Beautiful North

Awesome time with my parents who came up to Hawkes Bay to visit. We chugged on in their snail (camperute) through Waikaremoana, to Auckland to visit my brother, and around the Coromandel. Really beautiful places up here!

  
We live in one awesome country!

Hello Holidays

Ki ora!

Last night I typed in the final few words, checked over it a few times, and then emailed off with a single calm click my final assignment for the semester. Which means....... this morning I'm on holiday! I can take my time to slowly sip my coffee, and look outside at the rustling trees and clouds racing over the sky, and reflect. I think in our busy schedules today, we don't take enough time to simply reflect. For me that is definately true anyway. I find that when I do reflect, it always leads back to recognition of the way God's been at work in my life and has been answering prayer... so reflection seems to always lead to giving God thanks. I'm sure many of you can relate.

So what are my honest thoughts on my new home here in the Hawkes Bay? (though the deep south will always be Home of course!) I think the word that comes first to mind is 'rightness'. I feel a deep and settled peace and rightness about where I am right now, what I'm doing, and where I'm headed. I know that this is surely a peace from God that I'm following the path He's already laid out. It has been hard to move from Flagstaff to here, in that I was so involved in the communities and people in Halfway Bush and Wakari day by day, and suddenly they've all disappeared. But you do adapt quickly to new places. And I feel very settled here already. My plan is to remain studying part time here (alongside some work) for the next 5 years. I really like the people at the church at Riverbend. There are a strong bunch of young people at the church who love God, which isn't verycommon - and it's been great to get to know them. And being such a small college, all the students and staff get to know each other well. I've enjoyed these aspects a lot. I feel right at home in the church here at Riverbend, with great preaching, diversity of music, lots of families, and friendly, down-to-earth people (just like my church at Flagstaff). I think I'm very blessed to be part of this church. And it's been awesome to be able to do practical ministry as part of my studies (so not just all academic, but putting what I'm learning into practice in a church setting). That is quite unique among Bible colleges, but I think is a really good and important thing. This year of course, my internship is focussed on song-writing. Next year, I want to do something I haven't been involved with before. I want to expose myself and have experience in all different areas of ministry that I may end up encountering in the future! I'm here to be equipped after all.

The Hawkes Bay is also a beautiful part of Aotearoa. The people and the land. There is such diversity with the people who live here, drawn together from many different cultures to this location. And the surroundings are equally as diverse and wonderful, as my parents and I will be exploring over the next few days. They arrive tomorrow from the deep south, which I'm very excited about! Following some days here in the Bay, we'll do a bit of a road trip (in their campervan) northwards to catch up with family in the big smoke of Auckland. And spend some time on the Coromandel, which I've really yet to properly explore. The harder you work, the more you appeciate the holidays...........bring them on. Sweet as!

A New Home

What a crazy few months it's been: saying loads of goodbyes, building gardens, playing good old kiwi cricket, lifting super heavy rocks, writing new tunes, seventies parties..............

Well, I've made it. Over 2000km travelling up to Auckland and back down - i've arrived in the completely beautiful Hawkes Bay. The sun sizzling down on my skin, the crickets in unison chirping their chorus, the warm wind ruffling around the tree tops. The dry and barren hills set against the deep blue ocean glittering eastward, and alongside sits a fertile basin of green, row after row of grapes and orchard trees bursting over with fruit. A mix of Asian vegetable growers, to very organic gardeners, gangs of African and Polynesian fruitpickers, Maori's and their culture scattered through every town and suburb (including a Marae just around the corner I encountered on my morning run today), not to mentions an interesting mix of Americans (I'm staying with one), Europeans. A multicultural bay. The Hawkes Bay. Home.

I arrived Saturday after a week in Auckland (which followed an awesome day at parachute on the Sunday) helping build a deck at my aunty's place in the humid heat. Went to my new church for the first time on Sunday and made to feel very welcome! Ian and Jacqui happened to be staying nearby so came along for the service too. Then we spend an afternoon taking in the smells of the Hastings farmer's market, out on the beach just over the hills with hundreds of other locals (must be the 'spot' to go), tracking a small river up to a waterfall with kids jumping off every place possible, and up Te Mata peak, the highest point of a majestic range of jagged, barren hills that sits obtrusively like a narrow block of cheese upon the valley floor, right alongside my town for the next few years - Havelock North. In fact the suburb I reside is nestled right up against the slope of the rising block of cheese.

Out job hunting this week. Prayer's would be appreciated. There's not a lot here because so many people are looking. I start my studies early March so have a bit of time to find some much-needed work to go alongside my year of theology at the college. Sat down with the dean today and sorted my papers and timetable for the year... all set to go with that! back to studies again will be strange. It's been four years since I last studied! Oh well, heads down

And i couldn't not put this sunset we had from the Crown Range this summer: