to say "hello" to Dr Ross as she went with Ken to youth night. Friday was a busy day for the two of them with meetings for Ken's final evaluation for his internship. Everything went really smooth and Saturday we took the day to visit with the Ross's and show them around Palmerston North. We went shopping for a few souvenirs and enjoyed a good beer at Speights Ale House (yes, it finally opened in Palmy!)

In Feilding at Sage Cafe with the Ross's

Sunday service went wonderfully! I played the keyboard with the Tuesday team and all the songs went perfect, the service flowed together nicely, and there were 17 visitors! I had made a billion take home bags for visitors and families in the church which were given out after the service during the cuppa. That afternoon we took the Ross's down to the Kapiti coast, stopping at a rose garden on the way. We enjoyed some great ice cream and a long walk on the beach. We ended the evening with some Indian take-aways and then Ken and Dr. Ross had their final evaluation discussion. It was a really long discussion (almost three hours!) but Ken said that it was really great to talk with Dr. Ross about his 18-month international internship. She passed him with no reserve but did encourage him to think strongly about pursuing a career in teaching. It appears most everyone at the congregation that was interviewed by Dr. Ross felt that Ken is at his best when teaching. That, combined with his two term teaching at the Bible College led Dr. Ross to believe that this may be a talent Ken should further pursue. Well, when we get to South Africa, Ken will have 16 months to teach high-schoolers religious education, so it will be fun for him to experience that type of teaching after doing so much with adult education and the Bible College here in New Zealand.

Monday the Ross's left at 11am. We spent the rest of the day recouping from all the visitors we've had over the past two weeks! We got back into basic life again - cleaning house, Ken went on a 14 mile run (ugh) and I worked on the budget. Sounds horribly fun, but it actually was very relaxing, getting back into the "groove." Lois Price also stopped by in the afternoon to give us a beautiful painting she created for us to remind of us New Zealand - it is so gorgeous! The red/black/white design over the front is symbolic of the koru, which means new life. Then there are various pictures of New Zealand that we've seen from both the North and South Islands. It is a really special gift...

With flash:

Without flash:

Prayer requests - first of all, thanksgiving for all the blessings God has poured out over us the past week with Marla's visit, the Ross's coming out for Ken's evaluation, the Thanksgiving service and Christmas Outreach service successes, for friends who celebrated American thanksgiving and James Bond with us...the list keeps going! Second of all, please continue to keep us in prayer as we prepare our hearts and minds to leave New Zealand and begin South African mission. We are thankful for those who have already verbally agreed to praying for our mission and taking part of it financially. Please continue to keep us, and those at the Themba Trust School in your prayers.

November 18-24

2008-11-23T17:13:00.001-08:00

Marla's in New Zealand! She arrived in Wellington on Wednesday and is staying with us until next Friday! It has been a really fun week having one of my best friends from university around again!

So Monday and Tuesday Ken and I spent a lot of time in the office getting things done so we could take Wednesday off and enjoy Wellington with Marla. Tuesday evening I played music with the Tuesday team (they are playing on the 30th which is a big Christmas/Advent kick-off outreach event and their keyboardist isn't available so I am playing for her). It was really fun to play with a different group. Then right after practice, Ken set up the church for the "round table discussion" Adult Education study on secularism. We had a lower turnout with just under 20 attendees, but the discussions were very lively and I think everyone walked away with a better understanding of New Zealand's second most popular belief (secularism, which comprises atheism, agnosticism, humanism...).

Wednesday was a busy day - we left early and took a different route to Wellington, going through Upper and Lower Hutts. We also stopped at a really yum chocolate shop...wow. However, because of our longer drive, we were a few minutes (well, almost an hour!!) late to pick up Marla! But it didn't matter - we had a great afternoon wandering around Wellington. We went to our favorite brew spot (Mac's), took the trolley up to rose gardens, and had a nice look at the Bee Hive. On the drive home, we stopped at the beach at sunset to look for Paua shells and found quite a few!

Welcome to NZ Marla!

Taking the trolley up to the gardens

Sweet Love

Marla and I hanging out in Narnia

The Bee Hive

Enjoying some good food and beer to end the day in Welly

Finding Paua shells

Sunset over the Tasman

Thursday we went in to work and let Marla get some jet lag rest. That afternoon I took her on the grand tour of Palmerston North! It was nice to have the whole afternoon and evening hanging out with Marla as Ken was busy with work (and a PLT/Directors meeting). I haven't had some good one on one time with another chick for a while, so it was much needed. :)

Friday we went to the beach and enjoyed a sunny afternoon...although leaving proved difficult as our car got stuck in the sand!!! That's the first time that has happened to us! But thankfully, two beach bum guys came over to help us push the car out! Thanks! That evening we helped Ken at youth night (they were studying one of the Flight of the Concords songs which was appropriate for Marla as she got to study a New Zealand song). After youth we went home and watched Eagle Vs Shark to give her an appreciation of New Zealand movies. It was super fun and we painted our nails too. Ken made us yummy snacks and we had some fejoia liquor. Good times.

Enjoying the beach

Saturday morning we slept in and then made chocolate chip pancakes before heading over to the Islamic Centre for an adult education field trip. It was an opportunity to learn first-hand about the Islamic religion. There was a great turnout of about 20 adults from our church and one down the road. That evening was the Thanksgiving dinner at the church (had nothing to do with American thanksgiving) to celebrate all the different ministries going on in the Manawatu Parish. Marla helped lead the songs with me singing which was really fun (someone asked if all my friends sing! haha...)

Ken introducing the Thanksgiving Service

Marla and I leading music

Thanking God for His abundant Love and Gifts was the theme

Sunday Marla sang with my team again and then we went to the Speights Ale House with Jen and Sam for lunch. Then we went on a hike to show Marla some New Zealand bush. On the way back, we stopped at the turbine wind farms. Then we had some of my pizza before calling it a night.

A Minnesota Sandwich (with Arizona in the middle)

The whole gang - Sam, Jen, Ken, Marla, Pepper and myself

The turbines

Monday we lounged a bit and did some souvenir shopping.It's been a super busy week so far so we though it was important to have a much needed relax day!

November 11-17

2008-11-17T19:43:00.000-08:00

Well, this was the last week Pastor Rob Strelan was here in the Manawatu. We enjoyed a nice cuppa in the Esplanade on Tuesday afternoon together as our final "get-to-gether." Although as sad as everyone is to say goodbye and be pastor-less for the Advent season, spirits are high as we anticipate the coming of Pastor Lee in January! Yeay, a full time "real" pastor for the parish! Ken and I laugh about our time here as we have never worked with so many pastors before coming here (seeing as how we had 3 interim pastors, Pastor Greg, and Pastor Rob Erickson the national president/pastor)! But it's been good experience.

Tuesday was a fun but busy day - it began in the morning with Ken leading the devotion for our office. Then we went to a bbq with other youth workers in the city and then headed over to the park to have tea with Pastor Rob. After that we took Pepper to her first vet visit since we've had her - she did really well and seems to be all healthy! That evening we learned about Buddhism from a Christian who finished up a PhD in Buddhist studies. It was really neat to learn about the religion from a uniquely Christian vantage point (especially learning how John 3.16 means little to nothing to Buddhists...but that's a whole other blog!)

The bbq

The feast!

Gardens in full bloom at the Esplanade

Pastor Rob and Irene Strelan

Pepper's vet visit

Wednesday I visited Daina and had a nice cup of coffee with her. It was good to catch up as she has been super busy lately and unable to be a part of much at church. This was Ken's first Wednesday being done teaching - it was a bit odd, as we only went to the college to drop off his grading!

Friday night youth went really well - they studied the "gummy bear" song and played lots of gummy bear games (I think some of the youth went home sick because of how many gummy bears they ate! haha...) I spent the evening helping Jen pick out different things for her new house that her and Sam are renting out.

Saturday morning Ken and I went over bright and early to help Jen and Sam move their stuff - their new house is awesome! I love the wood floors. We enjoyed a bit of lunch at a garden cafe next door to their home. That afternoon Ken and I got a lot of Christmas shopping done - woohoo! Now we just have to get them in the mail...

Ken helping move Jen and Sam's stuff

Their new home

I love the kitchen

Enjoying some lunch after all that moving

Sunday we went to the early 9am service and met another American who is visiting her kids who now live here. It's amazing how many Americans we've met who have kids who have permanently moved to New Zealand! Although I see the perks - the nice working hours, the holiday breaks, the relaxed atmosphere...all things that Ken and I will really miss! The rest of Sunday was absolutely gorgeous - Ken went on a 13 mile run (basically a half-marathon) and I went sunbathing for a bit in the backyard while the clothes dried. We enjoyed a yummy bbq of kebabs that night for dinner.

Some pretty flowers Ken surprised me with

Pepper enjoying her day off too

The view from my kitchen

Our yummy kebabs

Ken the master griller

Monday was a work day - our friend Marla from the states comes to visit on Wednesday so we are taking that day off to hang out in Wellington (that's where she flies in). So we worked on Monday instead.

We've been super busy this week with our fundraising letters! We've mailed off well over 100...please keep us in prayer as we seek to raise $6100 for our 16 months in South Africa where we will be volunteering with the Themba Trust. It is a huge leap of faith, but we believe God will provide. But your prayers are very much welcomed!

November 4 - 10

2008-11-09T17:06:00.000-08:00

This week it really dawned on us that we've been in New Zealand for over a year - as we prepared for the activities of this week, we remembered doing them last year and felt very much at ease as we got everything together. For example, the youth celebrated Guy Fawkes at Rick and Kerri's on Friday night, just like we did last year. As Ken got the food together and organized rides for the kids, he remembered how it all went last year and felt very comfortable planning it again this year. For me, I created invitations for members in the church to hand out to friends for the November 30th Pre-Christmas service (it will kick off the advent service as we prepare for Christmas) - since I helped plan and prepare for this event last year, it was a breeze making the invitations and planning the service again for this year. Just as we are beginning to get comfortable in our roles, we're going to be leaving!

Because of all the changes in the office with staff there hasn't been a weekly Bible study/prayer time with everyone for a few months. However, Pastor Rob encouraged us to begin meeting again, so this past Tuesday morning I led the devotion. It's a great way to start the week off with Vicki, Ken, Pastor, and myself in the Word. Then Ken and I ran to get a new Starbucks coffee (and we got one for Vicki) - the Christmas season kinds have come out! Yum! (although I do miss the Thanksgiving pumpkin pie spice - they don't have that one in New Zealand).

Tuesday evening a PhD student came from Massey to teach the adult education study about Maori pre-contact religion. It was fascinating to learn about the Maori creation account and how their religion ties in to their everyday lives. Ken and I really hit it off with the presenter and he asked if we would like to go get a beer sometime next weekend and talk some more! He was very impressed with the church and it's members, opening their doors to a non-Christian to learn more about their religion. So it not only was a great way for the people of St. Luke's to learn more about a common religion in New Zealand, but it also was a great witness to the presenter on Christian love and willingness to learn about others instead of just condemning others.

Wednesday Ken taught his last BCNZ course and now is officially done as a "professor." It was a great two semesters, but Ken will enjoy having his mondays free again instead of always having to prep for class. Wednesday evening we had music practice - the team is pretty much just a mini-youth team now. It's been neat to watch and hear them grow over the past year - I believe Jude Nelson is going to step in to lead the team next year. That will be good for the youth that are involved in this team that desire to learn to play music together as a team to continue in that endeavor.

Friday was Guy Fawkes which went really well! 30 people attended the event (including youth and families) and the evening was clear and crisp, great for the bonfire and fireworks! Saturday was another beautiful sunny day, so Ken and I went to the A&P show in Feilding - sooo much fun! (as can be attested to by the pictures below). We had Trinity music practice that afternoon and some musicians from St. Luke's came over to help out which will be really great as we transition out, hopefully some other musicians will transition in to continue having "live" music there once a month. I know our new pastor coming in January plays guitar, so maybe he would like to help out for that service too! That night Ken hung out with Johnny and Morgan, two other youth workers in the city he met through the youth workers network meetings. They had a great time playing video games and being guys!

Ken with some of the youth who didn't want to play soccer:

Ken with the other youth who did want to play soccer!

Guy Fawkes bonfire before:

After:

Fireworks!

And sparklers!

A&P Show Animals

A&P Shows:

Yes, that is a small dog on the back of a small horse!

A&P Food!

Sunday was a busy day with church in the morning and evening (for Trinity). In between these services though we went for a 1.5 hour long walk at the river with Jen and Sam (they brought Anna for the walk too, which Pepper loved). It was good to catch up with them, enjoy the sunshine, and watch the dogs play in the river.

Today we're just busy cleaning house, trimming bushes, and just chillin' on our day off.

October 28-November 3

2008-11-02T16:13:00.000-08:00

We're in a new month again! This past week flew by as it was filled with preparation for confirmation and All Saints Sunday (both of which took place on Sunday the 2nd November). But before we go into details about the busy, festive weekend, let's take a quick peek at what else we were up to this week.

Tuesday Ken was busy getting things ready for the adult Bible study - this month we will be studying the most common religions in New Zealand. So Tuesday night we took a look at why it's important to study religions, and then how exactly to study religions. We used Christianity as an example of how to study religions since it also proved to be a great review of our own faith. Then we looked at some Christian variants (ie Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, etc...) It should be a great few weeks of study as we are purely looking at these religions to learn more about them, not to create apologetics against them. It is important as these other religions grow in New Zealand that Christians learn more about them not to attack them, but instead to be able to understand them as well as interact with them as friends and neighbors (because isn't that what Jesus asks us to do when he says to love your neighbors - there is no stipulation as to what kind of neighbors they have to be to be loved). So over the next few weeks there will be guest speakers coming in to teach on Islam, Buddhism, Maori pre-contact religions, and secularism (which will be a round table discussion as to if this is even a religion). Should be good stuff! Close to thirty folks came Tuesday night, which is the best turn-out for the Adult studies yet.

Wednesday Ken taught his second to last BNZ class! As much as he loves the course and teaching, it will be nice after next week when it's over so we can have more time on saturdays and mondays to go tramping now that the weather is getting nicer. That afternoon we enjoyed a nice lunch with the seniors of the congregation. There were quite a few more this year than last, so that's a good thing (I think!) That evening I led our music team - we learned a few news songs together (which is always good fun as well as a challenge). And Jen is back from her world travels, so it's good to have her voice in our group again. In fact, our group is finally it's full size after two months of people traveling/missing. So that feels great. I also spent most of Wenesday making final preparations for the Advent Sunday services coming up next month - I am really excited to see how the monologues for the Advent wreath go as well as the new song that the congregation will learn by Parachute called One Day.

Friday (Happy Halloween!) I met with one of the lay preachers to discuss the 30th November "outreach" service. It is going to be a "pre-Christmas" kick-off (as it is the first Sunday in Advent) and we planned out the readings and what he would be preaching on. Our interim pastor will be gone by then, but the service outline looks great! Jen and I are going to teach the Sonshine kids the song "This Little Light of Mine" with flashlights to click on and off for that service for them to sing for everyone (fits great with the Advent theme of Light). That evening Ken led the youth in their first of five Remix studies (where they take a modern song and study it from a Christian/Biblical perspective). The youth all seemed to enjoy it and they had a good time on their candy hunt - there was candy hidden all over the church for them to find. I stayed home to give out candy, but only five kids walked by...on the other side of the road!!!! So I ended up eating the candy (not all of it!)

Saturday was spent buying food and preparing for the confirmation evening - all the confirmands were coming at 6pm for a special family dinner (that I was cooking! yikes!) and then at 7pm they were to share with their families and anyone else who wanted to come from the congregation their statements of faith. About 30 people came to support them in their statements of faith and stayed to enjoy a cuppa. We ended up getting home a little after 9pm just to turn around and head to the local watering hole to relax and watch the Bledisloe Cup (All Blacks vs Australian Wallabies and we won!!!) Good times.

The food for Sat evening's dinner

Chef Ellie busy at work

Ken set up/decorated the tables

Ken introducing the evening

Catherine wrote a song for her statement of faith

Sam gave a speech and answered questions

Amanda and Rachel used this picture of falling backwards blindfolded to explain faith

Fabian gave a speech about his faith

Mitchel added in a new verse to Psalm 23 and played it with his Uncle from Christchurch

All the confirmands receiving a Bible from the parish chairman Paul Argyle

Enjoying a cuppa after the celebration of faith

Sunday morning was All Saints Sunday as well as Confirmation Sunday. The two events fit perfectly together as we remembered those who have passed away in the faith, and celebrated those who were today confirming their faith. The service went wonderfully and then we headed out to the Nelson's for lunch. The sunshine was out so we enjoyed it all afternoon on their porch before heading home at 5pm. Then we took Pepper on a nice long walk by the river to enjoy the late afternoon sunshine as well. Ah, springtime! That night we watched the movie Hotel Rwanda...wow, what a shocking film! I highly recommend you watch it if you haven't. It's important that this story be told.

Confirmation Sunday

Enjoying the sunshine that afternoon

Pepper and Ken getting ready to race...on your marks, get set...

...Go!

