Crochet queen and Rachael & Emma

Lizzy is a crochet queen. She really is. Thanks to the encouragement of Lynn Irving, Lizzy's been learning to crochet all year after I gave her a book titled 'Stich & Bitch - The Happy Hooker'. Charming title, with great pictures and patterns. One of those patterns is a baby blanket, as below:


The book pattern is the stripy one, and Lizzy designed the square one. Both made of acrylic rather than wool to make washing easier, and both with a seatbelt hole. Rather good eh? She's now moving onto other items (but obviously I can't say what, top secret at the moment!).

It was nice that they were finished on time, ready for the arrival of Rachael & Emma Sturgeon. Their parents, Mike & Helen, had suffered the pain of miscarriages and their son William last year being still born, so to actually see Rachael & Emma breathing was very exciting. Mike and Helen are obviously very, very excited; thankful to God for new life; and daunted about raising twins! We look forward to seeing Rachael & Emma outgrowing their crocheted blankets!

LUSA and the sovereignty of God

God's sovereignty is great. The timing with the way he works things out does make me smile. For example, a couple of days ago I happened to ring Jo at LUSA (Lincoln University Students Association) to enquire about their programme for O-week at the beginning of the 2008 academic year come February. She said it wasn't finalised, but why not come to her office to see the draft?

So I did.

And in that afternoon meeting she mentioned that the LUSA executive had been talking about Jesus Awareness Week. Now in that moment I was concerned - i feared that they didn't like the chalking, the talks, the posters, the questionnaires during Jesus Week in July, and thought they'd not want to have a Jesus Week in 2008. But I was wrong. She said that we had a choice of two weeks for 2008, so as not to clash with Maori Language Week. Fine said I, and chose week of 14th July.

More 'smiling-at-God's-sovereignity-ly' our conversation was just two hours before the 2008 student diary was being sent to the printers, so our conversation about Jesus Week 2008 meant that it could go in the diary for 14.7.08. This diary is something that every student at Lincoln University receives when they enroll. Cool eh?

So not only was there no grounds to my concerns that LUSA didn't like Jesus Week 2007, but Jesus Week 2008 is listed in the diary for every single student!

Just have to sit down with the Christian Fellowship and work out how best to use that time now.....

Movember

We're now into early December and I need to give an update on Movember. Movember (the month formerly known as November) is an excellent idea from the Prostate Cancer Research people. Clean shaven on Nov 1, and grow a mo through the month, raising funds for research and raising awareness. I've been telling everyone that more people in NZ die from prostate cancer than breast cancer.

Anyway, here's my effort, in NZ cricketer mode and more common smiley Mothy mode:



Comments welcome. I reckon it's not bad for me first ever mo. I'm really quite pleased at how ugly it looked. Liz thought it was delightful, of course, in the same vein as a Tui ad I saw recently - 'My missues reckons my Movember mo is a great thing.....yeah right'.
All good fun, but I'm pleased it's now December and it's gone until next Movember - suggestions for next year's style on a postcard please!

Cows and politics

Me old mate Steve has some interesting observations on cows and political systems here; good to see it come up again. Raised a smile in the midst of a break from full-on hard Greek study.

RWC 2007

So what to say about the World Cup? I reflect with amazement that England is through to the final. This is the same England that many pundits predicated would be the worst defending champions ever. Yet here they are, through to the final next week against either The Springboks or The Pumas, thus becoming (no matter whether they win or lose the final), the best performing defending champions ever.

And as for the All Blacks they were expected to easily win the cup, like 91, 95, 99 and 03, but this time they were really going to win, having only lost once this year and humiliated the British & Irish Lions last year. But despite this strength and depth they got bundled out in the quarter-final by the French - the earliest exit for NZ in any world cup ever.

As well as great joy in seeing England through to successive finals, and even greater joy in beating Aussie and France (I personally wouldn't even mind losing to Tonga, as long as it's not Aussie or France) , we're also caught up in this nation's mourning. I support two teams now - NZ and England (and am mighty pleased it didn't come down to a knock-out match between the two), and it's enlightening observing a nation in grief.

NZ is obsessed with rugby - probably the only top-team rugby nation in the world to be so. I flew to Nelson on Friday. At check-in, all the baggage tags were no longer the usual AirNZ teal, but black, to show support. And as the photo below shows, I had to walk under rugby H posts to check in.


