Easter holidays & 82nd birthday parties

Easter won't be as early as it was this year for over a hundred years apparently. So whilst that made it cold in the UK with snow on the beach near where Lizzy's parents live in Norfolk, it meant a final chance for summer here before autumn really begins.

It's been great to have Easter holidays with my parents and we had a full and relaxing holiday:

On Good Friday we headed to Hanmer for a dip in the hot pools. Here's Mum & Dad Hodge, with me eating lunch by the river in Hanmer.

After lunch we continued, over the Lewis Pass, towards Motueka and onto Little Kaiteriteri where we'd booked a motel. It's a long drive, and took most of the day.

On the Saturday we took the twisty drive over Takaka Hill to Golden Bay, meeting up with the wider family to celebrate Aunt Maureen's 82nd birthday party. They'd hired two simple baches on a river estuary near the mouth. A beautiful peaceful spot, shown here when the tide was out.

However as we arrived, everyone was ashen. Vicky had gone out kayaking 2 1/2 hours before and hadn't returned and now the tide was going out. Vicky's brother Mike and his partner Nicki are keen kayakers going away for days at a time, but Vicky had only been kayaking once before, for five minutes, 15 years ago! When we arrived Vicky's sister Pip was liaising with the police and they were about to get a plane up in the air to look for her. Eventually though, a speck appeared on the horizon and Richard, Vicky's brother-in-law went out in the wee boat to meet whoever it was. Thankfully, it was Vicky, and the plane search was called off. Vicky is great but she seems to have ended up being the one to whom, if anything could possibly go wrong, it will! She said 'I went past this river mouth five times and couldn't see the baches'. All's well though - the nice policeman started writing his report...

... and then it was time for some kai.
Obviously, included in lunch was Aunt Maureen's birthday cake, looking fine and tasting even better.

After lunch cricket was the order of the day with stumps constructed of drift wood. Play was, naturally, of a high standard. Aunt Maureen did some fine batting. And Roy and Jimmy were the best bowlers, which isn't surprising given they both play for their school team.

After cricket was cockle picking on the mud flats and then eating the fruits of our labours - good times.

All in all, a great day (once we knew Vicky was safe).

Sunday was Easter Day, and we joined a local church in Motueka. It was a bit of a shocker really. Some parts were good, but others were fuzzy at best and heretical at worst:

• 'We shouldn't celebrate Easter, it's just a pagan festival' - well, maybe, but we should celebrate Jesus death and resurrection, and often.
• 'There is no assurance of salvation, and we should all live in fear of going to hell' - um, what about lots of verses, including Hebrews 10:22 ...let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith..... ?
• Looking at the scroll and seals in Revelation 5, where 'no-one was worthy to open the scroll' as Revelation says, we were told 'and that includes God the Father - only Jesus was worthy to open the scroll' - um, really? God the Father not worthy? How does that work? Was that just a throw-away line?
• In order to avoid going to hell we 'should all try very hard not to take drugs, get drunk, watch too much TV or annoy our parents' - er OK, or we could try believing in Jesus?
  

Grrrrr! It left us feeling sad at the lack of discernment in that church. Fairly typical NZ church Lizzy & I reckon.

The rest of Easter Day was on the beach at Little Kaiteriteri. And what a beach! Here it is first thing on Easter Monday

And here's Lizzy & Dad in familiar pose - Liz not swimming, and Dad always swimming.

We went for a walk around the headland to see more stunning beaches, and more and more housing development (didn't take too many pictures of houses!)

Then on Monday it was time to head home. Mum & Dad were taking our car and having a bit of a tiki tour, whilst Lizzy & I flew home to Canterbury. As we didn't have that long drive home, we spent the day in Nelson. Here's Dad & Lizzy near the top of the hill that is the Centre of NZ - 705km to the north North Island coast, 705 km to the south South Island coast and nearly a 100km to headlands in east and west too. Lizzy wasn't too impressed with the numbers, but as a geographer, I love that sort of thing. (She enjoyed the walk though).

All too soon we were at the airport. Here's Nelson city soon after taking off. Looks good on a sunny day eh?
And then home. I love planes, and the smaller the better. Here's the Q300 workhorse ferrying passengers between Nelson and Christchurch.

So - we had a great few days holiday, although it did feel odd with Easter so close to the beginning of the academic year. Some of my colleagues were working at student Easter camps throughout New Zealand and even in Papua New Guinea, so I look forward to hearing their stories soon.

Toastie town no longer threatened - now thriving!

An exciting development to this post detailing the derailing of LUCF's weekly toastie town:

The LUCF leaders have done well in exploring further options and, in God's sovereignty, toastie town will resume this week in a new venue, that of the Oakland bar in Lincoln University. This little-used area is managed by the dining hall staff, not the Rec Centre or the halls management (who stopped the previous version of toastie town).