Pepper and I in a tree

Today, Monday, Ken took some time to read and relax as well as prepare for his last BNZ class. Plus he had a 12 mile run. I cooked up some yummy chocolate chip pancakes with boysenberries for breakfast and we made some surf n turf for dinner (shrimpies and steak - yum!) So it's been a great day of relaxation, especially after the busy weekend we had.

Some good news - Ken and I learned that Ken's Uncle Rick has offered to purchase our round-trip tickets to South Africa! What a blessing! So we are moving forward with that planning. We are also beginning our visa process - lots of paperwork and medical stuff we have to get moving on. At church we found out that we have a pastor coming in January! He has just graduated from seminary and will be moving here with his wife, son and a baby-to-come in April! The church is just ecstatic about it. We are glad that there will be someone to shepherd the place once we leave in early Feb.

So thanks for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. We are incredibly thankful for your support!

October 21-27

2008-10-26T20:47:00.000-07:00

A week in Wellington! Tuesday morning we left Palmerston North and headed off for our last church workers conference. This time it was in Wellington. These conferences are always a great time of relaxation, learning, devotion, and growth. Ken and I find them very unique - a time to meet with LCNZ Pastors, church workers, and LSM leaders as well as the LCNZ President for three days. We stayed at Our Lady's Home of Compassion - it is run by nuns and had gorgeous grounds, including a grotto! It used to be a hospital but was shut down a few years ago and now is used for conferences, prayer retreats, healing retreats, etc. On Wednesday night we had the "pilgrimage" (we all go out to a pub of some sorts) at the Back Bencher, a pub next to Parliament that was themed off all the politicians! It was really fun.

Our Lady's Home of Compassion main building

Our Lady's grounds

The Chapel

Inside the chapel

The grotto

Mary and Jesus

Looking out the widow at Back Bencher you can see Parliament!

The one on the left is supposed to be Helen Clark, New Zealand's Prime Minister!

The Church Workers of the LCNZ!

Thursday the conference was over, so Ken and I took the afternoon to enjoy Wellington - we love it there, plus we found a new favorite hang-out spot (we over-did going to Mac's brew bar): The Malthouse. Really good food and great selection of beer on tap from all over the north and south islands!

Friday I worked with Mark Whitfield and Guy Jansen to set up for Segue, the first ever LCNZ worship and music conference. It was such an honor to be a part of the planning committee for that event! Set up was a bit shaky (the tv blew up, the LCNZ projector was still in Palmerston North, but the cd player worked just fine!) I also spent a bit of time practicing for Sunday morning worship - Mark asked me to play piano for the entire service (a traditional liturgical setting by David Haas). It was really fun to have something challenging to play - I was quite glad that Mark asked me. During all this time, Ken was busy preparing his devotional message for Sunday evening's Bach Cantata (we'll touch more on this in a few paragraphs).

Practicing practicing practicing!

Friday afternoon Ken and I went down to the Bee Hive (Parliament) for a tour. It was very informational, but by the end of the hour I was ready to be done. We ended up talking to a Canadian fellow who was also on the tour - he sounded pretty homesick for North America. Ken and I are happy that we are finally beginning to feel at home here in New Zealand - not that we don't miss the states (trust me, we definitely went through the homesick stage!!!) but we're just finally feeling like we know New Zealand enough to feel completely comfortable. It's a neat feeling. That night we babysat Mark and Leanne's children (we stayed at Mark and Leanne's home after the church workers conference through the Segue Conference). We love Mark's house - it's right behind the church up a small flight of stairs! How convenient is that?!

Ken and I at the Bee Hive (picture courtesy of our Canadian friend)

The church from Mark's backyard

The inside of the church

Babysitting the kids

Having fun too!

Segue began at 9.30am Saturday. There were about 20 people total (a good turn-out for the first one). The programme began with a Taize service that I played the piano for. Then we had Guy Jansen's keynote address on "What is Worship?" before breaking up into practical sessions (ie worship band, organ, speech, etc...). Ken really enjoyed learning more about speaking and communicating - Wendy Bruge, who was the presenter for that breakout session, told him that he is a natural at speaking in front of people and gave him a few tips at how to perfect his art! I was a presenter for a break out session on Scripture Songwriting. I really enjoyed sharing with others some things I learned from other songwriters (at the Noise Conference I went to a few months back) as well as some hints I've learned as I write music. The evening ended at Fisherman's Table for some fellowship time together. Ken and I both went to bed with highs from the day - it was so wonderful to meet new people from around the LCNZ (as well as some Anglican attendees) and to see the conference go wonderfully! It was quite the success! Thank you Lord!

Guy Jansen's opening session (Pauline introducing him)

The "Essentials of a worship band" break-out session

Sunday morning service was beautiful - it was Reformation Sunday (so festive colour of red) so of course we sang A Mighty Fortress by Luther. I really enjoyed playing with the pre-service worship band (a team formed on Saturday as one of the break out sessions for Segue that had a member from Christchurch, Wellington and Palmerston North! The new LCNZ worship band??) as well as playing all the liturgical music. It was a challenge, but an enjoyable one at that! That afternoon we had our closing Segue session which was poorly attended. But those who came found it very beneficial as they had a chance to talk to Guy Jansen and pick his brain on worship, as well as speak with the Segue planning team about improvements for next year. Everyone agreed that the weekend was phenomenal and needs to happen again...soon! I will keep you up to date as the Segue team meets to debrief and see what the vision for the LCNZ is. Exciting times! Sunday evening was the Bach Cantata - Ken did a wonderful job on his devotional message (using some new breathing techniques he learned from Wendy on Saturday!) The Cantata was based on the Matthew passage about paying taxes to Cesar, but giving to God what is God's. The Cantata itself was beautiful and afterwards there was champagne and cake to celebrate the St. Paul's Bach Cantata's 1st birthday! This music ministry in the Wellington has been just wonderful this past year (cheers to many more to come!) - in fact, it has been done so well with the use of many professional baroque musicians that the services are advertised on the radio as well! There were well over 100 people there that evening to celebrate. We went to dinner with Pasty and Mark, a Taiwanese couple our age from Botany (Auckland) that came to the Segue worship conference. We hit it off really well and had a great time - they took us to a Chinese restaurant and ordered all our food for us! It was really yum (even the squid!) and we had a great time getting to know each other and learn more about Taiwanese culture. We look forward to hanging out with them again in January when we travel to Northland.

Ken after his devotional

Yummy cake!

Guy Jansen and Mark Whitfield

Pauline and myself

So we didn't get home until 12:30am Monday morning. Lucky that it's our day off! It also happens to be Labour Day for New Zealand although Ken did labour on some work he

needed to catch up on, as well as a looooong run (preparation for that marathon coming up this march). I cleaned the house and did laundry since it was a sunny, but windy day (means fast drying clothes!) We had such a wonderful time in Wellington this past week! It was a blessing to be energized and refreshed from both conferences. Ahhhh....life is good!

(A Wellington frog sending you greetings!)

October 14-20

2008-10-19T15:26:00.000-07:00

Have you seen Wall-E yet? If not, go see it! Tuesday night Ken led a movie Bible study this month on the film...although only three people attended so instead of actually have the study, he is giving them copies of the study for them to do in their small home groups (the study was going to be interactive needing at least a small group to work through all the questions together.) But it was a very thought-provoking movie; a sci-fi for kids basically. But I won't give any more away so that you can go watch it for yourself!

Wednesday Ken went back to teaching after a two week holiday break - it was good to be back in the classroom and he is sad that there is only six more weeks of teaching left! I went to the last Segue Music Conference meeting in Paraparamu. Looks like registration numbers are low, but that's to be expected as this is the first time the Lutheran church has put on a national music conference. Hopefully those that attend will benefit from the weekend (the 25-26th Oct) and maybe in two years when they re-launch another Segue weekend, more will come. I am part of planting the seed and pray that God's will be done.

Thursday at the PLT and Directors meeting we talked a lot about the pros and cons of going ahead and hiring another youth worker next year since we are pastor-less at the moment. We have decided to go ahead and put out notices in Australia and New Zealand for youth workers (Luther or not) and see what happens next month re: the pastor. Currently, the LCNZ President, Rob Erickson, is in Australia meeting graduates from the Lutheran University there to see if there are any eligible for New Zeland. IF one would come, it would be in Jan/Feb 09. We will know sometime next month what will happen with this and if it is affirmative that we have a pastor coming, then for sure we will go ahead and hire a new youth worker. If we don't have a pastor coming, then I think the church will re-talk about the pros and cons of getting a youth worker in the absence of a pastor. Please keep all this in your prayers.

This weekend Ken took five youth on a confirmation retreat to Riversdale. There are seven youth being confirmed on November 2, but only five could attend. It turned out to be a great group though - I went along as a cook and Sharolyn Mollet came along as a prayer intercessor. The youth who came great exponentially over the weekend. Ken taught three basic faith expressions: the faith we confess (the mouth), the faith we are confirming (the heart), and the calling that this faith places on our lives for us to live out in action (the hands). It was a great way to teach the kids an overview wrap up of the year's study, as well as teach them that confirmation is not graduation, but instead is simply the beginning of our faith journey as we tell the congregation our faith that we believe in our hearts, and then begin to live out that faith by getting involved in our church community in service. We were very blessed to have a sunny Saturday so that the kids were able to go swimming and hang out on the beach for free time - check out the "prayer station" that one of the youth made!

Confirmation retreat at Riversdale!

The Bach

Sharolyn and Pepper looking at the "prayer window"

A cute little church in Riversdale that meets monthly for worship

The prayer station on the beach the youth made

Game time!

Not baseball - that's a cricket bat!

Some pretty spring scenes

The leaders of the retreat

The whole gang

We got back Sunday evening from the retreat. Monday we went into the office to get some odd jobs done as we will be gone Tuesday-Sunday at Church Workers Conference and Segue. We're looking forward to relaxing come Labour Day on the 27th!!

October 7-13

2008-10-11T02:35:00.001-07:00

This week was quite relaxed. We got back Tuesday evening from the bach, and went in to work bright and early Wednesday morning. Ken is excited that the theatre will be playing Wall-e next Tuesday evening (super saver evening) so the family Bible study will be happening next week and began to prepare for that study. I met with Sharolyn from Summerhill about the holiday school programme Turbo Time she put on this past week - she wanted to incorporate some of it in Sunday worship at St. Luke's.

Thursday Ken went to the children's ministry meeting and was excited to hear everyone that attended Faith Inkubators last month share with the others all they had learned. Everyone decided to give Faith Ink a trial shot so next year they will begin to implement the "program" - I hesitate to call it that because the premise of Faith Ink is to get away from programs, and instead encourage families to be involved in their child's faith development. But they do have a set of materials you can purchase and use for your Sunday mornings at church as well as materials that families can take home to work on together throughout the week that reinforce the theme from Sunday.

Friday morning Ken and I met with Rachel (one of the youth) for a smoothie/hang out time- she won it in confirmation for memorizing the Apostle's Creed. That was fun and while we were hanging out at the plaza, John Key (running for NZ Prime Minster this Nov on the National party ticket) was walking around and shook our hands! We were video taped and photographed and had a chance to talk with him about NZ and American politics! Who knows but we may have spoke to the next NZ Prime Minister! We'll let you know after the elections next month. Speaking of elections, I voted! My ballot arrived last week but it cost me $5 to vote! (the cost of the stamp to mail it back!)

Friday evening we went to dinner at President Erickson’s with Pastor Rob and Irene Strelan (our interim pastor). It was a really good time - no earthquakes though (last time we ate there we experienced quite the shake!)

Saturday my sister called me up out of the blue, which was really nice! It was good to catch up and hear about life at her house (Tiana got on the phone a bit and spelled out her name for me!) Then we met up with Rachel and Tony from Feilding to get some yummy cheesecakes in Woodville. And they were yummy! Then we had Trinity music practice and ended the evening with my home-made pizza.

Yummm!!!!

Turbines

Sunday was super busy - I was doing powerpoint for the 9am service, Ken and I were leading music at the 1030 service and Ken was on children's message, and then again we led music and Ken did the children's message at the 5pm Trinity service! In the afternoon I was able to call home and have a great talk - guess what???!!! A lady in the neighborhood offered Ken and I stand-by tickets to South Africa!!!! What a blessing! We will be working out the details over the next few weeks on that, but really, we can't get over this gift!

Monday has been another beautiful sunny day (there's been about three in a row now!) and I've got my shorts on for the first time this spring! Yeay! Ken did an hour long run, called home, and worked a bit on his class - it starts back up this Wednesday (there was two week school holiday). In the afternoon we took a walk to the grocery store for some food and got a pretty little gerber plant for our backyard. Pepper enjoyed the afternoon outside as well, as you can see in her pictures below! Oh and Rachel and Tony gave Pepper a new collar and leash that didn't fit their dog. Doesn't she look cute?

Hanging out clothes to dry in the sunshine

Ken potting my new plant

Watering my new plant

Pepper "getting it"

Listening to the birds

Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever, amen!"

September 23-October 7

2008-10-03T16:36:00.000-07:00

DISCLAIMER: This blog is super long as it covers two weeks, lots of activities, and pictures galore!

The past two weeks have been very eventful, both emotionally and physically. To begin with, we found out that we have a rather large education loan to cover when we get back to the states. It is currently being deferred until Feb 09 but then it kicks in high gear. This worried us with regards to spending a year volunteering in South Africa...so we began to take things into our own hands and plan away -- forgetting that in doing so, we were not allowing God to plan a way! We decided we shouldn't go to South Africa, and were about ready to call it quits when God Himself intervened. First, we got an email from Dr Ross encouraging us to go anyway and to seek a loan deferment since we will be volunteering. Then, my parents encouraged us to go and trust God to provide and we read Deut 10:17-18 which gave us courage that God WILL provide! Then we got an email from Reinhild herself explaining that they need us to come this year because they've already created a music centre for me to use, are having two retired ministry leaders come from the States to be our mentors and to help us adjust for the first few months, and Ken is going to have a position as a religious educator! Wow! So, we realized over the last two weeks how foolish we have been, taking things into our own hands trying to plan life when all along God has been showing us how He has things all taken care of - all we have to do is trust. Instead of seeking to plan things out to bring glory to ourselves, we must give over our plans to the Lord who will make all things work to our good and His glory. So, after two very emotional weeks, we're back on track - going to South Africa early March 2009. We don't have all the answers as of yet, but I think that's the way God wants it. We're going to rest in Proverbs 16:3 that He is going to make the path straight for us.

Last week I also found out Jaime's wedding is in September 09 and she invited me to be a bridesmaid! As of right now though, we're not sure what will happen. If this is to happen though, I trust that the money will appear and I'll be able to go back to the states for her wedding. If not, then I have to believe that is what the Lord is willing. So please do keep that in your prayers as it means so much to me to be a part of her special day! Also pray for wisdom as we discern what to do with the little Pep dog...

Other amazing news from God: the church is paying my airfare home as well as Ken's! What a blessing! So now we only have to cover the costs of shipping boxes! Wow - God is good. It is amazing to see what He does when we allow Him to work, eh?

So that's all the emotional news - now on to how physically eventful the past two weeks have been: we left on Saturday the 29th for Christchurch with eight youth and two other leaders for a youth mission trip. It was a great trip - for some of the youth their first time on the South Island, and for others their first time on an airplane! We arrived Saturday to bad weather, so we spent the day relaxing, playing games and just hanging out. The Lutheran church (St. Paul's) prepared a wonderful lunch for us and we had a chance to meet some of the people we would be working with for the week. Sunday the youth led worship for the church and it went wonderfully! The sound system and equipment at this church was just superb - we all had a bit of envy wishing that was at St. Luke's! Haha...Then Sunday afternoon was another pot luck with the church. It was so fun to meet everyone - I felt right at home and very much in my "comfort zone." Very cool - and Ken preached the sermon which everyone really enjoyed. Again, very cool. Sunday afternoon we all headed into Christchurch to explore the city for a few hours. Then we ended the evening going to another youth group's youth worship to see how other youth lead worship (one of the youth from St. Paul's attends that youth group and invited us to go).

Dropping off Pepper at Tolly Farm for the week

Checking in our bags and getting on the plane

The Southern Alps outside of Christchurch

Arriving in Christchurch

St. Paul's Lutheran

Spent Saturday afternoon relaxing and having fun!

Ken and Pastor David chatting it up

Practicing for Sunday worship

Team building game Ken led to teach the youth to ask for help

The potluck after Sunday service

Heading into Christchurch Sunday afternoon

A gag gift for Ken

Monday we got up bright and early to begin work - Ken Sr. was our leader and we braved the elements to begin gardening a rather large plot overrun with weeds and brush. It took all day, but by the end of it we all looked in amazement at our accomplishment! Wow! We relaxed that night with some movies. Tuesday was another early morning and we finished the prayer garden - planting 120 seedlings! We celebrated by going to the local pools/hot tubs to relax and have fun. That evening some of the youth set up a Talent Quest event which was a lot of fun for everyone!

DAY ONE - clear out this plot!

American Gothic (modernized and in New Zealand)

DAY TWO: Planting!