So why the failure?
NZ loves to be the underdog in sport - it has to love that, as with a small population that's often the way. Yet when it comes to the weight of expectation with the rugby, the label 'chokers' seems to fit well. David Kirk, in the weekend paper, puts the bleak, unpalatable situation well here: What we can learn from another failure
And Paul Windsor, from Carey Bible College is, as usual, well on the point here: Great to good: NZ rugby

There's a lot of soul-searching in NZ over the national religion of rugby. For many, rugby is God, which is why without the true God there is so much pain. As one who follows Jesus and enjoys rugby too, I'm looking forward to the final next weekend. If England's amazing, surreal, surprising and fantastical run to the final ends with Vickery lifting the trophy, I'll be extremely happy. It's just I'll have to remember to be muted in my celebrations in deference to the nation that has adopted us.

Encouragements

It's hard this blogging lark - everything blogged is so public. So to blog about work isn't always appropriate. If you receive our quarterly Canterbury Tales you'll have more of an idea (if you don't get this you should! - send me an email to sign up) of the joys and trials of TSCF work. I do wonder if I err towards the pessimistic side because I've been very surprised over the last couple of weeks.


Two things that have been great:

1. My new support leaflet.
My TSCF field colleagues and I are all redoing our support leaflets (with lots of help from wonderful TSCF office colleagues!) Few of us are 100% funded, and now undergrad lectures are coming to an end (next week is the last week unbelievably) it frees time for support raising. We'd love more people to be part of the team financing this work, so again, send me an email if you're interested. Anyway, as part of this new 'introducing Tim Hodge as a TSCF staffworker' leaflet some people have written short references. I wonder if they've got the right person as their reports are so glowing! See if you agree with them:

Tim has a heart for mission, and a real ability to work with tertiary students in that arena. He is a gifted communicator, and is grounded well in the Word. Tim is a strategic thinker, able to plan ahead and also implement in the present. He gathers good people around him in ministry, and is definitively a team player. He has gained the respect and friendship of all who work with him. I believe supporting him in prayer and finance in this most valuable work he spearheads is an investment well worth making.

Mothy is enthusiastic about his job and takes a general interest into how our studies and walk with the Lord is going. He helps us to ask questions to develop our knowledge of the Bible and too bring us closer to Jesus. Every week he helps us to broaden our sights on ways to make Jesus known on our Lincoln campus. He keeps us on track when we go on a tangent, and makes sure we ensure all we do as a wider LUCF relates back to fulfilling the LUCF goals.

God has a way of bringing the right people into the right job and nowhere is this more true than with Tim and Lizzy at Lincoln. Tim has an obvious and infectious love of the Word of God and is really gifted at helping students relate the Bible to life. Tim and Lizzy are committed to the Lincoln community but also have a commitment to help students in the wider Canterbury region to reach other students for Christ, whatever university they attend. Tim and Lizzy clearly love God and love students and I invite you to support them as they help more students grow in their love of God and his word.

I'm waiting on a couple more, but these three have encouraged me no end!

2. Second thing happened 10 mins ago - a graduating student from mid year has just swung by on his way north from a farm down south and brought Lizzy and I two carrier bags full of sausages and chops. 'Just 'cos you're you Mothy'. Really nice of him. Means more to me than he probably realises. A great way to start the weekend! Here it is all wrapped up into TimnLizzy size portions. Yum.

Huge thanks for the encouragements of so many that contribute, from all over the world, to TSCF in NZ!

The Barnabas Fund

This article - from the Times - shows why we're keen supporters of the Barnabas Fund. Great work for the persecuted church worldwide, be that the Middle East, Africa or the UK.
We commend them to you. More info here - www.barnabasfund.org

Moana

We've just spent a lovely relaxing and fun weekend in Moana, which is a very small town on the shores of Lake Brunner, on the West Coast. We stayed in a couple of baches with views over the lake.



We went with some friends from church, just cos! (5 couples and a baby). It was great to get to know people a bit more, and we're liking how there's gradually getting to be more people our age (ish, we're still the old farts really) at Lincoln Baptist (and living in Lincoln). For a while we felt like we were the only people between the teenagers and the parents of the teenagers who went to our church, which was fine, but it's fun to be able to have some peers around too!

On Saturday seven of us borrowed some Kayaks from the baches and headed out across the Lake. I got to go in a double with the other Lizzy cos I threatened that I'd hold them all up by going in needless circles otherwise (based on previous experiences in the Lake District many years ago).