In a turn of events that has caused me a wry smile and a hearty 'thank you God', the dining hall management have said we can use the Oakland room, which is an excellent sized room, in an excellent location; and not only use the room on a weekly late night basis, but also use cupboards and a fridge there to store food and equipment, making this venue much better for LUCF than the old one! PTL might well be an overused phrase, but Praise The Lord indeed!

Thank you to those who prayed for this development. Please continue to pray, thanking God for this change, and to ask God to continue to inspire LUCF to see just how strategic this weekly toastie town can be, and to be bold in speaking for Jesus and wise in handling students in various states of inebriation.

LUCF Easter buns & LEO Enviroweek

This week has been LEO Enviroweek at Lincoln University. LEO is Lincoln Environmental Organisation. Pete is the President of LEO, and also part of LUCF (Lincoln Uni Christian Fellowship). LEO have been stopping cars heading into the car park and asking for donations for tree planting; holding a trash audit; inviting well-known environmentalists into Lincoln for lunchtime talks. Of course, at Lincoln there's a bit of a divide - the agriculture students are famed for their dismissive nature towards 'green'; whereas for the environmental management students it's their raison d'etre. You'd think it'd make for an interesting discussion time, but no - Lincoln takes apathy to a new level.
There's much scope for me to meet Pete and look at what God says in the Bible about environmentalism and stewardship of the planet. Having said that, there's also much scope for me to do the same with some of the ag students.

This morning LUCF was outside the library giving away (cold) Easter buns to highlight why the students have got a long weekend. This is turning into a tradition as this is now the third year this has happened, and it's good to see.

Here's Amy getting a bit too keen in the photo....


And here's the product themselves. Lovingly buttered by Daniel and Kongchay.


And this one shows Nathan in full flow giving out Easter buns and talking about Jesus' death. Good times.

I'll end this post by wishing all my readers a happy Easter - do think on and rejoice in Jesus death and resurrection!

Test cricket

Watching the cricket at the Basin was amazing. I loved the closeness of the action. I loved the dropped catches. I loved the tactics of Vaughan & Vettori. I loved sitting on the embankment square of the wicket. I loved the Barmy Army trumpeter and chants. I loved the Beige Brigade. I loved the company of colleagues, cousins, and a friend from uni days Lizzy & I hadn't seen in several years. I loved the invitation to all spectators to play on the outfield at the lunch break. I loved the history of the venue. I loved randomly bumping into Cathy from church. The weather was (for Wellington!) surprisingly good - sunny and no wind all day Saturday, and some sun and fierce southerlies but no rain on Sunday. The atmosphere was fantastic, with a full ground. Just superb. In fact, the only thing I didn't like was getting a numb bum from sitting on the grassy embankment for two days.

Test cricket is a joy. An ideal summer holiday would be a five day test match that's closely fought with more twists and turns than a snake slithering through the undergrowth. If you don't understand the appeal of test cricket then you're missing out; and are quite possibly from North America, as this tongue-in-cheek article makes clear!

I've just had the most wonderful late-summer weekend holiday. Lizzy and I travelled to Wellington in the balmy North Island on a Grab-A-Seat fare (click here for today's specials) over the weekend for days three and four of the second NZ vs England test at the Basin Reserve.

We went for two reasons. (My reasons, to which Lizzy gracious acquiesced)

1. No test cricket in Christchurch in 2008.
This is shocking, but not altogether surprising. NZ played no tests anywhere in the world in 2007 (don't get me started on that one). In December 2006 I went to a day of test cricket in Christchurch. I went on a Saturday, to a stadium that holds close to 36,000 people. I reckon there were about 600 of us watching NZ vs Sri Lanka. It was a fantastic match, and a real shame so few there to witness it. So I reckon NZ cricket didn't make any money on that, so scheduled tests in the North Island only for the England tour. That's annoying, but fair enough.

2. For many years now there's four places I've wanted to see test cricket.
a. The MCG in Melbourne - the world's largest cricket ground, holding 100,000. I'd love to see the Boxing Day test between Aussie & India. Unlikely, but who knows?
b. The Basin Reserve in Wellington. Easily the ground with the best atmosphere in NZ. I'm well happy to have seen two days over the weekend.
c. Anywhere in India, just to experience the immense passion in that great nation.
d. Lord's - the home of cricket. Obviously.


So - enthusing over, here's some photos:

Play in progress.

Lunch time on the outfield!

Colleagues & friends Ben & Val - on opposite sides of the supporter divide!

Cousins & friends Alexis & Ryan not too sure about the slow run rate....