Ken and Ken Sr. (our gardening overseer

Yippie! We did it!

Closing devotion and dedication over the garden with the church behind us

Relaxing at the pools followed by our very own Lutheran Talent Quest!

Wednesday morning we were up early to pack and clean before going to Christchurch to work a food bank for the Salvation Army Hope Centre. Once that was done, we had the rest of the afternoon to wander around the city again before heading back to St. Paul's for a final farewell dinner (of yummy pizza!) and then got on the plane to Palmy. Ken and I were exhausted from the week - physically, mentally and spiritually and were ready for a good rest. We are very thankful for all the prayers we had for us. Throughout the trip we both felt very empowered as leaders and it was awesome to see many of the youth shine as they worked in the garden or food bank, played games, bonded closer, and just had a overall great time.

Working at the food bank

The pizza provided for us by St. Paul's as a goodbye/thank you

Thursday morning we got right back into work - had to go to Trinity for their holiday program Blast. It really was a blast - we had so much fun! That afternoon we caught up on some office work and Ken went to the PLT meeting that night. Friday we did our last day of Blast...seems weird that things are now being our "lasts" instead of our "firsts." We had no youth Friday evening so instead we went on a 5k walk/run together and made pizza, relaxing with a Bond film.

Ken teaching about the Easter story, Ellie doing song time, and a girls v boys tug of war game

Saturday we went to our last Turbos Rugby game...of course, they lost (when don't they??!!) but it was still really fun to be there! And we supported them all the way with our Turbos t-shirts, some Tui beer and hot chips - we're true New Zealanders now.

GO GREEN!!!! (the planes agree as they whizzed over in support!)

Sunday Ken and I headed out to Riversdale to Butch and Chrissy's beach bach. We stayed there for two days (Pep loved the place - between the beach and the little heater, she was in heaven! see pictures below). It was great to get away and be alone, quiet and let all the excitement and stress of the past two weeks disappear.

The bach, kiwiana, and Pep's heaven: the beach and heater!

So, as you can see, a very busy past two weeks -- thank you for your constant support and prayers. We love you!

September 16-22

2008-09-20T21:07:00.001-07:00

Great news! Reinhild from Themba emailed us twice this week with information about next year! We will begin in mid-March 09 and we are beginning the visa process -- so it's for real! I will be teaching music (and whatever else that entails) and Ken is going to plug in however needed once on the ground. We're just so excited to have heard from Reinhild and can begin to start arranging travel etc.

Well, Tuesday and Wednesday were beautiful sunny days which was perfect since we were car-less. Good thing Palmy is such a small town! Tuesday evening we went over to the Esplanade to watch Rachel Nelson play field hockey - her team took silver (wooohoo)! Field hockey is very popular down here, so it was good to go and see a game and hang out with the Nelson's.

Wednesday Ken had the best class ever - he said that he felt really good about his teaching and also figured out Rob Bell's theology (sometimes the things Rob Bell says on his Nooma videos and/or books don't quite resonate) - Rob Bell sees things from a narrative perspective, which is why he doesn't so much focus on the event in Scriptures from a historical perspective, but instead from a more literary-what-does-this-story-mean perspective. Over the past few weeks in Ken's class they've been looking at how Christianity and it's theology began after Christ left the earth, and are finally making their way to modern theology (hence, Rob Bell). Very much a high for his week! Wednesday night I had the youth team for the upcoming mission trip practice again - just the instrumentalists. And it was a great practice! Things are shaping up - we have a saxophone, keyboard, bass, guitar and percussion instruments in the arrangement! The evening ended with the all-music-team meet. We've changed it so that we only meet once a quarter now, which has been working out great! The meet went smooth and we planned out all the "special services" for the rest of the year. When we got home Wednesday night we were pleased to see our car back! yeay! Perfect timing since the rest of the week was cold and rainy.

Thursday we went to see Rose, our counselor, again. It was good to talk to her about some of the issue's we're dealing with at the church (ie lack of support). We left feeling very refreshed and will probably go back to see her once more before leaving New Zealand. Thursday afternoon I met with Pauline for some coffee - we realized this month we didn't have any long drives together for Segue planning (the music conference next month) so we thought a coffee break would be good. That evening was PLT/Directors. Ken and I are beginning to feel bad about ever bringing up our issues regarding that family...but we've also decided that we're done discussing it, thinking about it, talking about it, etc. We've done all we can. Dr. Ross affirmed us saying that in a counseling situation, often someone brings up how they feel and then feel bad when nothing seems to be done about it. But it is not our job to control an outcome, but simply to bring forth our feelings.

Friday night Ken was sharing about Fair Trade at the salvation army church - some of our youth came which was awesome. The night went really well and everyone seemed to enjoy the coffee and facts about trade awareness. As a consumer, we CAN make a difference by buying fairly traded coffee, chocolate, teas, etc. It may not be as convenient, but then again, what is your convenience worth? After going to Indonesia, Ken is more on fire for fair trade as he met some coffee-growers who are making the transition to fair trade coffee and they said even a few cents more will make all the difference in the quality of their lives!

Saturday morning was the youth sausage sizzle fundraiser event - sold over 500 of them too! South Island mission trip here we come! Ken and I were on shift from 8-10am (although there were other shifts going until 2ish). Then we went home to take Pepper to the pet store - it was Pet Fun Days, so she got to get some treats and visit with some farm animals. Gotta love Palmerston North! After that we took her to the park to run around - wow, the cherry blossoms are in full bloom! Then we went to church to set up for the Five Love Languages seminar led by Pastor/President Rob Erickson. It was a great success (30 people attended from Palmy and Marton and Wanganui) and it ended with a nice dinner for those who desired to come. We also met a woman from Wanganui who was originally from Gilbert, Arizona! Small world!

The first ones there to prep for the sausage sizzle

It's early so I need my coffee! It's Fair Trade too!

The bbq arriving on forklift - sweet as!

Ken and crew setting up

Sizzle sizzle sizzle

Pepper having fun at Pet Fun Days

The Cherry Blossoms in the Esplanade

Ken introducing Pastor/President Rob Erickson

Would you like a book with your registration packet?

Enjoying dinner at The Elm - the woman in the pink vest is Karen from Gilbert!

True love...

Going to bed Saturday night I knew I was sick with the cold/flu bug. So I stayed home Sunday morning. Ken went to church where our interim pastor was preaching on God's will...the pastor in Australia we called rejected the call. Back to the drawing board. Please continue to keep this parish in your prayers as they deal with being pastor-less. Then Ken had a final information meeting for the South Island mission trip - we leave on Saturday! He came home to feed me some chicken noodle soup (perfect when you're sick) and then we made some chocolate chip cookies (also perfect when you're sick! hehe). We were going to go skiing on Monday, but I think that will be postponed. Otherwise, Ken finished his New Zealand history book and is starting The Shack (yea)! I'm through with reading Christian books right now, although I'm going to finish Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (very interesting - you should have a read on that AFTER you read The Shack!) but once it's done, I think I'm going to take a break from God-books. Nothing wrong with them, I'm just getting tired. Instead, I'm going to read Elephant Memories all about this woman who lived 13 years with the elephants in Kenya (Ambrosi National Park). So far, it's awesome! It's just getting me more excited about seeing them in South Africa next year!

September 9-15

2008-09-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

Me, getting a birthday hug from Mom and Dad Steinbart and the Johnson family!

Happy 23rd Birthday to me! This week has been one long birthday celebration in the Chitwood Household! It began Monday with my first card arriving from Uncle Darryl and Aunt Betty. Tuesday Mom and Dad Chitwood's birthday box arrived filled with yummy goodies (m&ms with my face on them! no way!) and fun hair ties that I've been sporting all week. Then on Wednesday, the office brought in a yummy chocolate cake for a tea party in the afternoon and that evening 12 people came to The Steak Out to celebrate with us! At the end of the evening, the lady who runs the front counter gave me a special Chinese birthday blessing of health and wealth for all the rest of my days - it was very sweet of her! The cards and emails/ecards/facebook notes continued to trickle in throughout the week from family and friends back in the states. On Thursday morning at Trinity, (see below as to why we were there) the Cuttle's surprised me with a cupcake and candle and that evening the Hopping's invited us over for dinner, surprising me with a little cup cake and candle too! Sunday other families surprised me with cards and then on Monday (today) the "birthday box" arrived from Mom and Dad Steinbart (with stuff packed in from Aunt Judy and Uncle Steve as well as Steph, Anthony and Tiana) as well as card from Jaime. WOW! I feel sooooooooo loved! Thank you every one who sent me greetings and blessings - it means so much to me and has been a real joy! Thank you thank you thank you!!!!! If God is trying to show me His love through His people, I think He made it loud and clear this week!

Personalized M&Ms from Mom Chitwood!

They're fun and yum!

The Steak Out

Good food and fun times with friends

Birthday Sundae

Morning after my birthday enjoying some yummy chocolate cake from the office party

Birthday Box from Mom and Dad Steinbart!

Following the Birthday Box directions

Other news from the home front. The week has been a very nice week - quite relaxing. Tuesday evening Ken led a devotion on Rob Bell's DVD "Everything Spiritual" with about 12 people attending. It was a good turnout for a one-off study during the September break. He will begin the Adult Ed classes again in October with World Religions in New Zealand.

Thursday morning we went out to Trinity to talk with other children's ministry leaders about the upcoming holiday programs. The focus of the program will be Jesus as the way, truth and light. The first day should focus on the blind man on the road being healed, the second day on the lame man who was healed and the last day on the Easter story. It was a good two hours of brainstorming up ideas for songs, crafts, games, etc. Watch for more info once the holidays begin in early October as Ken and I will be involved with Blast again.

Thursday evening we were invited to the Hopping's for dinner to catch up a bit as well as hear their concerns regarding the negative impact that certain family at church has been having on their son. They are worried about his attitude changes and considered taking him out of youth, but they feel that Ken's positive attitude negates that family's negative one, so for now they will allow him to come so long as he doesn't hang out with that family after youth (I guess for a while now that family "takes kids home" after youth, but really goes and hangs out with them for another hour or so at McDonalds or something!)

Friday, Ken and I were beginning to dread youth night. I've realized the bullied feelings we get and the negative comments made to us from this family is a form of verbal and emotional harassment! No wonder we feel the way we feel! But, this Friday evening the family was unable to make it so youth worship and youth evening went smoothly and all the kids seemed to have a great evening together. It was refreshing for Ken and I.

Saturday Ken did a long run out to Feilding (he's in marathon training) which was about 14kms and then we had music practice with Trinity's group. It was a really good practice and then we headed over to the Cuttle's for dinner. It was such a fun night - we feel like family when we're around them. And because they have relatives in America (and have visited lots) we feel we can talk about home unapologetic-ly around them. Again, refreshing - God is good!

Sunday morning in church Ken and I both felt very moved by the sermon on forgiveness...we realized that we do really need to forgive this family for their hurtful comments and glares no matter what the church decides to do. Although the situation is abusive, we are still called on to forgive and love (think of Christ on the cross...). Please pray for us as we know and understand this, but find it hard sometimes to daily practice this.

Sunday night Trinity service went well, although attendance was a bit low. We ended the night at the Brewer's enjoying their new IPA.

Today, Monday, we've enjoyed our day off, not answering the tele when it rings. We took the dog for a long walk, Ken had a 50 minute run and of course, I enjoyed opening the birthday box from Mom and Dad Steinbart! Also had some great conversations with our families back home (called them both) and got grocery shopping done. We're enjoying a chicken bbq pizza for dinner and a nice long bath. Ah, Mondays. We love them!

September 2-8

2008-09-07T20:36:00.000-07:00

Monday the 1st was the first official day of spring and the sunshine followed us throughout the entire week until Saturday with a bit of rain and again on Monday.

This week Pastor Rob Strelan arrived (our new interim pastor for the next few months) - we met him on Tuesday morning. He seems like a perfect mixture between our first interim and our second interim (the first was a bit strict and inflexible, the second very very easy going). I think we will enjoy working with Pastor Rob. :)

Tuesday was a pretty busy day - I got most of my work done in the morning and then took Pepper to the beach in the afternoon to get some rays! Ken was busy preparing for his lecture on Wednesday and made his way to Starbucks in the square to also enjoy the sun while working on his computer. Tuesday evening was completely free - a first in quite a few weeks! We enjoyed the night with a good book: I read more in The Shack and Ken continued his Penguin History of New Zealand - only about another 200 pages for him to go!

Wednesday Vicki (office admin assistant) brought me some flowers to thank me for all the hard work I have done to get her settled into her job! That was super sweet and made my day! Wednesday afternoon Ken and I both enjoyed getting to know Pastor Rob and his wife Irene better as they came to the office to celebrate Lilian's (the LCNZ office administrator) birthday. It was a great lunch and a enjoyable time of fellowship. Wednesday night was our music team's last practice - we lead on Sunday.

Thursday we went to a counseling session - we've been dealing with the stress of culture shock and work for a while now, and thought it a good idea to seek some guidance. We also ended up talking to President Rob Erickson about our issues with that certain family in the church...Ken's director in the States feels that the church needs to take some disciplinary action on the family because it's not just an issue of them vs us, but is an issue that the entire church deals with! So, Ken decided to be honest and bring up our feelings to the PLT meeting on Thursday night. It was God's timing as Pastor Rob Strelan began the meeting on Matthew 18 (where Jesus talks about how to deal with conflict in the church) without knowing what Ken was going to bring up! Wow! Then when Ken opened up about this family, other leaders in the church also unloaded about how this family has been hurtful and destructive as well. We hope that something will be done, but unfortunately, this church is family owned and operated and often it seems that they value a false sense of unity rather than true Christian relationship and fellowship.

Friday we headed over to the Brewer's Apprentice for their new IPA - yum! Before heading back to the church for youth worship practice...which was a disaster! It was then that I realized it is pointless for me to be in leadership when I have no respect from those I am leading and no support from the church leadership. That evening at youth Ken also talked to the group about unity as this certain family has been dividing the group into two over the past few months. One of the PLT members came as well for support, but unfortunately, I'm not sure that talking will do anything about the problem so long as the problem itself is never fully addressed.

Saturday we enjoyed practice at Feilding with the team for the 14th evening service - it was such a refreshing experience! We thank God for the hearts and smiles of those people! We ended the evening with dinner at the Nelsons - which was really fun! We played a card game called Rummy and I lost horribly! But I won on the practice round - that should count for something, eh? Before leaving, they talked and prayed with us about the issues going on at St. Luke's. It is definitely a huge problem, something spiritual, that must be dealt with. Please pray that this church will have the strength to pull out the sliver before it infects the whole body.

Sunday our team led and we played one of my songs (always a neat experience). But Ken and I still felt very heavy about the whole situation at the church and decided to take the afternoon out at the beach to get some sunshine! It was a wonderful afternoon - I finished The Shack! Two words: read it! And Ken is now only 150 pages away from being done with his NZ history book. Phew! Pepper enjoyed running around and digging - she dug a whole that was as deep as she is tall!

Pepper and Ken playing

My turn

The master digger at work

Playing in the water with her stick

Love, love, love!

Today, Monday, the rains have arrived again. It is still spring, so although those sunshine days feel like summer, they are broken up every now and again with these gray days. Ken is busy preparing for his lecture on Wednesday as well as his Bible study event for tomorrow night called, Everything Is Spiritual (a video by Rob Bell). Looks to be good, although we're not sure how many people will attend.

Pep relaxing on this rainy Monday afternoon

Please please please keep us in your prayers as we try to discern God's will in the mess of the church. As hurtful and painful as it is for us, it is even more so for the church especially as they continue to do nothing about the problem but just sweep it under the rug. May the church have the strength and love to walk this family through discipline and healing, for the family's good and the community of the church as well! Amen.

August 26-September 1

2008-08-31T23:21:00.000-07:00

It's hard believe it's already September! For the Southern Hemisphere, we celebrated the first day of Spring today (September 1) and what a beautiful day of spring it was! The sunshine was strong with a slight breeze and a few clouds in an otherwise blue sky! We decided to do some spring cleaning today and so went through all our clothes to get rid of things we don't wear often or things that have gotten pretty old and ratty. It felt good to get things cleaned out. Then we cleaned the entire house and pretty much all the laundry washed and dried! Jen and Sam left today for Europe for their six week trip, so we took them to the airport and then ran some errands around town. We enjoyed a "chili dog" for lunch - it was more like sweet chili sauce than American-style chili, but it was still delicious. I also got a gift card to a store called Max from Jen for my birthday (not until the 10th) so we did a little birthday shopping as well!

Back to the rest of the week: Tuesday evening Pauline and I taught the Bible study course at St. Luke's covering the last two signs in John: the man born blind and raising Lazarus. We had 21 people attend! I had a great time teaching an adult Bible study for the first time! Everyone seemed to enjoy it and there was a lot of positive feedback for Pauline and I.

Wednesday I went to Ken's class at the Bible college. It was neat to see him in action teaching his students all about Biblical exegesis - we learned about the early church fathers (100-300ish AD). Everyone seemed very engaged with his teaching and there was a lot of discussion/questions throughout the lesson which was neat to listen to. It was also Pepper's 3rd birthday, so we gave her a new toy and some yummy treats (they fit inside the toy and she has to shake the toy to get them to fall out). Fun times!