(Er... Lizzy writing by the way - I should have said that earlier, Mothy doesn't have weak left paddling arm issues).

It was quite magical gliding through the peaceful water together, and taking in the majestic scenery, (no photos though, as the camera wasn't handy, sorry). And, even better, after a couple of hours, just as shoulders were getting very sore we met the other 4 of our party on a handy beach which they'd driven to with the picnic.


This is (L- R) young Lizzy, Mothy, Kerri, Dennis, Derek, Vicki, Shayna (on the shoulders), Dave, and Rachel. (Stuart's missing for some reason)

But he's made it into this one.

On the way back to Lincoln we stopped off at Castle Hill, to have a walk around the strange limestone rocks, you can almost see in the background above. It was an area that was used to film the recent Narnia film.

And here's some more Middle Earth views from the drive home today.

Fatal car crash in Lincoln

This article - http://stuff.co.nz/4197246a11.html - tells of the pain of car accident deaths. On Saturday night a car with four 15 year old Lincoln High School students crashed on the open road just near the university dairy farm. The driver had her NZ restricted licence and, according to the article, was good at never carrying passengers, as per the restrictions on her licence. Yet on this one occasion this wasn't the case. Two girls died that night and one the next morning. One walked away.
The school and Lincoln township are in a state of shock. After several years of falling death rates on the roads 2007 has, so far, been awful. There are renewed calls in parliament to raise the driving age from 15 to 16 in an effort to reduce the poor road safety record in NZ.
Our friends Luke Bridge and Junita Douglass work as 24/7 Christian youth workers in the school and knew these girls. Liz's colleague Lyn knew them too, through her teenage daughter. Lincoln is a small community, despite having one of the biggest schools in the South Island.

What's a Christian response to this? We continue to pray for Luke and Junita as they grapple with the issues; and take the Christian message to the 15 year olds in Lincoln High, many of whom will never have had to face death before.

Some might say Revelation 4:10 - He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away - is a bit trite here, but I think not. This is true hope for those that know and love Jesus. None of us know when we will die, but for the Christian, the joy of knowing the old order of things will pass away is comfort.
It is a hard, hard time for these girl's families.

Spring time in Lincoln

1st September is the official start of Spring, and we've been loving some Spring time weather. As have the plants in our garden.


This week at Lincoln there's been some follow up to the recent Jesus Week, aided by Pete, the Palmerston North Mintern, and 3 Palmy students. This is Hannah and Pete.


They've been enjoying the sun too, helping at Sifters, doing some follow-up Jesus questions, and generally hanging out with Lincoln CF. (From L to R below: Jono from Lincoln, Aaron from Palmy, Pete from Lincoln, Courtney from Palmy).


Today after church we had a student lunch at our place. Our wonderful home group provided a huge student size pot of soup, and dozens of delicious home-made choc-chip cookies. There was some disbelief voiced, however, that we would be able to host 20 students in our wee house. So for Robyn - this is how it's done! Easy!


And the best bit - there's so many people able to do dishes afterwards!

Ecuadorian visitors x 3

We've had Mothy's colleagues from CECE (TSCF in Ecuador) staying with us in Lincoln for a few days. Ruth is a kiwi who is married to Josue, and their gorgeous daughter is Ana-Gracia. This is the group together on a picnic in Hanmer yesterday.


We had a really nice relaxing weekend there, reading, walking, and of course soaking in the thermal pools. Hopefully Ruth and Josue relaxed too, as their visit to Chch seems to have been pretty busy to say the least! They're out this evening cooking an Ecuadorian dinner, which was a prize in an auction, raising $1000 for IFES. AND they're doing 2 more in other towns in NZ! The very scary part is that we've got Ana-Gracia asleep in our spare room though! I've been terrified all evening that she's going to wake up. I spent the whole of the evening telling the Bible study we had here to ssshhhh.

It's been really great spending time with Ruth and Josue, they're very wise, patient people, and I think they make us both feel quite humbled, when I think about how we bemoan the state of the Church in NZ, and the lack of commitment to the gospel among students. Sounds like life in Ecuador, and faith in Jesus is much more challenging, but they're faithfully persevering - and making a difference to people's lives.

Ahhhh - cute! Ana-Gracia's quite sweet too.

LUCF Jesus Awareness Week

Thanks to so many who've prayed and asked for updates after Lincoln's first ever Jesus Awareness Week.


It surpassed my expectations - many in LUCF got stuck in and enthusiastic, especially for Txt4Toasties.