Anna - our wonderful weekend host, and Lizzy-the-grinning-loon.

Friends all - James, me, Anna and Andrew. Plenty of space before the day's play began! Great to meet Andrew, on a bit of an OE from Salford in the UK with his wife and daughter. Haven't seen Andrew since Lizzy and I were students in Salford. Good times. Love his 'our kid' Mancunian accent.

Fourth day wicket, under a cloudy sky, and yet still it's in top condition. Well done to the groundsmen. In fact, spin only took one wicket of the 40 in the match.

Lizzy managed all day at the ground on the Saturday ('only 'cos it was sunny and warm' she says), and quite a lot of Sunday before the jerseys came out to keep warm, and the crochet to keep occupied. And then the lovely Jen (no photo, alas) rescued Lizzy and whisked her away for a shopping trip.

It was great to join Anna at The Street church for their evening service before flying home. Great to look at Exodus & 1 Corinthians on the theme of 'generosity'. Didn't really get the songs, but the prayers and sermon and even notices were so encouraging.

Also big thanks to Scott for picking us up in Chch, and for Jess for dropping us off on the Friday.

And a big thanks too to both my grandpas for instilling in me a love for Jesus and a love for cricket - what a wonderful combination. If you've got those two you can't go far wrong I reckon. As Ben said - WWJD can easily stand for when would Jesus declare?

Nice one.

United Nations - church homegroup

We've posted on the international nature of our local church homegroup before, but this photo demonstrates that so well.


Here's Dali (Papua New Guinea), Gillian (Zambia), May (Solomon Islands), Joan (Malaysia), Lizzy (UK), Kong Chay (Laos) and Carol (NZ).

7 women, 7 nations, 1 gospel.
All 7 are followers of Jesus and Bible-believing Christians in one homegroup. It's a joy to meet with these 7 and others week by week.

This week we had my parents from the UK visiting, and Keri's parents from the USA visiting, so in true Kiwi style we had a pot-luck dinner with Kiwiana food to introduce more international guests into our midst.

Good times. The week after we had less food (but not none!), and an open Bible looking at Leviticus and Numbers marvelling at Jesus.

We both praise God for our homegroup; Mark & Robyn who lead us; food (!); good conversations about Jesus and the Bible; and a sense of community and togetherness.

'I don't believe in sins'

This is an interesting article from NZ's www.stuff.co.nz

Seems the pope wants to replace the Bible in terms of defining what sin is! But that's not what I want to draw attention to. Rather, www.stuff.co.nz is running an online poll today asking readers which of the seven deadly sins they are most guilty of, with an eighth option of 'I don't believe in sins'. Several thousand votes in, and the results are both unsurprising and surprising.

Unsurprising - in that 'greed' is the least confessed to sin (this is the western world in 2008 after all) and 'lust' the most confessed sin.

Surprising - just how how the 'I don't believe in sin' category. I thought this would come out top, but not 25.6% of all votes top.

Obviously not a scientific survey, but nonetheless an interesting insight into Kiwi culture. Does our telling of the gospel reflect this? Do we talk about 'sin' and our hearers are thinking there is no such thing? Comments on a postcard....

Toastie town threatened

Lincoln University Christian Fellowship has been running Toastie Town for years - a late night cheese toastie making operation from 11pm-2am each Thursday night of term time. Toastie Town is loved by the halls students as they come back from student night at Lincoln pub; it's loved by the halls management as it sobers up halls students; it's loved by LUSA, the student association, as it shows that at least one of their clubs is serving the campus; and it's loved by LUCF, as a way to serve the campus, work together, have conversations about Jesus and raise some funds.


However, it's all about to stop.

Toastie town was hosted in a small room in the Rec Centre, but with a change of management over the summer this has now been denied. LUSA has gone in to bat for LUCF, which is excellent, but there has been no headway. For the last couple of weeks LUCF has held a sausage sizzle instead, but it's not as effective - last night there were less students than the week before, at a time of year when there's normally more interest. No other locations are as central or as useful as the Rec Centre, and those that might do don't have a food licence.

So it's not good at all. Toastie town was an excellent true witness weekly LUCF thing, and now it's under threat. LUCF has been praying, for as yet we don't know what the next step is. Please do join us in prayer; rejoicing that God is sovereign, yet at the same time asking God to make the way ahead clear. Toastie town really was a highlight of the LUCF witness, and though we're hugely thankful for the support of LUSA (which doesn't always happen in other unis), we're hugely frustrated with this change/cancellation that's been forced upon us.

Unique 'values'?

