A Kiwi Christmas

First off, it’s summer over here. That means it doesn’t snow (okay, 99.9% of the time. Four years ago it snowed in Fiordland on Christmas Day, go figure.) and it’s warm. Of course, it does rain sometimes, but often its sunny… temperatures for tomorrow around the country range between a low of 7 in Invercargill (although their high is 18) and a high of 26 in Wanganui.

Starbucks still goes with the winter-Christmas theme… our cups are red, with pictures of snow and carolling on them… our promotional items are all hot ones, the Peppermint Hot Chocolate or the Gingerbread Latte… but our most popular drinks are still frappuchinos and iced drinks.

We have barbeques, with pavlova… pavlova is like a fluffy meringue-type dessert cake… served with cream, kiwifruit and strawberries… we go on holidays to the ‘bach’ by the lake (although they now sell for millions and rent for thousands… good luck getting one of those for Christmas day…)

My blogging attention span is short… more later.

Access: not denied

Today I got a key to the church office.

This might not seem like such a big deal… except its been two years, and I haven’t had a key before this.

Now, I can go in outside office hours… without borrowing a key.

It’s the person behind the gift…

I got given a book yesterday… the book itself is pretty intriguing, its ‘The imitation of Christ’ by Thomas à Kempis, who was some guy who really really wanted to be like Jesus. I’m sure there’s more to it than that. But, this book currently is my favourite reading book… sure, there’s a nice little thank you note inside the front cover, and I’m excited about spending a significant part of my summer diving into this book… but I think the reason that it means a lot to me is because of the person it represents. I know that in some way, part of how I live and choose to prioritise my time, has allowed/allows them to do what they do with excellence… not that in anyway their ministry is dependent upon me, but I know that I’ve played a part. This person (who if you know me, it’s not hard to work out) is moving on at the end of this year… they’ve been around for most of my ‘ministry life’, and are definitely one of the most influential people around my world… they will definitely be missed.

I have lots of these old books… I’m starting to get kind of into them… I heard Aaron Walsh speak like 3 years ago, and he asked the question, where are the people writing theology for this generation… I want to be one of those people, but I think before we go forward, I need to go back.

So, today I managed to find myself with another 6 hours of internship teaching… so I’m doing two combined sessions (on values, and the confessions day) in the young adults one… and I have 4 one hour sessions with no defined topic. In the nocturnal internship, I’m teaching the two hour ‘values’ class – second class of the internship, pretty much our values, how to get the most out of internship and the prayer room. I’m also doing the combined confessions class for the nocturnals… and teaching a two hour eschatology class which will be fun.

Tomorrow is the last day of church officey-ness for the year… except I think I’m finally getting a key so I can get in and out over summer, because I haven’t been able to get in out of office hours unless I borrow a key. It’ll be shut till Jan 15.

Tiffany and I are housesitting for about 10 days in Wainuiomata… will be nice to have our ‘own place’ (freshly renovated, painted and carpeted, with new outdoor landscaping…) for that while… then Rachelle and I are housesitting in Belmont, for as long as it takes the house to sell… so that could be for a week or a month, preferably shorter rather than longer.

I think right now I’m a stream-of-consciousness blogger. Enjoy it while it lasts.

At Th Feet Rundown

So it’s late, and I was at church from 6.30am to get some stuff ready for At Thy Feet which took place today, then out at a friends tonight, so Kate is very very tired, but I figured I’d give a quick rundown of At Thy Feet now before I forget.

To be honest… it was small, slightly chaotic, and as the crew started to arrive just before 9.30am, I was in a stressed and grumpy mood… but it turned out okay. Nat (who is sound-guy / tech-guy extraordinaire… don’t try to steal him, he’s ours) managed to work out the technical glitches and we Skype-videoed Auckland live the whole day. I don’t want to know what the broadband bills are going to be for 6 hours of live video and audio feed, since unlimited broadband does not exist in New Zealand. Neither do cheap cellphone calls.

So, Jay spoke first from Auckland and we watched him… then we prayed… then Mike Knott gave a quick local word, then we prayed… then Aaron Walsh spoke with us in Wellington and Auckland watched via video… then we prayed/reflected… then Kristen spoke, then we had a final worship set, local missions offering, then finished.

I don’t really have anything deep to say. I did remarkably little running around… a couple of trips to buy drinks (yay for my new role as speaker hospitality for internship and prayer events), and a few bits and pieces around the place like typing in song lyrics… but it was good. I enjoyed most of today. There were probably 50-60 people that came and went over the course of the day… our lowest was 30… and while it doesn’t necessarily feel like heaven and earth were dramatically shaken or that New Zealand will see revival tomorrow, driving home tonight I was feeling pretty content. I want to be part of something that continues to grow and be organically Kiwi, but becomes for the nation… bring on At Thy Feet 2008…

live bloggin…

just realied i have internet at camp….

so this is my summer camp greeting. I’m burnt, but Tiffany is in the middle of notices which means that the meeting is about to start and I’m probably being kind of rude…

Aaron Walsh spoke yesterday, we did a message last night on Sermon on the Mount in 59 minutes, and I was SO disappointed I didn’t have my laptop so that I could take fast notes…

Maybe I will this morning… except Kristen is speaking this morning.

Tiffany’s telling us that we’re doing secret santa at our last disrupt of the year next year…

It was SUNNY and i got SUNBURNT yesterday. Miracle considering what the forecast was… and its all rainy today… but I got to go on the boat. So good, so very very good.