Here's a short summary I've written for the TSCF quarterly, Canvas:

Gordon from China. Majid & Marianne from Iran. Keith from NZ.

Just a few of the Lincoln students engaging with Jesus Awareness Week at Lincoln.

Gordon came up after seeing the huge who is Jesus? chalking and said ‘I in NZ only four months. Please, who is Jesus?’.

Majid and Marianne listened to some of the lunchtime talks and wanted to say how much they admired Jesus, but he was only a prophet of Islam, will return one day, but never died and why do you Christians worship three Gods?

Keith just wasn’t interested, was apathetic: ‘Who is Jesus? Who cares.’

The whole week was a new venture for LUCF, so it was great to see a student and a university staff track, and to experience the enthusiasm of LUCF, some Christian staff, and our visitors to help us from the UK, China and even Auckland and Otago. Lunchtime talks about Jesus the way, Jesus the life, and Jesus the truth; chalking who is Jesus? around campus; early morning prayer meetings; Jesus quizzes; a staff & student combined praise event and the highlight - txt 4 toasties, where halls students could ask any question about Jesus and receive a free toastie and a start of an answer. Some things worked real well others less so - but that’s inspired some in LUCF for next time!

Good times, great to have visitors from UK, China, Otago and Auckland helping out; great to have a staff track; great to have the support of the Student's Association; great to have fantastic weather (sunny and warm, in direct contrast to the weeks either side!) to enable better first-contact Jesus quizzes; great to see a couple of people become Christians.

All good, but oh so tiring! Great to have Lizzy and homegroup leaders and others forcing me to rest. So that's good too. I'm looking forward to my first week of leave this year in late August, which will be a chance to properly refresh ready for the next season of the year.

The UN in Lincoln

Lizzy and I really enjoy being in such a diverse town. Liz works with people from Aussie, Sri Lanka, NZ, USA, UK, Argentina, Russia, Israel, Mexico, Holland, China, Germany....... and add that to the 66 different nationalities studying at the university and it's a veritable mini-UN.
Last night at church homegroup there were 16 of us (which in itself is great as last year it was often just 5 of us), with 8 different nationalities - people from Singapore, Malaysia, NZ, China, UK, Germany, Papua New Guinea and USA. Great stuff. It's just a wee bit like Rev 9:7 - 'After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb.' Yep, that's great.

Minty2

A few posts back I said I'd continue to tale of my couple of weeks up in Nelson/Marlborough. So this is as promised.

In Nelson I met a couple of guys in the fledgling CF in the polytech there, and the wonderful Milo, the local Scripture Union worker.
The long holiday weekend saw Liz join me over the hill in Golden Bay, which was great. On the Monday Lizzy returned home and I travelled to Malborough, for on the Tuesday Minty2 began.


Minty is the 'discipleship training scheme that's refreshingly different', with Ps 92:14-15 as the aim. Minty2 is the second of three training weeks through the year for Minterns around the county. Minty2 was held at a beautiful bach on Queen Charlotte Sound. My colleague Andy has beaten me to it in terms of reflections on the week, and has posted here: http://kiwichronicles.blogspot.com/2007/06/friendship-is-forge-of-future.html
I agree with Andy, so do have a look there (although I didn't have the joy of arriving by small plane, much though I would have loved that. But I loved the drive too - bizarrely, I picked up the same hitchhiker twice, in different places, on different days!)

Then, after Minty2 I returned to Nelson to take one of the teaching sessions of Nelson Scripture Union's high school leaders training conference - Fuel'07. Was great to be there, teaching from Hebrews about encouraging one another, and to give the high school students a vision of what a uni CF could be like. I look forward to working with Milo in Nelson more closely. There was a bug at camp and a few leaders were crook, including Milo. But being a Canadian he, unlike me, wasn't grumpy about it!

It was a long drive home over the mountains, but beautiful. Great to get home, but great to have been in Nelson and Marlborough.

LUCF now in Fiji

This is Commodore Vorque Banimarama - the Fiji coup leader who's expelled the NZ High Commissioner.