Pep can smell a treat

Just playing around

Friday youth was a fun night - the youth were supposed to be having play practice for the next three Friday nights, but no one showed up to the first practice so the woman leading the practices cancelled them. So, Ken thought it would be good to have a fun game night this Friday and invited me to come along. We played "broomball" (indoor hockey but using a large ball and broom sticks!) and it was a blast! Unfortunately however, that family we've been having issues with for the past year put a damper to the event by not playing and enticing two other youth to not play. So rather than have a split youth group, Ken decided to end the game early and just the youth all hang out together in the supper room. Please continue to keep this issue in your prayers - we've been talking to some of the church leaders about this family and how they need to address how involved and controlling they are in the church because it isn't healthy and will be just as difficult for the next youth leader as it was for Ken and as it was for the youth leader before Ken! Ugh...

Saturday the sunshine came out and we decided to go to the beach. But after driving through Longburn (about ten minutes outside of town) we realized our engine was overheating and we couldn't drive over 50kms! So we turned around and mozied our way back home at a slow pace. We decided to take Pepper to the park instead and after that got ready to go to the Turbo's game! Once there, the computers were all down so we couldn't buy tickets!!! However, a lady walked up to us and asked if we wanted her tickets. We said no because we didn't have any cash, but she said that she just wanted to give them to us! Awesome! So we enjoyed a free game shouted by a random lady! Thanks whoever you are, wherever you are! Unfortunately, the Turbos lost, but that didn't surprise us too much. Haha...We ended the night having dinner with Sam and Jen and a bunch of their friends to celebrate Sam's 30th birthday! It was an awkward dinner as he had three totally separate groups of friends there who didn't all mix very well together. But we had a good time regardless.

True green-eyed Turbo fans!

Turbo Man

Sunday we took the slow route out to Feilding going about 35-40kms (took us about 40 mins to get there, double the normal driving time) but we were thankful we made it in one piece! Ken was worship leading and preaching - everything went really well! It was great to be back at Trinity - I hadn't been there for about a month and half. Ken and I love going there for church.

After Trinity we went back to St. Luke's where Ken prepared for confirmation. Again, he ran into problems with that family and again we found ourselves frustrated that although the leadership knows that this family must be dealt with, no one wants to do anything about it!! It is very frustrating and makes it hard for Ken to have energy to do much with or for the youth because he knows that no matter what he does or offers, this family will have make it as difficult as possible for him to do any type of ministry! But we're thankful that we have learned one thing: we want to be transparent with our feelings. So, Ken is going to make it clear to the PLT this coming Thursday how we feel and our frustrations with this family. That way, on our side of things, we're being honest and straightforward.

After church and confirmation, Ken went on a 10k "Human Race" run that Nike sponsored for runners all around the world on the 31st of August! All the runners are linked together through Nike's website (Ken bought the Nike Plus sports band for runners and it links him up to Nike's online community of runners). It was a pretty fun experience for him. The rest of Sunday was spent basking in the sun (literally) and reading. Ken is working his way through a 600+ page book on New Zealand's history (yuck - but he seems to be enjoying it). I'm reading a new book entitled: The Shack by William P Young. So far, 60 pages in, it's really good.

The Human Race runner!

Enjoying the sunshine in our front yard

Pep playing in the grass

And that now brings us to Monday, which is where this blog began! We're looking forward this week to meeting our next interim pastor, Pastor Rob Strelan, and possibly a few more days of sunshine!

August 19-25

2008-08-24T02:23:00.000-07:00

Two funerals in one week! Yes, Mrs. Crawford our landlady, passed away and her funeral was Tuesday. Then Friday we had a funeral for Nolan, a man from share and care that everyone in Palmy knew (or at least could recognize - he had the brightest orange hair you'll ever see on an old man!) They were both beautiful funerals. Mrs. Crawford's was at the Anglican church down the road and was very nice spare one tribute that seemed more about the man who was speaking than about Mrs. Crawford, and a song that the Filipino women were going to sing for her (The Rose), but whoever was on sound didn't turn on their microphones. That would have been fine, but then he turned the cd on so loud that you could feel the bass beating in your chest! Needless to say, it looked comical, being in this huge ancient church with the deepest bass beating down on you, unable to hear the words being sung! I think Mrs. Crawford was up there laughing too. :) Ken and I were asked to help in Nolan's funeral. I played the music and Ken gave the address. Pastor Max was supposed to have done the address, however he was taken ill and had to go to the hospital! He's alright now, but it did give everyone quite the scare. But Ken did a great job and Pastor Trevor came to officiate.

Tuesday evening was the last Bible study Ken will be teaching on John's signs - Pauline and I will be teaching next weeks! Yikes! We met on Wednesday to discuss exactly what we will do, and decided that I will teach the first sign (the man born blind) and she will teach the second one (Lazarus coming to life). It should be good - after meeting with her I felt I had a great outline and direction for how to teach it.

Wednesday Ken began teaching on early Jewish Exegesis - sounds Greek to me, but apparently it's not. Haha...He is really excited to be moving on from cannon formation and said that this class was one his best so far!

Thursday morning Ken went out to Lawrence's farm again for the first time in ages! It was good for him to be back as a farm-hand for the morning. It's calving season again, so he enjoyed driving the ute around moving calves around, teaching them how to drink, and the like (coming home smelly and dirty - the true sign of a farm-hand)! That evening was PLT and Directors. I was a bit hurt that they forgot to ask for my report (until I hinted at it) but got over it. Sometimes I don't think they understand what I do at the church, but I guess that's OK. Since we've been pastor-less for the past eight months I've planned all the services and arranged all the little things that otherwise would have fallen through the cracks. Hopefully before we leave we'll have a pastor to take over all the planning and preparation I do.

Following the meeting was a presentation by Ken Benn for the children's ministry volunteers to learn more about storytelling. It was quite fascinating to listen to Ken Benn share his stories - he definitely has a way of pulling you into them! I think everyone learned a few new ideas to use for Sunday School, and if nothing else, at least for the readings on Sunday morning. Ken Benn encouraged us to not just read off the Bible, but to read it instead as you read a story, giving life to the characters and bringing the listeners actually into the story.

Ken was excited that this week he was asked to do two things: speak at the Bach Cantata Vespers following Segue in October, and lead a Fair Trade Coffee evening at a local church in Palmy similar to the one he did at St. Luke's. The youth worked from the Salvation Army came to our Fair Trade evening and really liked it, so asked if Ken would be willing to do it again for the youth at Salvation Army!

Other exciting news: I finally heard back from Themba! We still don't know the date we are to begin, but they officially welcomed us. They had their board meeting and everyone is excited to have us there next year. They are also talking to Lutheran World Relief and Human Care to see if we can have an account set up through them for donations for living expenses while serving Themba. Themba will provide us with food and housing, but otherwise, all other expenses getting there, while there, and leaving will be up to us. Please pray that World Relief and Human Care will allow us to have an account through them for people to give funds to us through a non-profit organization.

Sunday was a busy day too - Indonesia Partnership Celebration! We had everyone from Trinity join us at St. Luke's and only had one service at St. Luke's. The place was packed out (not to mention all the boys from boys high came as well) and the energy was high. I planned the service and was so pleased at how everything fit together so beautifully! Jen, Carol and myself sang the hymn O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing in Batak to begin the service, there were prayers for missions and unity where everyone in the congregation held hands with those next to them, the Gospel reading was read in Batak by Ken, and all the songs fit the theme perfectly. It was a great service! It was followed by a lunch with some Indonesian food and then a presentation of the trip by the team. The church decided to partner with Hephatha, a ministry in BLANK that specializes in caring for the disabled. They have a strong desire to learn more about agriculture and hand crafts, things which people in our congregation do for a living! So the partnership should be a great fit. It was a little discouraging to see how negative those who stayed to learn about the partnership seemed. But we trust that no matter what, God's will is done and will keep the church in prayer as they proceed with this mission.

Lois sharing a bit of an overview of the trip

Ken showing some pictures

Ken presenting the Ulos from the Lutheran Church in Indonesia to the church

The Chair of the PLT with the Ulos (a gift extended to those in the family)

We ended the evening with a meal at Butch and Chrissie's with their children (who are close in age to us as well). It was a great time of fellowship and Butch's roast was real yummy, plus the Americans won two gold medals, one in basketball the other in volleyball while we were there! woohoo!

Monday we went to the airport to say goodbye to Pastor Max and Rosemary as they head off to Australia. Our next interim comes on the 31st and will begin preaching on the 7th of September. We will miss Pastor Max and Rosemary a lot though - they were such fun people and full of life and energy for mission! Blessings to them as they go home. Please keep Pastor Max's health in your prayers as well. They will be taking some time off, real retirement as he puts it, to play with the grandkids. :) We enjoyed the afternoon with some sunshine and a walk to the pet store with Pepper to get her some birthday presents - she turns three on wednesday!

Please continue to keep us in your prayers - we thank you for them!

August 13 - 18

2008-08-22T02:37:00.000-07:00

This week was all about getting back to work! We came back Tuesday afternoon and went full throttle beginning Tuesday evening with the John Bible Study that Ken is leading. So far the average has been 13 people, which is really great! We're looking at two signs/miracles at a time and watching them on the Gospel of John movie which is word-for-word the book of John.

Wednesday Ken wrapped up teaching his class about the cannon. It wasn't his favorite topic and so he is looking forward to beginning more exegesis next week with them! So far though, he enjoys the students. They seem to have a lot more to say and Ken often finds that he has to cut back the involvement so that they can get through all the material they need to get through! I guess that's a good problem though, eh?

Wednesday I had my third meeting with Mark W, Guy J, and Pauline S to do the finishing touches to the Segue brochure I created. It was a great meeting - we nailed down all the little things we have to get done before the music conference (Segue) in October. The brochure and poster were great - now I have to get them printed and mailed (300...ugh!) but it's awesome that's it's actually happening! Our goal is to have 60 people attend (our limit), however, we'd be happy with 20. Please pray that the mailing and advertising will have a good impact on the Church here in NZ and that musicians, lay preachers, and other church volunteers will come.

Wednesday through Friday Ken had one of the youth, Amanda, shadowing him. It was a project for school, where she had to experience a work environment of her choice for three days, and she choose to see what a DCE does! That was really exciting for Ken, and she seemed to have a great time. Some of her jobs included: re-creating the youth ministry note board, spending time in prayer/Bible study, helping create the scavenger hunt for Friday night youth, folding/mailing brochures for the 5 Love Languages Seminar in September, and wrote an article for the Olive Tree. Ken sure enjoyed the extra help, especially for the brochure folding and mailing. Another thing to keep in prayer: the 5 Love Languages Seminar that Pastor/President Rob Erickson will be leading. It's open to all the LCNZ and also to the other local churches around Palmerston North. Hopefully there will be a good showing, it's sure to be a rewarding day ending with a nice dinner.

Friday night youth went well, although Ken was disappointed that some kids torn down some of the new poster that Amanda created (although, they didn't realize Amanda had done it - they thought it was Ken's work.) After youth, Jude Nelson, a youth parent, talked to Ken and said that she and some others were praying for the youth group and would continue to pray harder for the negativity that seems to come from a certain family and youth towards Ken and all he does. She did mention that eventually need to be approached - hopefully the PLT or our next pastor will do that.

Saturday evening we had Jen and Sam over for pizza and a movie - it was wonderful to hang out with them before they head off to Europe! They leave at the beginning of September for 6 weeks to travel Europe, see Sam's Dad, and stop in to the States to visit Jen's family. Should be a great time for them, although we will miss their company.

This whole week has been filled with rain rain rain, although it did stop long enough on Sunday afternoon for Ken, Pep and I to head over to the beach with some coffee and cookies. It was a great way to take a break and enjoy God' creation. The countryside here is just so beautiful! We can't get over it...and Pepper loved chasing the bird (her favorite pastime) - although at the beach this time they seemed to be chasing her! Seriously, they were circling over her and diving down towards her...silly dog. :) Sunday night we went back to church for the call meeting - we are extending another call to an Aussie named Geoffrey. I'm very much hoping he will accept it, but we won't know for a fortnight (two weeks). Ah, the suspense!!

Monday Ken began training for his marathon. He's decided to do the Marathon in CA next March and so the training begins now! Phew! Good thing he enjoys all this running.

Well, that about sums up the week. No pictures, I think we took enough of those last week during the conference and ski trip! Hope this finds you in good health and spirits. :)

August 5-12

2008-08-14T23:52:00.000-07:00

This week was soooo awesome! We found someone to watch Pepper (actually it worked out perfect - a young adult who still lives at home in our congregation who liked the idea of having her own place for a few days with a dog) and packed out bags up late Wednesday. Thursday morning we got on the road by 10am and headed the long route up to Auckland. Our first stop was in Sansen for the BEST coffee this side of the equator. We made quite a few more stops for pictures (see below) - it was great weather with sunshine, although Mt. Taranaki hid itself in clouds. After going through New Plymouth on the west coast we drove up to White Cliffs Brewery where we stopped for some delicious brew at the smallest brewhouse in NZ. The owners were South African, so that was neat to learn a bit more about where we're off to next! We had dinner in Hamilton at a place called Coyote which was a Tex-Mex fusion restaurant. It was really yummy and we enjoyed seeing kokopelli's and Maori designs intermingled on the menu! Talk about multicultural! We got to Auckland at about 8pm, after ten wonderful hours enjoying the countryside. We were both very excited for Faith Inkubators to begin Friday so we hit the sack early.

Talk about All Blacks Supporters!

West coast beauty

Fuji has a timer!

We really enjoyed the Mountain Lager

Dinner in Hamilton - can you see the Kokapelli and the Maori designs?

Friday morning we picked up Kerri from the airport and met up with the other four members from our church that were attending the conference. We were pleasantly surprised to see eight other Lutheran pastors/leaders from around the country (including the President) - great support! The conference itself was amazing - hard to describe in a blog spot, but to sum it up nicely: Sunday school was created for those outside of the church who had no parents to teach them about the faith. However, today we've enabled the parents to drop off their children and have no say in their faith development, expecting the youth workers and pastors to bring up their children in the faith with 20 minutes a week. Ridiculous! Faith Inkubators is focused on getting pastors and youth workers to work together with parents to encourage faith development in the home, which is part of a parent's responsibility. We learned sooooo much and I think the Manawatu left with quite a vision for youth ministry in the parish. I know Ken and I are very keen on this method of faith development and will incorporate it into whatever church we end up working full time at (or at least incorporating it into our own family).

One of the premises of Faith Ink is the Faith 5 that you do each night with your family

Rich BLANK teaching us

Friday night we ended it by going ice skating at the rink in Auckland (there isn't one in Palmy). It was super fun, although we were the oldest people there. I guess Friday nights at the rink is for all the junior high students and there was a live DJ with stobe lights and fog. Crazy, but fun.

Sky Tower

Winners!

Saturday finished the conference and then Kerri, Ken and myself went to Sky City (NZ Las Vegas) to have a little fun - we all walked away richer than we were walking in! Sunday we dropped Kerri off at the airport and began our way to Whakapapa, the ski village at Mt. Ruhapehu! The drive down was eventful - we saw an elephant! In the countryside of New Zealand! WHAT??!! On closer look, it belonged to a circus, but still, it was pretty crazy!

A New Zealand elephant?!

The Chateau blew our minds - we had one of the nicest rooms, with heated floors in the bathroom and a perfect view of the mountain! We took a nice walk to see some waterfalls while it was spritzing with snow...so romantic! It was a perfect start to celebrating our first year anniversary (a bit late, but we planned it that way because we wanted to ski, but the season isn't good until August).

The Chateau with Ruhapehu behind it

It's snowing!

The waterfalls we took a walk in the snow to see

Monday we got up nice and early to hit the slopes - sooooo much fun! We picked up skiing pretty quick and were on blue slopes before you knew it! That night we had a wonderful three course dinner at the hotel (part of the room package) and enjoyed a bottle of champagne and chocolates back in the room. It was picture perfect.

Tuesday we began the trek home, getting back in the early afternoon. It was back to work after we said hello to the Pepper. What a wonderful week - it was very refreshing and a much needed positive uplifting time of learning and playing!

July 29-August 4

2008-08-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

This week was a great week! Filled with the Spirit, productivity, and love! Where to begin?
Tuesday through Thursday we were at church workers conference in Otaki. It was a great conference - in house training from Delta Ministries on team building and leadership. That means there were lots of fun leadership "games" and also some great debriefing sessions! It was awesome to have Shannon teaching us throughout the day, while his partner Michael was downstairs praying for us and our ministries in New Zealand.
I was excited to learn more about my leadership style: pioneering. That means I like setting a vision and working towards it, however, often I get "bored" with implementing it, so instead move on to a new challenge. My other two high scores were management and strategic planning. Ken found out he was also those three, but in a different order! No wonder we work so well together! :)
It was also a great week for the pastors to be lifted up in prayer and re-energize. During the conference, it really dawned on Ken and I how much we love New Zealand and the people who are working in the Lutheran Church. The LCNZ has been under such attack lately...we realized that it seems that there is not a single parish that hasn't been filled with pain - and lots of it! And being such a small body doesn't help the pain, but instead makes you feel isolated from the rest of the world. However, we believe that God has different plans in store for the LCNZ! Please keep the pastors and lay workers of the LCNZ in your prayers - they need support, energy, hope and protection from the negativity and obstacles that are constantly hitting them.

