Happy things

Hi
Lizzy here.
Just a quick blog to tell you about some things that have brought a smile lately.

Number 1:
Here's a box of home-made goodies we found on our doorstep not so long ago, (the fudge was AMAZING) from Jess and Teresa, two members of the outgoing Lincoln University Christian Fellowship Leadership Team. The note says it's to thank us heaps for our support over the past three years - especially while they were leaders.

We were stoked!

Number 2:
Sarah having joined us in Lincoln! She has fitted in so well, so quickly, and it's wonderful to have her here with us.
Here's the TSCF Lincoln staff team on a sunny winter's afternoon in the Port Hills, near Christchurch.


Number 3:
Super-dooper comfy maternity clothes from Trade Me! (New Zealand eBay)



Number 4:
This blog that I recently discovered and have wasted far too much time reading and laughing till I've cried.
(Possibly only funny if you're a grammar geek, I admit)

105 & Dubai

I'm writing this from the TSCF office in Wellington at the start of TSCF annual staff training - and am greatly looking forward to the week.

A quick update on the house: Last week we sold 105 (for the 3rd time). Significantly, this time it's to a cash buyer who is an ex-pat Kiwi living in Dubai, and his mum from Tai Tapu has been round doing all the looking and advising him.
So, we're excited, but cautious too as it's just a paper contract at the moment, and won't go unconditional for the next couple of weeks. All being okay though, we hope to move in October.
It's nice that Lincoln is so small and friendly though - Liz has dealt with the mum through work, and it turns out we'll be at the same am-dram production together next week.

Thanks to those that have prayed and asked us and encouraged us as we've been stressing.

Moving house?

Back in April we blogged about wanting to move house We sold our house to a lovely couple wanting to downsize to be nearer grandchildren. They loved our house. All was good. But, over the last few months it transpires that they've not been able to sell their house in Hororata so have pulled out of the sale of our place. This is frustrating, to say the least.

We still want to move; Catalyst means lots of boxes of books, it'd be nice to have a dedicated study/office, space for more students rather than squashing into our small living room, and also Terry on the way. We're motivated to move. And owners of the place we hope to move to continue to be very gracious and have allowed us another few weeks to sell this house. But the question remains - will our house sell again? There's not much volume in the housing market at the moment so we may have to stay put, which wouldn't be ideal but not impossible. We've been reminding ourselves that so many cope with so much less. God is good, and God does care - it's our lack of trust that has been bubbling to the forefront.

If you know anyone who wants the country air of Hororata with lots of house for the money, have a look at Campbell's Cottage

It's the place our (previous) purchasers want to sell. They're still up for selling - I had Alison in tears on the phone at the thought of not moving to our place.
Alternatively, if you know anyone who'd like to live in sunny Lincoln (and yes, the sun is shining weakly at the moment!) then here's our new TradeMe ad.


We're trying to keep an eternal perspective on all this, and failing some of the time. Please would you pray for our stress in this situation?

Terry not Terri

Lizzy & I went to the hospital for a baby ultrasound scan yesterday. We thought we'd be in and out in a couple of minutes but apparently they take hundreds of photos and dozens of measurements for first the radiographer, then the midwife to check, and that takes an hour. It was a dimly lit and warm room, so on a cold winter's afternoon we both just wanted to fall asleep! We didn't really understand what was going on, apart from not just one, but two sonographers telling us the gender of the baby.
Yes, it's Terry not Terri. They seemed very sure about that.
Psalm 127:3 reads: Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. So that's cool.
Obviously, I'm already hoping Terry's a cricketer. Opening bat preferably, but any position is fine. And my mum has kindly said England or the Black Caps is fine! Good on ya mum!

Here's Terry with his head on the left, facing upwards, and belly on the right, spine at the bottom, and right arm over his mouth (apparently):


But I do need to clear up one matter which has become a confusion for some - 'Terry' is only a code-name. Seems a lot better than 'bump' (one of our friends has 'Percy the Parasite'!?!) We don't actually like the name Terry that much, (no offence to Terry readers) and he'll have a new name come the summer. Of course, we're open to sponsorship rights for the naming of our child......

TSCF Lincoln Jesus Week

Jesus Week 2008 for Lincoln Uni has come and gone. There is much to encourage, and also much that needs to be worked on to help the students be clearer in proclaiming Jesus to their campus.

The week was arranged around the theme of 'slavery'. To raise awareness of physical slavery throughout the world today, especially in SE Asia, and to highlight that we are all slaves to sin and in need of Jesus the Saviour.

LUCF did well in the first part of that - watching the movie Amazing Grace; sausage sizzles and petitions against slavery (in conjunction with Stop The Traffik). Here is petition gathering in full swing:

It was interesting to chat with students from round the world. It quickly became apparent that the vast majority were surprised to learn slavery is still a 21st century issue (even those students from countries with the biggest problems such as Cambodia, India, Thailand) and very happy to sign the Stop The Traffik petition. In addition, Kiwis generally took a lolly and no booklet about Jesus; internationals took both. Another observation was that of the two tracts we had, international students went straight for the one with 'Jesus' in the title.