The LUCF 14 who've headed to Fiji on short-term fortnight mission trip over their winter break are now in Fiji. Their cancelled Air Pacific flight and the expulsion of a NZ journalist and the NZ High Commissioner not withstanding, they seem relieved to be there and ready to go, as the following update from Tom (TSCF Lincoln Mintern - graduate trainee) shows:

Its great to finally be here with the rest of the team (14 of us from Lincoln Uni Christian Fellowship). Praise God that we're all here safely after flight cancellations and high comissioner expulsions and a pretty hairy bus trip (the trip from the airport to the camp usually takes 3 1/4 hours and our bus driver did it in 2 hours 10 - so that was an exciting start to the trip, but we were all so joyful we were too busy singing to be worried)!. We've arrived in Suva today after 2 nights at the Coral Coast Christian Camp. So far we have had some great times together at the camp, both as a team and meeting some of the 150 young people (from primary school to uni age) who were there on a camp over the long Queen's Birthday weekend. We attended one of their services on sunday morning which was amazing (especially the singing!) and the invited us to a lovo feast on sunday night (like a hangi) in our honour which was awesome. We ended up singing them a couple of songs which the loved (especially when we sang 'This is the day the Lord had made' in Fijian!!).

It is a lot hotter than Lincoln and pretty humid - but its not too bad and we're getting used to it. The food has been great too (although a few of the team didn't think much of taro at the lovo!) - especially the fruit. Cam shot up a coconut palm for us yesterday and we got our fill of fresh coconut which was good fun.

Its nice to finally be here in Suva where we are based until next week. Tomorrow we head into the slums and the rest of the week will be spent doing different things including visiting a local kindy, schools, the suva prisons and the womens' refuge. At these places we will be presenting a 'service' of songs, testimonies, skits, puppet shows and speaking from the Bible. We also have a building project at the Womens Refuge - helping build some flat-units there. Then next week we head up-country to the village which will be totally different again.

The team is doing really well and have enjoyed the first couple of days here together in this beautiful place with the lovely Fijian people.

So far we haven't felt unsafe but we'll get a better idea now that we're in suva this week of what implications the NZ-Fijian tensions may have for us.

I'm really looking forward to the 2 weeks ahead and us all being pushed out of the comfort zone to share our faith. So far the spirit within the team has been great and I they are keen to get stuck in - if a little nervous (me included). So please pray for good health and safety and that we'll keep coming together as a team. Please also pray for us as we prepare to share the Gospel with the people here, that we can be clear in communicating to them about Jesus and that we can make it appropriate to this culture and context. I think rugby stories may get a thrashing - they are rugby mad, especially the ABs and the Crusaders!

My love to you all and God Bless

Tom

Thanks to those that have asked about the team and praying for the team. Fiji's not a great place to be for the 12 Kiwis on the team at the moment, and only slightly better for the other two (Japanese and Zimbabwean). I continue to pray that they will be bold and enthusiastic in proclaiming Jesus and that this overseas experience will continue to motivate them to be bold and enthusiastic in proclaiming Jesus in Lincoln.

LUCF to Fiji update

They're off to Fiji - original flight on Sunday has been cancelled by Air Pacific so the missions agency have them rebooked on an Auckland flight Saturday.
They're all excited about going, have been praying passionately, and good to go. They're aware of the political tensions but the missions agency has cleared their departure given the level of caution advised by the government.

I pray that they will experience lots of God's grace, and the hospitality of His people, over the next two weeks and return to Lincoln excited about mission on campus.

God bless them for their dedication, and God bless the Fijian church for hosting them.

NZ High Commissioner to Fiji expelled

Following tensions between Fiji and NZ since Fiji's coup last December, yesterday, Michael Green, the NZ High Commissioner to Fiji, was expelled. Today, a NZ journalist in Fiji has been deported.

I don't know the ins and outs of high level politics, but I know that's not good. I know it's very serious. I know that later today I have to explain this to 14 Lincoln CF students who are scheduled to travel to Fiji for a short-term missions trip tomorrow.

I'm concerned that they may not realise the gravity of the situation, and that they're used to a Kiwi passport being looked upon favourably around the world. But, it seems, the worst nationality to be right now in Fiji is Kiwi. As they'll be spending time in the capital Suva, it may be worth considering post-poning the trip. The NZ government has upgraded the risk on www.safetravel.govt.nz overnight and is considering doing so again today. I fear that the 14 will be too excited about the 'experience' of going and not concerned enough for their own safety and God's glory. This is a short-term missions trip and the most benefit is to the 14 going, not to the Fijians who will host them. I pray I'm wrong in my initial assessment of the 14 - I'll find out later today when I meet them all for lunch during their last preparations. The missions agency say that safety is paramount but that the trip is still on. They, and I, will continue to monitor the news today.