The lake outside the lodge (pictured above)

The view from our room

Monday night's sunset

Another beautiful area on the grounds

Church workers isn't all work...bowls with the LCNZ President Rob!

Pastor/President Rob

Saving "Sandy" one of the team-work "games"

Pastor Max (our interim for the Manawatu)

Ken's team had 30 minutes to make some sort of art work, and made this using the flax bush, weaving it in the paper, representing New Zealand, and the eucalyptus flower, representing Australia, both connected through Christ, the cross.

Training sessions with Shannon (one of the Delta Ministries team leaders)

On Wednesday Ken had to drive back to Palmy to teach his BCNZ course - however the drive back to Otaki was horrific! A huge storm was coming across the island, with hurricane force winds! He ended up parking on the side of the highway behind a jack-knifed truck for safety (especially seeing as how a large tree fell down in the road in front of where he was driving!!) He made it back to the conference safely (phew). But at 3pm that day we lost power and it never came back on. So we enjoyed cooking our lasagna on the barbie and having dinner by candle light!

We got back home Thursday afternoon and went back in to the office to catch up on some work after unpacking and picking up Pepper. She overstayed her welcome at Lois and Roy's - she seemed to get into a tuff with the cat, so they asked if we wouldn't drop her there anymore! Pepper pepper...

Friday morning Ken had a dentist appointment for cavities...luckily it was a quick, fairly painless (well, not financially! haha) procedure. Youth went really well that evening. He got to connect with the student who wanted a Bible since his dad was late to pick him up. However, please continue to keep a certain student in your prayers as she is so negative, has no desire to be at youth, and is quite disruptive in Bible studies.

Saturday Ken and I made it another Starbucks-day, enjoying a cup of coffee while reading. I was especially caught by 1 Chronicles 29:18, my new prayer, "O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thought sin the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you." I really felt that after the CWC and the burden Ken and I felt for the ministry of the Lutheran church in NZ, this verse spoke right into that!
That night Judi and Lawrence invited us over to watch the All Blacks play the Wallabies, and Anna (their daughter) and her boyfriend Robbie came over too. It was a really good game (we creamed those Aussies)!

Sunday Ken and I were both super busy - I helped the youth as they led worship (they did a wonderful job too!), Ken had a confirmation event that afternoon (the youth went to the Islamic center to compare our faith to theirs since they just finished the Apostles Creed, the basic tenants of the Christian faith) and that afternoon we spent in the office getting things done for this week since we leave on Thursday and won't be back until next Tuesday (we are going to Faith Incubators in Auckland and then spending the weekend skiing on the volcanic Mount Ruhapehu). However, it was awesome that although we did so much work on the "Lord's day," He made Himself the forefront of everything we did, thought, worked on, talked about...it was really special! We both went to bed Sunday night feeling as though we had just spent the entire day worshiping the Lord - and it was a good thing!

Monday morning I went to get my hair cut! I felt I was beginning to look like a hippie, so went to the hairdressing college to get the chop! I really like it and am glad I did it. We took Pepper to the park in the afternoon and got caught in some "sun showers" again! I don't like this new habit of getting soaked taking the dog for a walk! That evening we enjoyed a nice dinner at the Grand with Kate and Damien. They are leaving next week for Australia for a few months before heading over to England to work for the next few years! We will really miss them, but understand their "travel lust" :)

The hippie

Viola!

So, it was an eventful, joy filled week! We feel so invigorated to ministry here in Aeotearoa for these next six months.

July 22-28

2008-08-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

Ken started his course this week and really enjoyed his first day. He has one returning student, and the others are all new. There are 9 students in this course, which is less than his last one. Although this course is an "upper division" course, while his last one wasn't. He feels like this course will be more challenging to him to teach. The original course was an online course, so the teacher was able to pack more in than he can fit into an 1.5 hour live session. But he's up for the challenge!

Wednesday our car broke down AGAIN! It's been breaking down every Wednesday fortnightly...unfortunately, our mechanic doesn't know what's the problem so returned it to us saying next time it breaks down he'll hopefully know what to do! We're planning for that breakdown to be on August 6 (a fortnight from now!) haha...hope not!

Thursday we had lunch with the old administrator, Judith. She is moving to England soon and wanted to catch up with us before she leaves. When she returns, we will be back in the states. Ken had his children's ministry meeting that evening - that team is such a dynamic group! Ken feels like that will be the best thing he leaves behind: a group of dedicated children's minsters who are interested in growing, learning, have a kind heart, and a desire to serve. Getting them together monthly for these communication meetings lead to vibrant growth. Most of the leaders are attending Faith Incubators next week in Auckland as well, which is awesome!

Friday morning was the fortnightly prayer morning for the church. I haven’t been able to make it in the past, so it was nice to be back in prayer for an hour with the Lord and other leaders in the church, praying for things on our hearts, but also for whatever the Spirit directed us to pray about.

Friday night youth went really great - the students were digging into why we read the Bible, it's validity, etc. and one student mentioned he doesn't have a Bible and would like one. Another student asked if Ken would take time during the week to dig deeper into it together! Wow, it is soooo cool to see God move in these kids hearts like that! The youth also decided on a t-shirt design for the youth group, so Ken will be looking into getting the shirts made so the Manawatu have a shirt to sport for their youth.

We both found this week to be a whirlwind as we prepare to leave next week for church workers conference. So we spent Saturday at Starbucks doing quite a bit of extra work (while still enjoying a nice cup of coffee!)

Sunday our team led and we introduced a new song I wrote (Facedown) during communion and it was a great success! Everyone enjoyed hearing and asked who it was by – they would like to learn it as a congregation and another team has volunteered to learn it as well! This is so exciting!

Ken had a confirmation meeting in the afternoon on Sunday as well – please continue to keep the students in your prayers. Some of the students are really blooming in their faith development and desire to learn more, so Ken will be working with the one-on-one during the coming months to do deeper Bible digging. However, there is one student in particular who does not put forth any time or work into confirmation. Ken doesn't want anyone to be forced into the process, since this is a choice that each student should make for themselves. If it's not a priority right now, then maybe they should consider waiting a few more years. However, please keep this one student in your prayers that their disruptive and negative attitude and behaviour would be challenged by the Spirit.

We also decided to buy a new camera - there are huge winter sales going on right now, so we thought we'd use our Christmas funds now for ourselves to get "Fuji" (yes, we've named our new camera!) It's an amazing little thing!

Meet Fuji

A close up of Ken's jeans!

Fuji's text capabilities

Pep in the office with us

Sunday evening we finally decided to cook Ken's duck that he shot and cleaned a few months ago! The duck itself was amazing and Ken was super excited to be able to say he killed, cleaned, and cooked our food! Fuji was able to capture some great shots to!

Ken cooking his duck

Fugi even captures the steam!

Our nice candle-lit duck dinner

Pepper in her new sweater, wishing she could have some duck too (doesn't she have bad seating posture?!)

Monday we packed up, dropped Pepper off at Lois and Roy's home, dropped off a song I wrote about the Manawatu into a competition to win a $1500 keyboard (if I win it, I'd like to bring it to South Africa with me to teach the children piano and leave it there with them), and picked up Cheryl from the airport to head down to Otaki for the church workers conference. Delta Ministries will be training us this week on leadership and team building -should be a great week to catch up with other LCNZ workers, as well as grow more as church leaders through the training.

A storm front moving in near Opiki on our way to Otaki

July 15-21

2008-07-21T21:37:00.000-07:00

It's been raining a lot lately!

It was nice to have a "normal" week after the holiday programs of last week! Ken got busy preparing for his next course that he's teaching at the BCNZ - Interpretive method B covering kin formation, exegesis, and historical perspective from early church fathers to modern. It also looks at the steps from Biblical theology to systematic theology! phew! He has his hands full. It begins the 23rd, so he's using this week to get ahead.

Wednesday was another all music team meeting. This time I had representatives from each team (actually multiple people from each team) attending, so that was a blessing! We reported on the NOISE conference from June, discussed the services from the past month, and began a Bible study on worship which focused on Psalm 63 (worshiping God even when we don't "feel" like it. In this Psalm, David worships God as his sons are chasing after him to kill him! When we don't feel like the atmosphere in church is conducive to worship, we need to remember this Psalm for a little perspective!)

Thursday night was the PLT and Directors meeting. We missed last months (we were at the debate over God's existence) so it was great to get caught up with the other directors and ministries at the church. Please continue to keep the Manawatu parish in prayer as we are seeking another pastor to call...we're hoping that by September we will issue the call.

Friday night we had all the youth over for a movie marathon of Lord of the Rings! It's the last weekend of school holidays for the kids, so they were pumped to use it to stay up 11 hours watching the extended version! They came to our house, so I was able to sneak into our bedroom to get some zzzzs around 1am. :)

Saturday we went to Trinity to record some more songs - one of the youth came with us to record his bass in them. It was really fun. My goal is by the time we're leave in February, to have a cd of 10-15 songs copyright that I can give to some producers in the states! I'm viewing myself now as part time DPM, part time songwriter.

Sunday evening about 12 people came to the movie Bible study of the month - Hancock. It turned out to be an awesome study! The movie itself was about a superhero who wasn't the "norm" superhero (actually he was an alcoholic!) and how one man took an interest in him to help him become the superhero LA needed. After tea, Ken discussed with us the issue of God's calling, vocation, and redemption. Redemption was probably the biggest theme, since Hancock was seen as a superhero that was beyond helping. However, someone took the initiative to help him, and in the end Hancock was able to fulfill his vocation. Sound familiar? God takes us, people who are helplessly beyond helping, and gives us his Son to save us, and now we can live out our calling in Christ!

Monday it was sunny, so we decided to go on a short tramp! Although once in the bush, the clouds gathered round...but it was still a beautiful walk and great way to end our busy week.

The start of the tramp

Winer leaves

A beautiful gurgling stream full after all the rains we've been having

Pep the super hiking dog!

Trying to find the best way to cross the stream without getting wet (the water was icy cold)

An old magazine we found!

Beautiful...

Of course, stopped in Woodville for some cheesecake!

We miss our family back home and send all our love to you!

July 8-14

2008-07-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

Well, holiday programs ran this week! Ken ended up not going to Turbo Time on Tuesday with me (not enough room in the cars, and so the leaders up there said he didnt need to come - not exactly a stroke for the ego!) So I helped for the day and made sure the cd we made was working for them for wed and thurs.

Wednesday morning started out weird - the car wouldn't start again! This time it wasn't the battery, but some other connecting part that needed to be fixed. So Ken got a ride out to Feilding with Pastor Rob for Blast. He led songtime alone since I had a music meeting for the conference in October I'm co-planning. The meeting was awesome - it was at Guy Jansen's home and Pauline, Mark W and myself met with him to get the logistics of the conference on paper. It's not until late October, but we still have a lot of publicizing to do. It feels great to have the whole schedule down though. The title for the conference will be Segue: The Rhythm of Worship. Guy Jansen will be speaking on why we worship, and there will be various break-out sessions on worship leading, bands, choral readings, organ techniques, etc. It is going to be so great, especially for the Lutherans of New Zealand, most of whom are leading their congregations (since we are so short on pastors) but have no formal training. This will be a great weekend to learn more about worship, planning and leading in services. Please keep this in your prayers that the Lutheran lay leaders in NZ churches will come to this conference!

Thurs and Friday Ken and I both led music at Blast as well as helped with crafts and storytime. Friday we had 17 kids show up! Wow, what an awesome blessing! It was a lot of fun, although Ken caught a cold and was feeling a bit under the weather again!

Friday night we had a "fun nite" for the youth, playing mini golf from 6-8pm. Mini golf down here is way different than in the states...imagine a mini golf range and that's the mini golf of NZ! Reminded me more of a pool and outdoor store than a game, but we had a great time, so that's all that matters, right? It was neat to see some of the youth from Feilding come out to join us as well!

My toe was itching really bad

The youth playing mini golf

Saturday we had a fun day relaxing with the dog - took her to her favorite store (the pet store) for some treats and a nice long walk at the park where we got soaked! The rains came fast and unexpectedly!

When we were walking around town, we found this new sign: no hats, hoods, helmets, sunglasses...This is starting to get ridiculous! Ken had to take off his hoodie to get inside!

Sunday night was the Trinity pm service - we geared it around Blast and had lots of songs and readings from the holiday program. Although, I wrote a horrible blooper...for Away in the Manger I typed..."bless all the dead children in thy tender care"!!! During practice we laughed so hard. Luckly the team was able to fix the bulletins with little stickers going over the "d" and writing in an "r" - phew!

By Sunday night Ken was finally feeling 100% better! Maybe that walk in the rain on Saturday cleansed his system! :)

Monday we learned some BIG news...it looks like our next stop is South Africa! Themba got back to me saying that they've already began planning for us next year and have our rooms scheduled and everything! Turns out the meeting they were supposed to have in May was postponed to next week in July, but it will only be formalities - they can't wait to see us next year! We don't all the details yet, but if you want to learn more about the organization and where we'll be living, check out some of these websites! Wow - we are sooooooo excited! Watch this spot for more details as we learn them!

The best one to check out to learn more about the team that runs the schools is http://thembatrust.net/ (check out the "photo album")

http://www.thembatrust.co.za/

http://www.lcms.org/ca/worldrelief/themba/detail.asp?pg=ThembaTrust (check out the "gallery" and watch the vidoe on Reinhild Neibuhr - she is who we are working with currently. Also the documentary is great to watch too).

http://www.lcms.org/pages/print.asp?print=1&NavID=11740&path=%2Fpages%2Frpage.asp (this is an article the LCMS wrote about Themba)

Also, if you want to see on a map where we will be, the town/village is called Dirkesdorp. It is in the Mpumalanga province and the nearest big city is Johannesburg (which is about 3.5 hours north-west of Dirkesdorp). If you google map it you should be able to find it. :)

July 1-7

2008-07-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

It's winter holidays! All the kids are on break and so the holiday programs are starting up next week. At Trinity they will have BLAST from Wed-Fri and the new church plant in Summerhill will have Turbo Time Tue-Thur. I met with the leaders Tuesday night to discuss my role in doing the music for the programs. Ken and I will create a cd for Turbo Time to use since they have plenty of volunteers to help lead whereas Blast needs more leaders. I enjoyed the brainstorming and coming up with song ideas - the main theme for the week will be Jesus Is Our Superhero and the kids will learn about God through David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lions Den and Mary being visited by angels. So, the main theme song for the week will be My God is So Big. We'll teach the kids Lions for Daniel-day and sing a Christmas carol for Mary-day. I love these holiday programs (like mini-VBS).

Wednesday I got most of my work done at church so that I could take time off when Ken gets home on Thursday! Also had our music team practice - we lead this Sunday and we're introducing another new song that I wrote, Psalm 145 (since we're reading Psalm 145 in the lectionary).

Thursday Ken came home, although, he came back sick :( It was probably something he ate or drank that had to get through his system. So he took it easy for Thursday and most of Friday. Friday evening I led the youth band practice and then helped him lead youth group (Pastor Max showed up to help too - the other leader was gone on holidays, hence I came to help). It was great to be working with the youth again - I've missed hanging out with them during Bible studies!

Saturday Tony had his birthday party at 10am at the 10-pin bowling alley! It was really fun, although we didn't bowl so well (it's been years since we've set foot in the alley). That morning the weather also did some strange things - like snow/hail in Palmy! That was pretty crazy and lasted all day until the sun came out in the late afternoon!

Our backyard

winter wonderland!

hail stones

Ken bowling

Pizza party after the games!

Sunday our team was on and God was totally in control - we hadn't all practiced together for three weeks (last week Ken wasn't there, the week before two other members weren't...) but everything ran smooth and the congregation loved the new Psalm song! That's the great thing about being worship director - I can write new music and try it out on the congregation to see if it's any good! :)

Monday Ken still wasn't feeling so well, so we just took it easy and enjoyed resting. Please continue to keep him in your prayers as he battles this bug! Ah, but it is good to have him home again!

June 24-30

2008-06-30T00:51:00.000-07:00

Well, this blog will only encapsulate one half of the Chitwood's, as Ken has been gone in Indonesia this whole week. I did receive one email from him updating me that everything is going well, the weather's hot, the food is good, the people are amazing, but the poverty is astounding. I'm sure he will have a lot more to inform us of when he gets back this Thursday - so stay tuned in for a special "Indonesia Blog"!!

Tuesday-Thursday I spent working hard in the office getting all the services finished for Sunday. I also met with some of the powerpoint operators (I guess last Sunday when we were in Wellington there was a large malfunction with the system - it's been over two years and still they always seem to have powerpoint issues!! I say go back to paper bulletins.) I then retyped the directions for the powerpoint operators and held a quick review of running powerpoint after church on Sunday. For some reason this church + technology does not go hand in hand.