Last year, the highlight was txt 4 toasties - late night free toasties for halls students in exchange for a question about Jesus. This is something the CF does from time to time and is very good at. Sadly, there's been uni management 'discussions' about the weekly toastie town all year and no established venue yet. Join us in praying for this - this is the time of the week during an 'average' LUCF week that Jesus is most clearly corporately proclaimed.

Instead, the students put on a sit down meal with after dinner speaker. Encouragingly, half of the 70 people who gathered I didn't recognise. A local church home group did wonders with food, and the speaker, Robert, had a captivating story of working for IJM going round the world gathering evidence of child slavery as prostitutes and giving said evidence to the local authorities. He was clear his motivation for that work was rooted in the character of God.

There was a slave auction too - retiring LUCF leaders sold off publicly as 'slaves' (eg 'bake for me for a month'); raising about $2000 for Cambodian Hope

Many Lincoln degrees have practical fieldtrips and practical work placements (anything from 1 day to 35 weeks). Unfortunately, Jesus Week crossed one of these undergrad 'field trip days'. Many undergrads were off and about on fieldtrips. For those that weren't, a few of us headed to the mountains for a wonderful day skiing/boarding. I had the pleasure of meeting Arporn, new to NZ just two weeks previously, from Thailand. She had never seen snow before, nor it transpired, heard about Jesus. It was great to introduce her to both!

It was extremely helpful to have my colleague Ben Carswell with us for the week. He found it helpful to see a new campus (he'd not been to Lincoln before) and I found it helpful to have 'fresh eyes' on evaluating the impact of Jesus Week both on LUCF and the wider campus. His report will be helpful as Sarah & I work with the new LUCF leaders at their vision weekend in a few days time.
Ben even blogged about me (a world first!) - Ben's blog

Ben emphasised that the relational aspect of LUCF was amazing. Justin & Micky set up the sausage sizzle under the 'Lincoln University Christian Fellowship' banner and happily talked about CF when mates came up for a sausage. Relationships is a key strength of LUCF. Yet the jump from talking about physical slavery to spiritual slavery wasn't as forthcoming as it should be - there was not as much actual talking about Jesus as there needs to be. This is where TSCF staff will work to encourage for the future - this week, next week and throughout the year. A big thanks to those who've prayed, supplied food, and asked students & staff of the uni, and TSCF staff too, about how Jesus Week went.

14 steps

Liz works as an administrator for AgResearch, looking after about 70 scientists in her team. There must be something in the water down the road, because about 10% of her team are shortly to become a mum or a dad. Rather helpfully, some colleagues have been helping her with the below:

14 Steps Before Parenthood:

Test 1 - Preparation

Women: To prepare for pregnancy:-

1. Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.
2. Leave it there.
3. After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for children:-

1. Go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself
2. Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.


Test 2 - Knowledge

Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior.

Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.


Test 3 - Nights

To discover how the nights will feel:

1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 - 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 11pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.
10. Make breakfast.

Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.


Test 4 - Dressing Small Children

1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.

Time Allowed: 5 minutes.

Test 5 - Cars

1. Forget the BMW. Buy a practical 5-door wagon.
2. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
3. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
4. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.


Test 6 - Going For a Walk

Wait
Go out the front door
Come back in again
Go out
Come back in again
Go out again
Walk down the front path
Walk back up it
Walk down it again
Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
Retrace your steps
Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
Give up and go back into the house.

You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.


Test 7

Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.


Test 8 - Grocery Shopping

1. Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
2. Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
3. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.


Test 9 - Feeding a 1 year-old

1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.


Test 10 - TV

1. Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
2. Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.


Test 11 - Mess

Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
4. Empty every drawer/cupboard/storage box in your house onto the floor & leave it there.


Test 12 - Long Trips with Toddlers

1. Make a recording of someone shouting 'Mummy' repeatedly. Important Notes: No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy. Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.
2. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.

You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.


Test 13 - Conversations

1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.
2. Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.

You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.


Test 14 - Getting ready for work

1. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting.
2. Put on your finest work attire.
3. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it
4. Stir
5. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
6. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
7. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
8. Do not change (you have no time).
9. Go directly to work

You are now ready to have children.

Nice! I'm sure there's some truth in that. Much more truth in Psalm 127:3-5, which I've been singing a lot lately. Have a look for yourself - go on, grab a Bible or head to www.BibleGateway.com and check it out for yourself!

Terry/Terri

So when I mentioned Phocas and his Rwandan blessing on us wishing us twins I should have been clearer - twins are great, so our friends with baby twins tell us. And we'd be happy with twins. But one is good enough! Liz is pregnant and Terry/Terri (you'll have to ask us why that's the name of bump) should make a summer entrance in the early New Year. But maybe it'll be Terry and Terri.
Watch this space!