Details on the breaking news are here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4095334a10.html
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4095504a10.html

Nelson

It's good to be home in Lincoln.
I've recently spent longer away from home than I usually do, good stuff up north in Nelson & Picton, but it's still great to be home.

Here's a potted timeline of my trip:

I spent the best part of a day driving over the Alps via Lewis Pass to get to Nelson. Part of my new TSCF remit is to support the fledgling CF group at NMIT (Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology) and liase with churches in terms of teenagers heading off to tertiary studies around the country.
It was great to meet Liam (who used to study at Lincoln several years ago!) and Alex (in Nelson just a few months from Korea) in the cafe and hear their stories and pray with them. CFs in polytechnics are hard work, and very different from their uni counterparts, as I learnt in Christchurch polytech when I was a volunteer with TSCF in the late 90s. So it was great to meet Alex and Liam and also Milo, who's the local Scripture Union high schools worker, who supports the NMIT CF. Milo and I are keen to work on ways to help each other in the future, and it was my privilege, a week later, to take a Bible teaching session (on Hebrews 10 'lettuces' and 1 Cor 12 'the body') at Fuel07 - the regional Scripture Union high school CF leaders weekend camp.

Here's a photo of the new NMIT student accommodation block - looks good, but orange?!


It was really good, as always, to stay with Aunt Maureen in Nelson. I rang her up beforehand to see if i could invite myself to stay with her, and she said 'that's fine Tim, but you ought to know I had a wee heart attack a couple of weeks ago'. Wow - just casually drop that in then! But she's being sensible and seems fine again. Lovely to see her, and the DeHamel cousin clan down the road from her.

The first weekend in June is a long one, thanks to Queen's Birthday, so Liz and I decided to holiday in Golden Bay - over the hill from Nelson. She could have taken the bus which would take two of the three days, so she took the train. Or, as they're called here in NZ, the plane. It's been odd getting to used to planes as train equivalents - but it's great. Cheap, plentiful and quick. So here's Liz (in the brown jacket) arriving into Nelson, turning my 6-7 hour drive into a 1 hour flight. As the crow flies it's 155miles.

We had a great holiday weekend - just the tonic. Had lots of rain one day and lots of sun another which is not bad for winter. I'm sure this is a great view when it's not raining...
And just in case you think i only post picture of Liz, here's one of me:


Wharariki Beach is a beautiful, isolated, stunning, windswept place. Right at the end of Golden Bay, near Farewell Spit, we went there on Aunt Maureen's recommendation. It was great to walk along the beach, and even nicer when we came across some frolicking seals; fun acrobatics and great to see their acrobatic skills outside of the artificial environments of Sea World and the like:


Much rain on the Sunday. We joined Takaka Church of Christ which was a welcoming community, despite the really cold church hall. Interesting sermon on the 'ites' of the Bible - Hivites, Jebusites and Favour-ites.

Then, much to Liz's joy, we stumbled across the Golden Bay annual country music awards.
It was held in the village hall in Pohara - only in NZ would a village hall be built, in the 1970s, just across the road from the beach, with no windows facing the sea!!

Liz would want me to say just how popular the event was - and it was. We only just got a seat. Must have been about 350 people there. But eventually, the desire to be outside in the winter rain was just too much so we left.

It was a great weekend. On the Monday Liz returned to Lincoln and I headed east to the Marlborough Sounds for Minty2 - and that will have to wait for the next blog.
This post has turned into a bit of a travel blog, but that's okay, 'cos it was fun for us to travel and see parts of NZ we'd never been to before. Hope you've enjoyed seeing some photos.

June 1st - Canterbury Tales (non-blog)

Today's June 1st - first day of winter. But I type from a pavement in Nelson, which seems very un-winter like and distinctly autumnal still.

I've sent out the non-blog version of Canterbury Tales today - news for prayer about TSCF. If you'd like a copy and I've not sent you one, then leave me a comment and I'll get you a copy forthwith!

Shaun and his boars

It's Friday afternoon which means Liz's colleague Shaun will be dreaming of heading off bush tonight for some hunting.
Liz and I aren't hunters, but it's amazing just how many people are. NZ is a great place for hunting as there's so many introduced species that shouldn't be here. Ecologically speaking, hunting deer, boar, pigs, ferrets, rabbits, possums, thar, chamois is a really good thing, assisting native bush and native birds survive.
And Shaun loves hunting boar. He's good too - here's a recent kill. And his colleagues at AgResearch get to enjoy his labour - every so often they have a spit roast. Having experienced the taste of wild boar and wild venison, I can tell you that it's great. Sadly, I'm not around for the next AgResearch spit roast. But I know that Liz will enjoy it.