Wednesday morning my car wouldn't start! Turned out I had a flat battery. So the church's mechanic had it towed to his shop where he replaced the battery. By the afternoon, I had my car back! Yeay! So, that afternoon I went to Feilding to record some songs that I've written - my friend Tony has a system on his computer to record, so we did three of them! That was really fun, and I'm hoping to go back soon to do some more! That evening I went to Kate and Damien's for dinner. I was going to spend the night, but it was storming really bad outside and they wanted Pepper to sleep out there...I just couldn't do that, so we drove back home to sleep together all snuggled up in our bed! :)

Friday I was supposed to go to Taupo with Jen, but with the bad weather conditions (snow and ice closed the desert road up north), plus Jen coming down with cold, we cancelled. I was slightly bored since I had completed all the work that needed to be done for Sunday, but that evening was invited to dinner at Pastor Max's house. It was a great time with a couple from Wanganui (a Danish family) and Pastor Max and Rosemary (Aussies) and myself (American, represent!)

Saturday was another rainy/stormy day, so I decided to do some reading for my online course (New Testament) at Starbucks and get some coffee. That was a really good idea, and I was able to get a head start on a paper that isn't due until late July.

Sunday church went smoothly and the powerpoint meeting was quick. That afternoon I went to Lawrence and Judi's for tea. It was nice to visit with them, and then end the evening back home watching TV2's movie, Poseidon! What a nail biter!

Monday I went to Bulls with Judi - and it was sunny! UnbelievaBULL! :) We had a nice time window shopping (although I bought a hat and necklace) and had some lunch together. Monday night I played netball with Jen and actually did really good!

Yes, I'm standing by a large bull

My new hat!

And necklace!

So that was my week. It's been pretty slow at times. I never realized how far away from home I am until I've been completely alone. But God is good and He's been there for me in amazing ways (I like to call them God-winks!) Thanks for your thoughts and prayers - keep Roy and Lois and Ken in them until they arrive safely back home Thursday afternoon!

June 17-23

2008-06-22T23:18:00.000-07:00

Tuesday evening marked the last of the Habakkuk Bible studies! Overall, the study was a success and the 20-some people who attended are keen on doing another study. We will be taking a break over July (well, there will be one movie night/tea and discussion about it in July), and then in August we'll be starting the next month-long study. What will it be? Everyone voted out of a list of ten choices, so later this week Ken will be working through the votes to see what we study next.

Thursday night we put our apologies in for the PLT/Directors meeting and instead went to the Regent theatre to listen to a debate between a well known Christian apologist/philosopher William Lane Craig from California and the vice president (although former president) of the rationalist/freethinkers society of New Zealand, Bill Cooke. Follow this link to see some clips of the debate on utube:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=1E634D387E3E5D4C

These clips are from his debate in Auckland (we heard the same/similar debate here in Palmerston North a few nights later). Overall, the debate was not what we expected. The title was "The God Delusion" so we assumed that meant the Christian would state proofs that God is not a delusion and the atheist would state proofs that he is. Well, the Christian made 5 very good proofs for the fact that belief in God is rational but the atheist really only said that it's great if you want to believe in God, but he's just in your head. However, he gave no proofs as to how he could claim this, and he did not counter-argue any of the 5 proofs for God's existence. He took the ignore-the-Christian route and pretty much said by not saying that the debate was a waste of his time. He was however, very adamant that we stop arguing and instead work together to end human suffering. Ken was interested in this as he is always advocating Christians to work to help the poor, buy fairtrade, etc. After the debate he asked Bill Cooke what he means by working together to end human suffering, but was disappointed to hear Bill simply say to just put some money into an organization, any organization. Ken's been doing so much research in this area and has learned that to just throw money into an organization, any organization, actually does more harm than good. But this will lead into a long drawn-out sermon that you should ask Ken about if you are interested in learning more. :)

Friday youth went well, and Ken had a long conversation with one of the youth regarding some tuff life questions/and how God fits into all the evil and suffering we so often see around us. It was a great time for him to delve deeper into the Christian faith with this student who doesn't often come to our youth group! What a cool thing!

Saturday was a very very busy day - I was up early making muffins before heading over to see how radio talk-show hosts run live events at a store that was having a huge sale. It was an interesting experience, although I was disappointed that the host himself didn't seem too interested in having me tag along to see how he "did his thing" so instead I ended up flipping sausages. Then I went to Trinity in the afternoon to learn to knit with the women's group (it's mostly older women and they've been asking me to come and learn the art of knitting). I picked it up fast and have a goal to make a scarf! They meet fortnightly, so maybe in a few weeks I'll have one done. Ken was doing last minute jobs that needed to be done at church before the next two big days: Sunday we were in Wellington most of the day for his first half-marathon! He came in 1 hour and 40 minutes, exactly his goal! woohooo! Enjoy some pics below that his cheerleader/paparazzi took (moi). That evening we had dinner at Judi and Lawrence's before heading home for him to pack pack pack for Indonesia. He left monday afternoon with Roy and Lois Price. Thank you for all your prayers and thoughts in preparation for this journey - they finally got some emails back regarding who would be picking them up, where they would be staying, and other nominal, but important, details!

Ken stretching before the big run!

Number 3476 is ready

The start line

GO!!! (I think that's Ken, the blur on the far right)

Pep and I searching for Ken to get some pictures of him in the race!

Running by the waterfront...

...running in the city

DONE!!!

WOOHOO!!

YEEEEAAAAYYYY!!!

Monday night I went out to Trinity for a meeting regarding the two winter holiday programs in July for children ages 5-12. I will be leading the music sessions at them and teaching the other leaders the songs later next week. I'm looking forward to that! It's always fun doing these "vbs-like" programs.

Other than that, it's going to be a long ten days holding down the fort while Ken is away. I'm a little jealous that I was unable to go too, especially with my passion for multicultural missions (and the music in Indonesia is amazing!) Please keep me in your prayers that I won't be too bored but find stuff to keep myself busy with for the next few weeks (ahh - that sounds so looooooong!)

June 10-16

2008-06-17T19:19:00.001-07:00

The week began late - as we left Paraparaumu Tuesday morning, we were 30 minutes from home when we realized we forgot to turn off the hot water heater and turn on the alarm! So we turned around and drove back down to take care of those items, getting back to Palmy and work at 4pm! As soon as we got back, Ken got to work on the 4th Habakkuk Bible study. There is only one more study left!

Wednesday was super busy for me -it was my only day to get all the services ready for Sunday, finish the June edition of the Olive Tree, and prepare for the monthly music team meeting. I was slightly disappointed that only one team was represented at the meeting. The point of these monthly meets is so that all the teams can have open communication as well as grow as a church musician (we will begin going through a devotional music/worship book for the next 6 months), but if no one puts the time in for communication, how can there be any? That night I packed for my trip to Auckland for the Noise conference. Noise is a Christian musician conference with speakers such as Darlene Zschech from Hillsong, and Paul Coleman from Newsboys. It was a great weekend which really reinvigorated my passion for music ministry and songwriting. I went with four other musicians from St. Luke's, so it was also an awesome opportunity to grow closer with them. We got back early Sunday morning (1:30am) in time for a short snooze before church. Sunday was the youth service, which was completely run by the youth. It was awesome to see them playing the keys, guitars, singing, doing drama and readings, everything youth! Even the PowerPoint was created by them! I thank Ken for helping run their final practice Friday night while I was away at Noise!

Mt. Ruhapehu on the drive up to Auckland

Holy Trinity Cathedral where Noise was held - 1000 people attended!

Inside the cathedral

The group from St. Luke's

Darlene and myself

After church we tried to go on a hike with Sam and Jen, however were unsuccessful at finding the trailhead! So instead we went to see the Turbines up close - it was fun (although very windy). Although in the process of driving we almost lost Pepper. She jumped out of the car and was dangling outside!!! Luckily I was quick and flipped her back into the car. We tried to recapture the moment below in a posed picture, but it does not justice!

Our car ride adventure

Pepper's near-death experience!

The Turbines

Ken's last BCNZ course was Wednesday. He held it at a local cafe to talk about everyone final project that was due. He said it was a great way to end as everyone really enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and round-table discussion about their papers. He also kept himself busy with work over the weekend (hoping it would make time go faster so we could be together again!) And of course there was some good bonding for Pepper and him as they went on a 1.5 hour walk together on Saturday at the park. He also began creating an adult education newsletter for the congregation with short articles and a calender of events. The Habakkuk study is getting good reviews and so he is planning other future adult education events. July will have a movie/discussion night for a break and then in August another 4-week study will begin, although he's not sure what it will be yet (he will be asking the 20-some Bible study attendees to choose their top ideas from a list on Tuesday).

Overall, it was a stretching week. It was the first time Ken and I have been separated for a few days (right after our 1st anniversary!) yet a growing opportunity for both of us as we were out of our comfort zone and without distractions. We both came to realize how thankful we are for each other and the team we make in our work.

June 3-9

2008-06-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

Can you believe it's been one year??!!! Yes, on June 9th we celebrated our first year of marriage! We enjoyed the whole weeked, starting with Saturday afternoon in Wellington for our first-ever All Blacks game versus Ireland...it was wet and cold, but we won! We stayed Sunday/Monday in Paraparaumu at the Price's apartment beach house. The monday was absolutely perfect - the weather was warm and sunny (almost like an "indian summer" as we are in the end of fall/beginning of winter down here) and was great for shell-searching on the beach! We went back to Wellington for dinner at a Maori restaurant called Kai (which is Maori for "food"). It was a quaint place, with room enough for possibly 10-15 people, one cook and one waitresses. But their hospitality was warm and they were so excited about our anniversary - look at what they made us for dessert!! (Ken called a florist for the rose ahead of time to come out with dessert!)

Ken with the cake tin behind him where the All Blacks are warming up!

TRY!!!! (it's a type of score in rubgy)

Some crazy uni-student we met cheering for the All Blacks

The Tasman Sea outside the Price's apartment

Having breakfast

Getting ready to go to Wellington - my new dress

Dinner at Kai

Cozy, Maori feel

Happy Anniversary! First year!

Other exciting news this past week:

Trinity celebrated the opening of their new kitchen six months after the arson. It was such a fun celebration - a lot of people from St. Luke's showed up to support them and be part of the dedication. I led the music team that night - Ken and I love to play at Trinity. We all play so well together and it feels like it's for the right reason. It was a special night.

On Saturday Ken led the youth in a service event. Unfortunately only two youth came, but they had a great time playing in dirt! They did a street and garden clean-up and got done just before the rain came. The two youth that came were given donations by the owners of the garden/street for the mission trip coming up this labor weekend (in October). Hopefully other youth will take advantage of these opportunities to fundraise for the trips and activities of youth!

May 29 - June 2

2008-05-31T18:37:00.000-07:00

This week was pretty typical, except for Wednesday, Aunti Joy's funeral. Ken and I were both asked to be a part of the service: I was asked to play piano and arrange some singers for three hymns, and Ken did the powerpoint and sound. It was an honour to be a part of her funeral and I arranged for two singers and a recorder to be play along with me. About 300 people came to remember her - what a testimony! The service was beautiful and although somber, it was not filled with tears, but instead joy at remembering her life and the love she had for her Saviour and Lord Jesus. We all knew where she was!

This week Ken decided to teach another course at BCNZ in the spring (our spring, your fall). It is an upper-level course for students about to graduate! So that will be exciting to work with more advanced students and see them get their diplomas/certificates!

I was scheduled to have an interview with a radio station to see about working part time or having an internship (just to get some experience in broadcasting using my music background). However, the manager was out sick on our day for the interview and will contact me when he is better. We'll see where this leads - I'm open either way as I firmly believe that if it's something the Lord wants me in, it will happen! No need to worry about it!

On Saturday morning, Ken got up before dawn to get out to Damien's house because it's duck season! Yes, they went duck hunting and actually got quite a few! Ken shot three, and we have a whole carcass as well as some breasts. I should figure out some recipes I guess!

Later that evening we went to Kate and Damien's again for tea and to hang out to watch the rugby. It was a fun game (probably because NZ won! yeay!) and it was great to see the Humphries' wedding album! There pictures were so pretty - and their photographer used one of their photos for the back of their business cards!

Please continue to keep the mission to Indonesia in your prayers. It's only a month away and there is still no news as to where they are going/where they are staying/etc. It's a leap of faith for them to just get on a plane and not know what's going on!! So, for the sake of our congregation (and their sanity), please keep the whole process in prayers. It's beginning to feel real though as Ken went to the doctor for vaccinations against every kind of scary disease possible! He's got quite the sore arm now (probably from that and the kick of the gun on Saturday morning too!)

May 20 - 28

2008-05-24T20:53:00.000-07:00

Well, there's no pictures this week. But just because we didn't carry out camera around with us, doesn't mean we didn't do anything!

Monday, our day off, we decided to have a relaxing day walking around the square. I felt like dropping off some CVs at various places to see about some extra work - I ended up getting asked to do a "working interview" at a cafe and scheduled it for Wednesday. We then met up with our friends from Feilding for some ice cream in the afternoon sunshine.

Tuesday's evening Ken began the Adult Education Bible Study on Habakkuk - with some 23 people in attendance! It was a great turnout with some even greater discussion and questions: the main one being did God create evil? We didn't really learn the answer yet. Hopefully in five weeks we'll be able to tell you one though. Not everyone in attendance was from St. Luke's. We actually had about five people from the BCNZ came. What was really awesome was that a few months ago I saw this girl at the BCNZ and wanted to introduce myself to her (she looked about my age and seemed really nice) but I didn't. I forgot all about it, but then on Tuesday night, she showed up to Bible study! Isn't that crazy?! We hit it off right away - it's always exciting to meet other people closer to my age!

Wednesday I spent the whole day at Cafe Cuba being a waitress. It was actually a lot of fun, although tiring! I'm not sure I would want to do that all day long all the time, so I'm glad they haven't called me back.

Later that afternoon, there was a National Youth Camp debrief meeting. It was good to review the camp, discuss things that worked and things that need to be worked on, etc. At the end of the meeting everyone told me that this was the best youth camp the LCNZ has ever had! Wow - what a wonderful compliment. It made me feel good about all the work I put into the program. Although, I don't think I'll be signing up to lead another anytime soon!

Thursday Ken found out definitive answers on Indonesia - the grant came through! So everything is set and ready to go. There was another team meeting that evening and Pastor Rob came to share his experiences with Indonesia as well as a documentary his team made when they went over a few years ago. It was awesome to see the landscape, the people, and the culture that Roy, Lois and Ken are going to in a few weeks! Please continue to keep this mission in prayer as they are still waiting for complete details as to where they will be, what churches they will be meeting with etc. The trip is mainly to sus-out various congregations to see which would be the best suited to be in partnership with the Manawatu Lutheran parish - one that we would be able to offer assistance to, but one that will also be able to offer assistance to us as well. That's the cool thing about mission partnership - it's about both churches learning to work together, sharing with each other to complete the body of Christ, being a blessing to each other.

Friday night youth was a game night based on the 40-Hour-Famine. The youth didn't have any snacks and learned more about various cultures and lifestyles through a set of tribal games. It seemed to go over fairly well, although Ken was slightly disappointed that some of the youth didn't seem to take some of the issues (aids and poverty) very seriously. But kids will be kids, eh?

Youth band is coming along - we lead worship in three weeks. Half of our songs will be played/sung by the band and the other half will be cd. The whole service (powerpoint creation, confession/absolution, readings etc) will be created and led by the youth. Please keep this in your prayers as we work on preparing our talents to lead the congregation in worship June 15.

Saturday night we had Pastor Peter from Marton over for some pizza and beer. It was good to catch up with him and to give him some company. He's been through some major life traumas since he arrived five months ago, but he seems to be doing pretty good. A very strong man, with quite the story.

Pastor Max arrived this weekend as well - he's the new interim pastor for the next three months. He seems really relaxed and fun. Just the opposite of the last interim pastor. I look forward to working with him in service planning and leading. Ken did the children's message at Feilding as well as led the youth program that is offered during the sermon. He hasn't been able to do that very often and really enjoyed being with the youth over there. Back at St. Luke's, we had a baptism of a new baby in the Satherley family (one of the larger families in the church). However, as we were welcoming Millie into the family of God, her great grandmother Joy was taken home to God. It was a bittersweet service, but it was amazing how God works through the gifts and talents we bring to Him in worship. The songs were absolutely perfect for both the celebration of new life, and the remembrance of a great woman in the church. The sermon was also appropriate and there was no technical or sound issues/glitches. It was the perfect service, and everyone walked away quite touched with how special it had been. Aunti Joy I'm sure was pleased that she passed away in the morning before the service, because last week she had asked us to pray she'd be able to see Millie baptized. Well, she was bedridden by Thursday and would have been unable to come to church. However, being taken in the morning before the service, she was able to be there in Spirit to see her great-grandchild become a member of God's family! How special is that? Gives me chills!

Monday we relaxed and took Pepper to Himitangi beach. It was a beautiful day and we were the only people there (which meant we had optimum pickings for shells!) We also have moved on from Desperate Housewives - our latest tv series is Lost. What an adrenaline packed show! If you haven't seen it, go rent it - you'll love it!

We've made it over the hump - as of 25th we've been here ten months. Only eight more to go! It's amazing how fast time goes...we told our parents that next year memorial day, we'll be celebrating with them! :) We love you!

May 12-19

2008-05-18T23:47:00.000-07:00

This Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, where we celebrated the church's 1,979th birthday! (according to modern scholarship.) Services were great - at St. Luke's we had all the art from the art devo night on display and Ken led the children's talk, focusing on how at Pentecost, everyone could hear "Jesus loves you" in their own language. So, each kid got a different name tag that said "Jesus loves you" in various languages. It was really neat. That evening we led worship at Trinity - the songs were all spirit-oriented (it was really fun for me to learn some new music to play for that service, especially since I didn't have any notes, only the chord charts - i definitely found the songs online and listened to them over and over!) and Ken led the message, which as I mentioned in the last blog, was very insightful yet inspiring at the same time (chosen by God to be God's people)! I liked it because he had a lot of the "third use" of the law in his sermon (meaning that we are to live out our faith because we have been saved. It is not to gain favor or acceptance by God, simply to live out His love in our lives so others may see it and know Him). I think we Lutherans need to hear more "third use" so we don't get so focused on grace that we lead a life of habitual knowing sin, abusing the gift of grace.

Sunday afternoon I helped Ken lead confirmation. They recently finished learning about the difference between Law and Gospel. So to relate living out these out in our daily lives, Ken had them go on a scavenger hunt to find certain fair trade or organic/locally grown items. The point? That how we use our money affects the world (are you supporting slave-labour, or fair trade? etc) and that as Christians, we are called to think about what we put in our bodies (organic foods without additives are much healthier for our bodies, which we are called to take care of). It was a really fun afternoon.

Sunday was also Mother's Day, so we called our mother's at home (and again on Monday, when it was mother's day in the states). It was good to catch up with family - we really do miss you guys!!!

Tuesday, Ken hosted the local youth ministry network meeting at St. Luke's. About eight of them were there (sometimes as many as 13 show up) but it was a great morning of exchanging ideas, expressing joys and frustrations, and getting to know each other better as youth ministers in Palmy. That evening, Ken hosted the Oxfam Great New Zealand Coffee Break. Only 17 people attended (we were hoping for more with the amount of publicity we did), but we raised over $100 towards helping coffee growers plant more coffee trees! The evening was really fun - there was free coffee for everyone to try (all fairly traded, meaning the farmer receives at least 1.?? for every kilo, whereas non-fair trade coffee buyers only pay the farmer .08 per kilo)! After a bit of socializing, there was an education video about fair trade, and then the evening ended with a raffle drawing for fair trade coffee, mugs, and the video we showed (Black Gold - really good documentary! Get it! And then start buying fair trade coffee - you're dollar makes a difference)!

I was greeter/ticket saleslady for the coffee night

The poster

Ken talking about fair trade before seeing who wins the coffee raffle

Wednesday was the third monthly all-music-team meeting and about 10 people were there! I am very pleased at how all the teams are sending representatives to these meetings. There has been a marked difference in communication since these meetings have been going. And it's fun to choose songs that we want to introduce to the congregation as a whole united body of musicians. But please keep these meetings in your prayers - there have been some hurt feelings as we've gone through each team's songs to decide as music leaders which songs we should all "take a break from" versus which ones we should continue to play. It is important for this type of communication to happen, yet we need to make sure it's done in a sensitive way. However, it is also important that all teams are coming to this with a servant-heart, open to positive ideas for the congregation.

Wednesday also had some good/bad news. The good news is that there is funding for the NOISE worship conference in June to cover all five people attending! The bad news is that Ken's application for a grant for the Indonesia trip was rejected because 1)the PLT forgot to sign it and 2) confusion on the emphasis for the trip (to obtain the grant, the focus needs to be on Ken's growth as a church worker in New Zealand while the PLT wanted Ken to focus on how this trip would help the church). However, with this clarification, Ken is resubmitting the application and it should have no problems being accepted. But please keep this in your prayers as well.

Thursday we left for Wellington - I had a meeting with Mark Whitfield (musician/pastor at the Lutheran church in Welly) and Guy Jansen (worship speaker/church musician widely known in NZ). We began planning for the Lutheran Music Conference in late October! I am excited to be a part of this group as we are doing something that's never really been done here. We're hoping for a weekend for Lutheran church musicians (but also open to anyone else interested, Lutheran or not), where we can grow deeper spiritually (especially since most of our church musicians have never been trained) and also have break-out sessions to learn hands-on new techniques for worship leading in bands, organ, sound system, etc. Then on Sunday, those break-out sessions will lead part of worship (ex, if you were in the organ session learning a new intro for a song, you would play that intro on Sunday). The conference would end with sharing of resources/ideas between everyone and a Bach Cantata (Mark's church has been doing a Cantata Series using professional musicians as an outreach into the community). As much work as this is going to be, it is going to be awesome!

Enjoying another sunny day in Wellington

Kapiti Island

Friday Ken took the youth to a Palmy-wide youth concert called Fuse. He said it was a great success - everyone had so much fun, and the band was awesome. Saturday we relaxed in the morning, and took Pepper for a long walk to enjoy the autumn leaves at Massey University. Ken also worked a lot on his Habakkuk Adult Bible Study which begins next Tuesday at church. We ended the night with some pizza and beer, watching some Indiana Jones to get ready for the newest movie coming out next week!

Look at these leaves!!

Pepper loving life

We're "falling" in love...get it? It's fall, and we're in love... :)

Sunday at church we had some great conversations with the Satherley family. It's getting very hard for them as Aunti Joy came to church in a wheel chair today. The love the church and the family has for Aunti Joy is absolutely astounding - it is truly an awesome thing to witness.

After church, I went to Himatangi beach with Jen. We took our dogs and had some nice girl time to talk about life...she's going through a bought of homesickness/upset with jobness/etc and I can relate!!! So we just talked, vented, and listened to each other while watching the dogs have a blast in the ocean. Ken was back at the house cleaning our car (for the first time in 10 months!!) That evening we went to Roy and Lois Price's for dinner to talk about Indonesia - they will be going with Ken. It sounds like an awesome trip! However, it's a huge leap of faith working with the Indonesian church as all three of them are "dot-ever-i" type people while the Indonesian people they are working with are much more relaxed. They still don't know details about transportation/billeting, but know that all will work out. Other teams from Australia have recently gone and had no problems, so it's just a matter of being patient and waiting to dot those i's!

Pepper and Anna

Monday was our day off - we ran errands, called my sister to wish her a Happy Birthday, got ice cream in the square with our friends from Feilding, and took Pepper on another long walk down at the Esplanade. The weather has been just beautiful lately, and autumn brought to mind how even in death, there is such beauty. And isn't that true for Christians? That in Christ, death is no longer something to be scared of, but instead something truly beautiful, to be enjoyed knowing that we are headed for eternal life with Him?! How awesome...

May 5-11

2008-05-08T01:21:00.000-07:00

After the busyness of last week, we woke up Tuesday morning with stuffy noses and sore throats. Yes, it all caught up to us. But we got into the work routine once again anyway.

The weather has definitely changed for winter - although there are still many leaves on the ground, the air is sharply cold. But we've actually found it fun to bundle up to go outside...the only thing we wish was that we had better heating in our home so that we wouldn't have to bundle up to be inside...

Tuesday evening Ken lead an art devotional evening where he read the story of Pentecost to everyone and after some prayer and meditation on the reading, we went in and painted what we felt represented the reading. It was a really neat evening, especially to see all the various interpretations of Acts 2. The pictures were displayed on Pentecost Sunday in the entry way to church.

The artists hard at work...

The end result!

Ken's Holy Spirit

Ken spent most of Wednesday in meetings - it turns out that the pastor we called to our parish declined. So we're going to extend a call to our second choice. Please pray that if this is God's will, he would accept. Otherwise, we start all over again, looking through names of possible candidates. Ken and I are definitely ready for a pastor to be here again. It is difficult to be the only paid employees of the church as everyone looks to us for pastoral care (which we can't give them).

Ken also is working with the children's ministry team to switch back to the original way Sunday school was done - for the past month and a half they had created the program so that the kids were more involved with worship, having Sunday school begin 30 minutes before the service and they would arrive at the service 10 minutes in. However, most parents did not like having their children in the service, so we're back to having the kids in for the first 10 minutes, then out for the rest of the time. Ken was a little disappointed, after all the research he's done (and learned) in university about the positive aspects of having children in worship. But if that's what the people want, Ken as an intern does not have the authority to do otherwise.

Some exciting news from the BCNZ - they've offered Ken another course next semester! He is prayerfully considering it. As much as he loves teaching, he's not sure if he has the time to dedicate to another course. This semester alone has been a difficult balancing act for him with all his activities and responsibilities at the church. But we'll see.

On the music front - I signed up to attend a music/worship leader conference called Noise, put on by Parachute. It should be an awesome three day event with leaders from the Newsboys, Hillsong, and Parachute there. There will be break out sessions to learn more about worship leading, instrumentation in a worship band, technical aspects to worship, and vocal training. It will be in Auckland from 12-14 June. So far there are three other members from St. Luke's going with me and we applied for a grant to cover costs - hopefully at least some of the grant will come through. I also recorded my first song Sunday evening with Tony (a friend from Trinity in Feilding) and sent it in to a competition put on by Noise - the winner gets two days in the Parachute studios to record their song! Wish me luck!

The past few weeks worship has been running incredibly smooth! There have been few technical glitches, the powerpoints have matched the songs, and everyone has been very pleased. However, this past Sunday two songs were wrong! The team on did not check my powerpoint and so it was a little awkward, but most of the congregation knew the correct words to be singing and things continued as normal. But even with these errors, people still came up after the service and said how the team sounded so wonderful, and that it was a very worshipful service. God is good - working through our fallible hands to create something wonderful!

Trinity worship went smooth - Ken was leading worship and preaching for the evening service as well as playing guitar on a few songs. The team sounded great. I was nervous because on our practice date, hardly anyone was able to show up and we relied heavily on cds. However, on Sunday evening, everyone arrived, we ran through the songs and it sounded great. Again, God is good! Ken enjoyed giving another sermon. This one was based on the parallel between Pentecost and Mt. Sini when God meets the people to give them His law. It was really awesome to see how everything, as small as the detail as the time of day when God met the people at Mt. Sini and when He came upon the apostles, was linked together between these two events.

It may be obvious then, but what Ken and I really felt God speaking to us this week is how awesome and in control He is. No matter what of our efforts, He takes them all and has His way with it. He is involved in our lives, to the smallest details. As shown in Exodus and Acts, He is intimately involved, creating us to be His people. Thinking that this is the God we worship gives me chills - I think we're starting to just grasp what His unconditional love looks like!

April 28-May 4

2008-05-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

Global God...that was the theme of the 2008 National Youth Camp for the LCNZ! This week we spent all our time in Havelock North at Riverbend Camp with 41 youth and 4 other leaders. It was pretty awesome to see youth from as far south as Dunedin and as far north as Auckland meeting together and making friends together, regardless of age, race, and origin.

The van

The Car

We spent most of the morning in song time and devotions, with small group break out sessions. Tuesday afternoon we had a photo-scavenger hunt in Havelock North, Wednesday afternoon was a service event, and Thursday afternoon was a hike up Te Mata Peak. Between all that we had pool time, archery, and a flying fox for the kids to play on. The nights were filled with large group games, a movie, and a culture night where we learned about other Christians around the world through a video shared by the camp pastor as well as created a painted mural of what it means to be a New Zealander for Ken to take to Indonesia next month! Overall, I think the camp was a great success (although I don't think I want to be in charge again - that was a lot of work, and I am so thankful for Ken who co-lead the actual camp with me!!! Thank you!!)

Ken debriefing after a game

Fun times

As soon as we arrived home on Friday, our friend Aaron was back in Palmy from his month on the South Island. We made pizza and hung out together Friday evening and Saturday got up bright and early to head out to the Coromandel via the Republic of Whangamomona. It was a great trip, although long. We pulled into a spot on the side of the road at about midnight and set up our tents. We woke up with a beautiful sunrise Sunday, but the day ended up being rainy. It was still great to see the Coromandel. We saw where Captain Cook first landed, enjoyed some wine at a shady winery, and ended the day getting to Auckland where we crashed at the Lutheran church. We stayed up pretty late again playing cards and hanging out. Monday morning we grabbed some Dunkin Donouts (yes, Ken and I found out they are in Auckland and vowed to get some when up there) before showing Aaron a few of the "must see" landmarks in Auckland. We dropped him off late in the afternoon (he flew out a day later for the states) and began our 6 hour drive home.

Enjoying some time in the Republic

Pepper loved the trip

Beautiful country

In the Coromandel: Kauri Trees

The beach where Captain Cook first landed

Look at this wineary!! Looks a bit shady, but it was full of character and life inside!

Auckland

The cityscape

Long week, longer weekend, but all of it was such a blast! Thank the Lord for safety in all our travels and for the joyous fellowship times we had. Amen!

April 20-27

2008-05-08T01:18:00.000-07:00

This weeked was so relaxing! We left after church to go to the Clausen' s beach house in Foxton. It was like staying at a resort - the two-story house is on oceanfront property with a path leading you to the beach. They had cable tv (so we got to watch some movies) and a full kitchen, which made cooking really easy. We took the time to catch up on reading, spending time away from the ringing phone, taking long walks on the beach, and exploring one of the elven forests from Lord of the Rings (Waiterere Forest).

The beach house

Just a walk away to the oceanfront

The South Pacific/Tasman Sea

Our little family

Being elves

The rest of the week was filled with final preparations for youth camp. It was fun to find all the materials needed and organize everything so that the week would run smoothly and be jam packed with fun activities, crafts, and songs. We have two camp cooks, 5 small group leaders, and 41 youth attending! Please keep this in your prayers...

Tuesday night was a girls night out chocolate night put on by some ladies from church. It was a really fun idea, and eating all the chocolates was great, but unfortunately there was just too large of an age range (we had teenagers through to young mothers) and motherhood became the dominant coversation. I know more than I ever wanted to know about baby poo. yuck.

Thursday night Ken went to bloke's night out at the Clausen's home. He always enjoys these nights to get to know some of the older men in the congregation, however, it would be nice if more of the young men came.

Friday was ANZAC day so Ken and I attended the dawn memorial service in the square - it was actually a really neat service, beginning with the air force flying their helicopter over the square. Then the band played a hymn, Psalm 23 was read, there was a small speech about remembering those fallen in war then and now, and it closed with the laying of wreaths and the NZ national anthem in Maori and English. By the end, the sun had begun to rise - it was a beautiful sight. We met up with some members from the congregation at McCafe and enjoyed fellowship with them. Then we headed back to work (although many people get this day off, we still had a lot to prepare for next week).

We ended the evening hanging out in Feilding with Trinity friends Tony and Rachel along with two friends of theirs they invited. It was a really fun night of games and mexican food!

Sunday our team led worship. Everything ran very smoothly and we had a special song (You Never Let Go - Matt Redman) during communion. Ken played guitar, Rachel and myself sang solos and Jen sang harmonies. It was a lot of fun. It's great to see the team melding closer together, learning new techniques, as I am better understanding what it means to be a worship leader. Ken and I often enjoy daydreaming about the day when he'll be the pastor and I'll be the worship planner/leader...we'll just have to wait and see where God leads us in the future. :)

April 14-20

2008-05-08T00:55:00.000-07:00

Monday is our day off, and so we decided to drive back to Otaki Forks to pick up some gear we'd left up in the hut last weekend. After grabbing the headlamp and pocketknife (to which we realized we were neither very "bright" or "sharp" to have left these items behind...haha) we went on a few tracks. Pep track took us to a drop-off where the trail must have slid. But the other track was fun to walk along the river and Pepper and I watched Ken rock climb up to the bridge! We ended the evening in Wellington at Mac's for a yummy meal of fish and chips with their seasonal brew.

Look - her very own track!

Ken climbing up to the bridge

Enjoying a good brew

Tuesday we were able to hang out with Rick and Kerri again - it was the first time this year we'd visited with them! It was a good time to catch up and play card games. Please keep the Satherley family in your prayers though, as they are dealing with Aunti Joy's cancer...she seems to be getting worse by the day. There is nothing that can be done except wait for it to win, but everyone hopes it will happen with as little pain as possible.

Wednesday Ken enjoyed his last day of class for a while (they are on a holiday break for the next two weeks.) He is finally getting the hang of grading (they have a very odd system at the BCNZ) and got back reviews from the course that were all pretty much positive! The Bible College was very pleased to see that Ken is doing so well and the students are so happy with the course. In fact, his reviews were some of the highest among all the teachers!

Wednesday evening was the second all-music team meeting. There were only about 7 people that showed this time, but at least there was someone from each music team representing. We took time to go through some of the music we play to decide what we thought should "take a break" and what should be played more often.