'...values are like fingerprints, everyone has a unique set of values....' - Chch educationalist

Did anyone else hear this statement in an interview this morning? I was amazed. I didn't quite hear all the interview and can't recall the name of the interviewee, but it wasn't presented as a radical view, which, i suppose, it isn't in the minds of most of the listeners.
But for those of us who hold an allegiance to Jesus it's not right at all; the Holy Spirit works in us and through us to make us more like Jesus. Us Jesus lot all have our own personalities yet in character we become more and more like Jesus - not unique, not like fingerprints. Or am I missing something and mis-representing the interviewee?

Regressive dinner

Friday night was the last advertised LUCF O-week event - a regressive dinner. Similar to the more common progressive dinner where a group progresses from flat to flat for different courses, this time we went regressive - first off was coffee & biscuits; then next flat was dessert (excellent custard squares Whitey!); then mains at Barker St where the boys did real well with bbq lamb chops, salad & roast potatoes; and lastly starters at South Belt. Good times.

12 Barker Street is a large flat - large enough for, i think, 12 people to live there. Half of them are part of LUCF. We all arrived to be welcomed to backyard cricket - Duckie (one of the 12) had even mown a passable effort for a cricket strip - good effort. Fatz moved out last year and his bed was handily being used as an automatic wicket keeper -


Later, as the sun set, the use of the bed complete it seemed wise to the Barker St boys to burn Fatz old bed and boxes. All was well until the mattress was burnt; flames increased in size to greater than the height of the two story house. The neighbours got worried, then we heard the fire siren go off, calling the volunteer fire fighters to their posts. The boys didn't think this was a co-incidencence and madly attempted to put the fire out. Interestingly, at no time did i think the fire was out of control - many of these boys are from farms and know their stuff. Yet at the same time I appreciate why the neighbours did think the fire was out of control.....


The fire engine turned out, and the boys got a wee bit worried. All was well though. It turns out the fire chief that night was Roger. Roger's day job is a lecturer in soil science, a subject many take at Lincoln. So the boys said 'hello Roger' and Roger said 'hello boys' - then had a look at the smouldering pile of bed, then went back to the fire station. There may be a fine coming to Barker St......


I do like living in a semi-rural community where people are known to each other. That's great - but it can be hard to be part of that group. I observed that in the LUCF Regressive Dinner group, some of the Kiwis just didn't know how to make those from Laos and Iran feel welcome. Would I have been any different at 20? No, not at all. So it kind of fell to those CFers over 25, from 3 different countries, to welcome our new Lao and Iranian friends. Interesting, Azerro from Iran has just arrived to NZ for her PhD on CO2 in soils and the ramifications for climate change - fascinating stuff. She wasn't allowed to study PhD in Tehran because she's a woman, so is bravely going it alone, including paying her way, in NZ, coming to Lincoln because of its' world reputation in soil science. She seemed bemused by the antics of the night, and I've yet to tell her that her pyromanic hosts are in her department and that the fire chief may well be her supervisor! I don't know if she's a Christian - I suspect not, but I look forward to seeing how God may use the wider LUCF in introducing himself to her.

Well done to LUCF on an excellent idea to finish O-week, the way 4 flats provided wonderful food, and the entertainment of the fire.

Anika Moa @ Lincoln

Anika Moa came to play during Lincoln Uni's O week. She's the biggest musician to come to Lincoln in years, and Jo at the student's association was rightly pleased she managed to bring her to Lincoln.
Yet I suspect it'll be a while until either LUSA or the university pay to bring such a big name act again - as this photo shows, no-one was much bothered. I reckon only a few dozen people - maybe just over a hundred - watched this free concert from one of NZ's most popular singer songwriters.


This is a shame, and not just because students missed out on a quality top rate Kiwi act. It's symptomatic of the general Lincoln malaise - apathy. Last year at TSCF SLC (Student Leaders Conference) I remember chatting with Rah from AUT about the differences between different student cultures across campuses. She was amazed that the CF students at Lincoln have such a good relationship with the student's association, and open access to the student magazine, whereas in many other places that would be unthinkable. I asked which was better - to have open access yet apathy, or to have antagonism but real engagement. Of course, it's six of one and half a dozen of another.

Here in Lincoln Uni in 2008 the CF works to proclaim Jesus in word and deed in a unique, and tough, environment. The CF does really well in its relationship with the student and university authorities. Yet the student population is so apathetic about everything - Lincoln's the last place in the country where any student angst would be shown; it's all heads down and hard work, a stepping stone to a job. These handful of students watching a national class act like Anika Moa demonstrates that. I praise God for the CF being imaginative and creative in engaging this non-engaging student culture to get them thinking about Jesus - more of that in blogs to follow later this week (probably!)......

The latest crochet creation

Fingerless gloves, for the lovely Junita.

They turned out way too big for her delicate hands, but I had fun making them. And modelling them for you on a Canterbury hillside.