Jesse and Mike in Dunedin Hospital

My previous post told the story of Austin, Mike & Jesse - 3 American exchange student studying at Lincoln this semester, and their horrific accident on Mt Aspiring ten days ago. They fell 400m into an ice crevasse; Austin died, Jesse left Mike in a sleeping bag , climbed out of the crevasse and tramped through the night to the nearest hut to raise the alarm. Once the alarm was raised it was only 2-3 hours before the helicopters picked them up and took them to Dunedin Hospital.

Last weekend Lizzy and I travelled the five hours south to Dunedin to visit Jesse and Mike. We went on behalf of both Lincoln Uni Christian Fellowship (where Jesse is a strong member), and Lincoln Baptist Church (who Jesse often meets with of a Sunday). We didn't get to speak with Mike as he was very drugged up and mostly sleeping; his body attempting to recover from the extent of his injuries. Essentially, the left side of his body is mangled, including his left leg amputated below the knee. He's now out of intensive care and in the same ward as Jesse.
Jesse was flat on his back as he has a broken vertebrae in his back, a damaged knee and a broken collar bone. However, it was great to see him, chat with him, deliver his favourite TimTams and pray with him.

It's a miracle they survived, a miracle Jesse tramped through the night, a miracle Jesse's not having nightmares - all things Jesse attributes to God. Although that then throws up big questions about why God would save Jesse and Mike and not Austin... Please pray for them both as they'll be thinking about that.
Do pray too for Glenda, Lincoln Uni chaplain, as she takes a small part in Austin's memorial event on Monday. Austin's best mate Pete has insisted that 'God, Jesus and that' play no part in the remembrance, and has asked the Vice-Chancellor, not Glenda, to take the lead. The VC has asked Glenda to pray, and she needs wisdom in that awkward situation.


We also had time to have a wee look around Dunedin. It was a stunning weekend, with a beautiful drive down and real sunny in Dunedin! Surely Dunedin's reputation about bad weather is unfounded? Indeed Liz even began to waver in our pact. (That I'll never make Lizzy live in Dunedin IF she never makes me live in London).

But the sunshine made all the difference and she'd sing a different tune if she encountered a true southerly and all-day ice and, above all, the miserable old ice-box houses. (Too many tales told for that not to be true.... ) But we got to stay in the cosy and hospitable home of the Barlows - big thanks to them for giving us a place to stay (great bed Tessa!).



Thanks to all around the world who've been praying for Jesse and Mike. Their bodies are healing in a remarkable way; please continue to pray for their minds as they relive last Monday - especially when they return to the USA and find themselves at either end of that country.

LUST

LUST That's the four letters emblazoned on green t-shirts I see as I walk round campus. It stands for Lincoln University Sports Team, and tends to be worn for the team that represented Lincoln at the uni games. Lincoln did quite well, coming first in the small campus category, and beat several large unis too, so good on them. Good on those in Lincoln Uni CF who took part and won medals and played their sports for God's glory.

Just a shame LUST is their chosen title. Such is university humour.

Three students in accident on Mt Aspiring

It was all over the national news yesterday: three American exchange students had been in a bad accident on Mt Aspiring. Liz and I thought it was bad news, but within a couple of hours we learnt that the headline had become much more meaningful for the three were Lincoln students. Not only that, but one of them, Jesse, we know quite well as he is part of the TSCF group here - Lincoln University Christian Fellowship.

It seems that the three were descending Bonar Glacier on Mt Aspiring near Wanaka when they slipped, and, as roped, all fell. And they fell a long way - 400m onto an ice shelf. Austin died on impact, Mike broke main bones and Jesse broke a few bones. It was a miracle Mike and Jesse didn't die too. Even more amazing is that Jesse walked through the night to raise the alarm. His actions saved the life of Mike.