Saturday night we went out on the town for Jen's birthday. We are turning into quite the social club members, aren't we??! But seriously, we realized this weekend just how many friends we have here in the Manawatu. It's awesome to see how quickly these relationships have formed and how deep they are. God is so good!

April 5 - 13

2008-04-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

Ugh…this week was exhausting. After church on Sunday Ken decided he wanted to go backpacking in Otaki. So we packed up our bags and hiked up a three hour uphill mountain! When I thought I could go no further, a most beautiful sight appeared: the hut! It was sunset as we set up camp and warmed up our canned spaghetti. Monday morning we woke up and decided to take a hike up to Table Top – wow, was it worth it! We were on top of the mountain ranges, watching the clouds fly by us (it was storming) and was very spectacular. Then we packed up our gear and trekked back down the mountain…only to realize at the base we had left our pocket knife and head lamp back at the hut! We decided to leave a note with the caretaker and drove back home. Two days later – we got a phone call that someone found our stuff, read our note, and left both items with the caretaker! Yes! So we’ll be going back on Monday to pick it up. After that journey (our first official backpacking journey in New Zealand) we got back to work. Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with a million meetings for Ken and a lot of prep for national youth camp for myself.

At the bottom of the hike

Pepper got nice and dirty

The most glorious site!

Views from Table Top

On top of the world!

The hike back down

One last shot of our hut

Ken found out some sad news about the BCNZ this week...the Palmerston North campus will be closing it's doors in the fall 2009! But on a happier note, all the students told him how much they love his class and even some of the other faculty are impressed with his class!

We're finally getting things running at Trinity again. In January, their kitchen was burned down and therefore we didn't not have the live music evening service. In February, none of us were around for that service and then in March, Trinity joined St. Luke's in the evening for the movie night to see End of the Spear. SO, 13 April is the first live worship service at Trinity! It was awesome to meet with the team after three months off and play together again - we actually felt like we hadn't taken such a long time off, because we all jivved really well together!

Ken had a busy Saturday morning - Shedmen, the men's ministry for the Manawatu Parish, was held at our flat. That meant at 7:30am 15 men were coming over for breakfast and devotions! Ken was a sweetie and let me sleep in, taking care of cooking the hash browns and sausages for them all.

Our Shed

Anyone up for bangers and mash?

Last but least, Ken and I received some interesting news this week...the Themba Foundation contacted us and asked for our CVs. They will be having a management meeting on 18 May to discuss our CVs, however, the director of the program told us that she is sure the board will be as excited as she is to welcome us to the Themba project next year! Wow, so we'll know more next month, but it seems that if this is where the Lord wants us next, that doors are beginning to open! Please continue to keep this in your prayers.

"But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Romans 5:25

March 31-April 4

2008-04-03T17:13:00.000-07:00

This week was refreshing! We left on Monday morning to go to Havelock North for the Church Workers Conference. It was great to be with about 12 other church workers and pastors from both islands, sharing our ups and downs, learning more about New Zealand culture, and digging into the Word. Ken was asked to give a presentation, so he wrote a paper entitled “What’s a Lutheran to do with the Emerging Church?” and gave an 1.5 hour long presentation/discussion on it. We both had the opportunity to lead everyone in devotion, and were asked to lead music for other’s devotions as well. But it wasn’t all work and no play: we enjoyed a time at the local pub together as well as wine tasting at some of Hawke’s Bay vineyards. But the best part of it was learning more about the Kiwi culture – one of the pastors shared a book review of a book entitled The Great New Zealand Argument. It was written by New Zealanders looking at why Kiwi’s are the way they are. It gave Ken and I a lot of insight about this culture. You see, sometimes we get so discouraged here because we do everything we’re asked to do by the congregation, yet we’re always being criticized. We decided it just must be that people here are overly negative. However, this book explained the “tall poppy syndrome” – New Zealand is a relatively new culture (approx 200 years old Pakeha history) and the people don’t really have a strong grasp of who they are. Therefore, they rest in the fact that they are all the same and anyone who tries to be anything different is looked down upon because they are being “uppity.” Mediocrity is encouraged and people strive to be good, not their best. This can be seen in the people here as more and more intellectuals are leaving New Zealand for countries that appreciate them (like Australia, Britain, and America.) Also, New Zealanders have a jaded opinion of Australians and Americans, believing them to have this attitude “we’re better than you.” Therefore, even as Ken and I work at doing things we’ve been asked BY New Zealander’s to do, they view what we do as if we think we’re better than them and therefore criticize what we do. It’s a nasty circle, but at least we better understand it.

The crew at the local pub

The grapes at a winery

Ken playing rugby with the pastors

We got back from the conference on Thursday in time to pick up our friend Aaron – he is exploring New Zealand for 7 weeks and stopped over in Palmy to visit us for the weekend. It was good to catch up with an old Concordia friend and to give him a place to rest.

Friday night Ken began his newest Bible study series with the youth: Rooted New Testament. This study will be easier than other studies as it is a fill in the blank study sheet, but it’s what the other youth leader feels the youth want. The first study went pretty well and Ken thought the kids seemed to enjoy it.
Aaron, Jen, Sarah and myself picked up Ken after youth to take Aaron out on the town – we hit up some Irish pubs and enjoyed live Celtic music! We ended the night back at the house where Aaron taught us a fun Israeli card game he learned from one of the hut caretakers in the Tongariro Crossing called “Yaniv.” If you come over, we’ll teach you how to play – it’s a blast!

Saturday Ken had a meeting with some of the parents and teachers of the children’s Sunday school. For the past month, they decided to begin Sunday School before church and have the children join the service about 15 minutes into the service at the children’s talk time. However, many parents did not like having the children in the service during the sermon, so they scheduled a meeting to discuss ways to arrange the Sunday School around the service so that it is structured, yet keeps the kids busy during the sermon.

After that meeting, we headed down to Wellington with Aaron to go to a Super 14 Rugby game: Wellington Hurricanes vs South Africa’s Sharks. We sat two rows from the field and could almost see the sweat on the players faces!! Or maybe it was rain…because it definitely drizzled most of the game and we were in uncovered seats. But the game itself was a blast – we ended up drawing with the Sharks, but that’s pretty good seeing that the Sharks are undefeated.

It was another rainy day in Wellington

Took him to Mac's

At the game

See how close we are??

Other news: after the CWC as I lamented that I felt no one appreciates me as the church musician, I got an amazing email from one of the music teams thanking me for the hard work and great services that we’ve had! Then I got a gift card from another member for the Christian bookstore to show appreciation for my work, as well as a donation of music chimes for the parish! Wow, God is so awesome – how He moves in His people to uplift His children right when they need it.

Ken has been really really busy with work. Between the BCNZ (planning and preparing for lectures and grading papers), preparing youth night events, getting the Adult Education program running for May, and working on revamping the Sunday School, time is filled! He also applied for a grant to fund his airfare to Indonesia with the mission outreach program – and it looks like it is going through! So in the next few weeks he’ll be booking his tickets. What an exciting opportunity – he also is amazed at how God’s fingers are so involved in this program: it turns out Pastor Rob was involved with the Batak people in Indonesia and has a video about them that the team will watch and possibly share with the congregation; President Preus from CUI told Ken that he’s also worked with and met the same point person Ken will be meeting in Indonesia! And so many other little things that appear to be “coincidence” but we see as God’s fingers working to bring things together for His glory. Another wow! Thank God for the encouraging ways He’s moved in our lives this week. He is so good!

March 24-30

2008-04-03T17:11:00.001-07:00

Happy Harvest! Yes, here in New Zealand, we celebrated the fall harvest with a thanksgiving church service. The service went really well – the altar was decorated with fruits and veggies, during the offering everyone brought forward their monetary and harvest items to lay down in front of the altar, and the songs were all geared towards “giving thanks.” It was pretty powerful! But the most amazing part was during the service, the Lord provided the Manawatu with rain! It hasn’t rained in weeks and there is a major drought across the entire nation – and then as we praised the Lord for the blessing of a harvest, He gives us the rain! Wow.

While I was busy preparing for that service, Ken was busy getting ready for the Friday night youth camp out! He had planned to take the kids camping, but the other youth leader didn’t feel well enough to go off site. So instead, Ken took the kids to the park for games and tea, and then after it got dark they headed back to the church to set up tents in the hall! And the set up was pretty awesome – he had them do “blind tent making”! The rest of the night was spent watching movies and playing more games…luckily Ken did not get pranked on (although the kids stayed up most of the night trying to prank him!) Needless to say, it was a fun night.

Fun at the park

Blind tent making

The hall

Pepper was busy giving us heart failure this week as well – Friday night while Ken was at the park with the youth, I took Pepper on a walk to visit them. But on the way home, she decided to swim across the Manawatu River!! Once on the other side of the bank, she proceeded to spend 15 minutes chasing ducks, completely ignoring my cries for her to get back on the other side!!! I met a nice German woman who introduced herself saying “My, your dog doesn’t listen very well, does she?!” I was shocked that Pepper was able to swim across the mighty Manawatu (it is known for its depth and under tows) but she made it back to my arms only to be roped back on the leash. She’s lost privileges.

Saturday was Kate and Damien’s wedding – it was wonderful! The ceremony was at Kate’s girls’ school that she attended and the reception was in her family’s backyard. It was an elaborate, beautiful wedding that lasted until the wee hours of the morning.

Right after the ceremony

Cutting the cake

Our table at the reception

Well, as we prepare for winter down here, we are enjoying the brisk days and rain. It’s been an unusually long, hot, dry summer, so the farmers are very thankful for the changing weather patterns. We are enjoying it as well, our favorite days being those that are brisk but sunny! It’s neat to experience fall again with the changing leaves too. So, Happy Harvest!

March 18-23

2008-03-20T15:33:00.000-07:00

If there was one word for this week it would be: Adventure.

After church on Palm Sunday, Ken and I packed up the car. He dropped me off at Kate's bridal shower: here her mouth is filled with bubble gum for a game we're playing.

Opening gifts

Then it was off to Easter choir practice. When that was over, we began the adventure to Ohakune with Pepper. We decided to get away for two nights before the barrage of Holy Week began. However, when we arrived at the park (mind you it was late) there was a sign that lit up with our headlights that showed a dog with a big red line through it. No dogs. Great - we didn't know what else to do but to stay there and hid little Pep. As we set up tent next to the only other campers on the grounds, we killed our car battery (we used the headlights for light...) Luckily we woke up early enough to catch the other campers just as they were leaving. They jumped our car and we then decided to relax with a nice cup of tea...but we forgot the matches! So instead we enjoyed our water and read from Scripture together for almost an hour. It was very relaxing to be in the wild, completely alone, reading Job where God talks to Job telling Him how great and massive He is - how He completely rules this earth and cares for each and every living thing, so who are we, His creation, to question Him?! It's very moving reading that I recommend you check out (chapters 38-42).

Then we thought we better get out of the campground so we took Pepper and drove off to the city. However, the city was anti-dogs too, so we had a fun time of hiding her throughout the day in the car. We had some close scares, but she was never found. Phew! That night we decided to set camp up on the side of the road by a ski tavern. We enjoyed St. Patty's day with some kumra chips and beers. That's where we met Bill and Craig. Bill is a local drinker who is billed monthly by the bar. He bought us a round. Craig is his friend - an old man who works as a carpenter and told us we're welcome to come back to make a rimu bowl with him! He then went on to tell us that he is a drug dealer, but never deals to school children, only to "equals" - adults who have made their life decision. It was a rad evening listening to his life stories. And it was really touching to see the generosity of these guys who didn't even know us. Their actions towards us, even when they learned we were church workers (people in NZ tend to ignore you once they hear that) was awesome.

The campsite where Pepper was an illegal...

The Ski Villa with Ruapehu in the background (yes, it's an active volcano people ski on!)

The dog friendly park we found

Some pretty scenes

Playing in the creek by our campsite off the roadside

Pepper fishing for rocks

Pepper and Ken thinking about life

Home sweet home

Morning sunrise

When we arrived back in Palmy, the metal hit the grinder! We were full on this week getting ready for Maundy Thursday service, two Good Friday services, and Easter Saturday prayer vigil, and Easter Sunday services. A woman from the music team who was leading on Good Friday had her baby and so I stepped in to sing with her team for her. She is currently in the hospital with her newborn who has jaundice complications, so keep them in your prayers. The Good Friday morning service was an experiement: it used tangible items throughout the service. So after reading about the crown of thorns, we sang "Where you there when they crowned him with the thorns" as a crown of thorns was passed among the congregation. We did this for the nails, the gall, and the wooden cross. The service ended with the main cross being carried out and Pastor giving us an absolution, that we could leave knowing we are forgiven and free. It was a shorter service, but a great sucess! The afternoon service is a unique one to Palmy - all the churches in the city work together. The people begin at one church for the first reading, then move to the next church for the next reading and so on. St. Luke's is doing the reading of Christ being speared and we are singing two songs. Besides leading singing, I played the recorder while another woman played piano to O Sacred Head Now Wounded. It was great to see all Christians regardless of denominations, joined together to worship Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Ken left Friday evening for Taupo. Damien (Kate's fiance) had his "stag du" that night and Ken was invited. He had a blast being with other guys for a weekend. They spent most of their time in the local pub or on a boat they rented where they went swimming, fishing (yes, caught some and ate it raw!!!) and clay pigeon shooting. He came back Saturday night just in time to relax before Easter morning where he preached for Trinity's service! I led the Easter Choir in three songs for the 10:30am service at St. Luke's, which went wonderfully! It was a bit nerve-wraking being the first choir I've ever led! Then we enjoyed a lunch with the LaGrow's before heading down to Wellington for a Bach Cantata at St. Paul's. We stayed the night with Pastor Mark and his family (I made them cross sugar cookies as a a thank you) and we came back Easter Monday. Ken and I enjoyed dying our Easter eggs that evening.

Enjoying our Easter goodies from our baskets:

Jen and Sam after church

St. Paul's in Wellington

Warming up for the Bach Cantata

War Memorial in Wellington

A fun fountain on Cuba Street

The bay

So, He is risen! He is risen indeed! May this Easter be filled with joy and peace as you rest assured that the victory over death is won! Because He is risen, because He lives, we can know that we live too. Yes!

March 11-17

2008-03-13T00:29:00.000-07:00

This week was full of meetings:

Ken had a youth ministry team meeting where he continues to emphasize their purpose: "The purpose of REFLEX youth is to create a ministry through which God will draw youth closer to himself by providing opportunities for students to build relationships, grow in discipleship, engage in worship, give in service, and reach out to the community with the saving message of Jesus Christ." It's his goal to leave this church with the youth ministry team having a clear vision for why they exist. At their meeting they also filled the calendar for the year. Here's a peek at some upcoming activities: national youth camp at the end of April, various service events in May and June, youth worship in June, a New Testament overview Bible study, and a mission trip to the South Island over labor weekend next October.

For the past two weeks he has also had an adult education survey going out in the church. There are 29 people interested in a Bible study class and Ken is planning to begin the first study sometime in April on Luke.

In the overseas mission partnership meetings that Ken helps lead, they have decided to go through LCA Missions to Indonesia in late June of this year. Because Ken has been actively involved in this team, there is a good chance he may be able to be one of the team members going to Indonesia to "scout out" the area and church. Please keep that in your prayers.

My meeting was with the music team members - we had our very first monthly meeting. It was a great success, with about 12 musicians turning up, two members from the PLT and myself! The meeting itself went a lot longer than a usual meeting will go (we began at 7pm and ended at 9pm but will normally end at 8pm) but it was due to all the discussion regarding the worship vision at St. Luke's. The PLT took some of my notes and created an outline for what worship should look like (what things are essential, such as the Word, sermon, Sacraments, Confession/Absolution...) and had an open disucssion for the music leaders to have input as to how they feel the worship services should look. We decided that our goal is to have live music teams (led by musicians and vocalists) by the end of the year. How is this going to work? That's up to me. So please pray for me as I seek wisdom to discern how to transform the CD team into a music team. Pray that they will have open hearts and servant minds to work with musicians for the good of the church body.

I also was busy decorating for Palm Sunday service. Doesn't the altar look nice? The new music team that I lead was on that Sunday and we sang the song that Ken and I wrote - the congregation is beginning to really enjoy that song and it's awesome to hear something being sung by 100 people that is an original by the Chitwood's! Ken also was leading worship and preaching. It's great when he leads and my team is on because we can communicate very well to handle any little bumps in the service with grace (as there always seem to be a few bumps!)

Some other exciting news: our wedding album arrived! It's been great to re-live June 9th. The photos are awesome and the album is very unique - it is "magazine" style so the pictures are lazer-ed on to the page. It's pretty sweet! Enjoy a few pages...

And Pepper kept us on our toes - we found a flea on her! Being a neat freak, I went to the store and bought her a flea collar (it's red, and Ken says it's her "scarlet collar"...haha...) and some flea spray as well as carpet cleaner. Needless to say, I think we killed that flea.

Well, that about sums everything up. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers - may you have a blessed Holy Week as we prepare for the Easter celebration of our risen Lord!