The original press reporting on the accident is here: http://stuff.co.nz/4052834a10.html
And a later story with a photo of Jesse and several comments about him being a Christian is here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4054063a11.html
TV3 news with footage and comment is here:
http://www.tv3.co.nz/News/NewsDisplay/tabid/209/articleID/26720/Default.aspx
Campbell Live interviewing Mallory and Megan about the three climbers. Mallory is also part of LUCF - http://www.tv3.co.nz/Programmes/NewsandCurrentAffairs/CampbellLive/StoryArchive/tabid/239/articleID/26730/Default.aspx

Yesterday at LUCF large group meeting at lunchtime we prayed for Austin's family, for Mike and for Jesse. Many students are in shock. All three lived on campus and so were well known in the university community.

Where is God in this? Do we marvel at the miracle of life for Jesse and Mike, or rant at God for taking Austin? As far as we know, Austin wasn't a Christian, nor is Mike.
One helpful thought expressed in LUCF is that all of us, every day, live in the light of God's mercy - it's only by God's mercy that we continue to live and breathe. Rather than expressing anger at God for Austin's death, we're thankful to God that he allows Mike, Jesse, you and I to live. The challenge for us in LUCF is to sensitively take opportunities this tragic accident affords to speak of God's mercy.

Please do pray for Jesse and Mike and the medical staff in Dunedin; for Jonno & Mallory from LUCF as they head south to visit Jesse and Mike; and for LUCF to speak of God's mercy when questions are naturally asked around the Lincoln Uni community.

Big thanks to many from church who have offered practical support to Jesse and Mike.

LUCF beard growing competition

This guy has a great beard, doesn't he? I'm not sure what chemicals he's using on his beard, but it seems to work on his smile too! He's one of the winners in the annual world beard growing championships.

At Lincoln Uni Christian Fellowship we can't make those sorts of standards, but each year we give it a go. This year, anyone was welcome to spend April growing beards, before their efforts were judged by the whole LUCF. The owner of the best beard gets the trophy and the honour of carving his (or her, we're not gender exclusive!) name into the plinth.

Seven took up the challenge this year, including me for the first time. The field was quickly narrowed down to three - Phil, Clint and myself. It was a close run thing, but Phil was judged the winner. See if you agree - here's Phil, Clint and me:




Tom and Jonno are two fine bearded members of LUCF (who didn't want to be clean shaven on Good Friday to join the competition), who, sadly, couldn't convince Phil, Clint or me to keep growing our beards to their lofty heights.

Here's Tom (and me):

And here's Jonno:


As can be seen - i've no hope of competing with Tom or Jonno.

The beard growing competition this year was a laugh. It's a great community thing and works well for Lincoln - various flatmates of those in CF kept asking why Christians were growing beards which led to some interesting conversations about Jesus (and sometimes conversations discussing what sort of beard Jesus would have had). So that's good. And Phil is a worthy winner and gets to keep the trophy - a razor stuck on a bit of wood - for a whole year.

Should I enter next year, despite me not liking the itchiness? Answers welcome....

Subscribe to The Canterbury Tales via email

For those that have asked about receiving new Canterbury Tales blog posts via email - now you can! Just use the box in the right hand side panel that I've added this evening.
Thanks that you're interested enough to want to receive our musings straight to your inbox!

Mothy's got sore arms from cycling

It was beautiful weather today, so instead of painting we went for a bike ride on the Motukarara to Little River Rail Trail.


It was lots of fun, with beautiful scenery, and we stopped an had a picnic on the beach at Birdlings Flat.


We cycled about 24kms! That's LOTS for me, and now my thighs ache. But Mothy's arms ache apparently. He's a strange lad in some respects.


The highlight of the day though, was coming across a crazy old grumpy guy who'd spent the morning duck shooting (first day of the season today), but then couldn't get back on his motorbike (not allowed on the rail trail, but he's been riding it since 1952, so I guess it's OK) with all his dead ducks and guns and paraphernalia. He'd got very hot and bothered with all the effort as he seemed to be wearing a balaclava, hard hat, safety goggles, gummies, very thick waders and at least a couple of jerseys in the 20 degree heat. After he'd got Mothy to try and help him push the bike up the bank back on to the trail for about 5 minutes, he remembered that he'd chained the back wheel to a handy tree. So after undoing the chain Mothy then received instructions on how to grab the guys leg and yank it up across the bike so he could get back on the seat. But it (the leg) kept getting stuck on the pile of dead ducks bungeed to the back of the bike. There was much pain and swearing and contradictory instructions issued, and eventually he got on, and pootled off along the rail trail again, back to his house.


We passed by about 20 minutes later and were hailed for a history lesson on the region, as a thank you for our trouble. It's not like it used to be. Mainly due to the Poms coming in and taking over.