'It only took six years....'

'It only took six years...' lines from The Shawshank Redemption movie, spoken by the character Andy Du Fresne, an inmate at Shawshank prison serving two back-to-back life sentences for murder, wonderfully played by Tim Robbins. It's a great film, one of my favourites.
The line in question is spoken by him after he has been writing letters to the state authority responsible for prison financing, asking for books for a prison library. After six years of weekly - yes weekly - letter writing without a response, he receives a large shipment of used books and a cheque for $200.

'It only took six years...'
That's how I feel sometimes - optimism over good changes, tinged with an awareness that change is slow. (And not that I'm comparing living in God's Own with being in prison!)
Within TSCF, I've assisted with ordering of resources for student conferences over the last couple of years, and during that time we've built stronger relationships with 3 or 4 NZ distributors, and have pleasingly managed to start breaking even with the sale of books. This is good. And yet the vision is greater - I want to provide a first-stop shop for TSCF staff and students nationwide for resources to help them think deeply about their studies and about their true witness, undivided life and global reach for Jesus. (We also aim to expand that to graduates and interested public by the end of the year. This is to be called 'Catalyst'. More on that as 2008 progresses).

'It only took six years....'
I thought of this quote recently when two colleagues came to me as their first stop to supply titles that they needed in their job of discipling students. I was so happy I nearly jumped for joy! I've been pushing my colleagues to source books they need through me and our NZ suppliers, rather than through the off shore sources such as Koorong or Amazon, for a while. My aim is that together we can change the book buying habits across NZ! I agree that its hard to get great titles at decent prices in reasonable time frames. I've got used, for example, to ordering titles for student conferences 4 months ahead of time, and being unable to source titles published in the US or UK in the preceding six months - that's just the way it works in a small market in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. In addition, it's been hugely frustrating when not all the order arrives; one time only 50% of our order arrived and at best it's been 75%.

Yet we persist, as the best way for NZ Christians to be exposed to excellent Christian resources, is for distributors to see a demand for more and better theological resources. If the meatier titles begin to flow through NZ channels rather than just being imported direct to this or that isolated reader/student, this will, in the short term, be slightly more expensive for individuals, and will certainly be slower. But in the medium and longer term, the church in NZ could be transformed by a generation of theologically savvy, deep thinking, whole-of-life Christians, who have used their minds to engage with the wonderful good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and who have been able to thoughtfully apply biblical truth to the workplace, family and culture in which they find themselves. This is exciting, and one of the reasons I'm so happy to be involved with Catalyst.

'It only took six years....' - for Andy Du Fresne, and for me it's only been four to get to this point.


'It only took six years.....from now on I'll write two letters a week.' Andy Du Fresne's second stage was extra letter writing; for us it's the launch of Catalyst.

Already pining for summer

Hello, Lizzy here

I'm sitting by the fire in our lounge on a chilly autumn evening, looking at our photos on our phanfare site, and although it was only last month, it seems an age ago already.


I think these are my most favourite ones. I love swimming in the sea - though maybe not quite as much as my father-in-law does.

But I particularly like them cos Mum took them at a distance and it looks like we were snapped by paparazzi for Hello magazine or something.

I'm sure you agree we look beautiful enough!

House moving time

We hope to be on the move, house wise. Not far - still within Lincoln! We're in discussion with some friends and neighbours who are also moving, and their house offers significant advantages over our present place in terms of ability to host student meals and Bible studies; and in having people to stay. The vendors have been very gracious in the whole process for which we're very grateful, and we pray and work towards settlement.

If you've been to our place with a full living room of 25 students crushed into the small space you'll know its....um...friendly and warm! Here's a photo of just 15 - but we have gone to 25.


We have maps in our hallway that we invite people to sign when they come to our place. Looking at it now we realise we do have quite a few coming through, so an extra bedroom to house guests would be very welcome and not tie up my study for the duration of their stay.

We've mused, prayed, done sums, and think this is the way to go, and we don't think we're being greedy in seeking to move to a bigger property, rather, we believe this to be good stewardship. In fact, we think this move would increase the work of the gospel in this place, and potentially nationwide as we consider a new graduate resourcing work that may be located from our home. Money and stewardship issues are never easy, are they? We want to be wise with resources and God-honouring in the use of all that he has enabled us to have.

So that's the move to another house, but at the same time we need to work out how to sell this one. We've put it on the market ourselves, as the sums wouldn't work if we had to pay an agent his commission - which would equate to nearly half a year's salary which is just ridiculous. So in the last couple of weeks we've been doing major gardening (sadly now the end of the tomatoes!), painting of ceilings (why is it that we too, like so many, paint just before leaving a place?!?), washing of walls, professional carpet clean, filing of books and paperwork, and general de-cluttering by storing stuff in the roof and a friend's barn. So a big thank you to Hudson & Rosemary for allowing us to store some of our bulkier stuff in their barn, and to Mark and Robyn for their trailer in getting it there! We've only been in NZ for 3 1/2 years so how come so much stuff has been accumulated? I blame TradeMe....

Here's a photo of our place (looking very fine in a great location!), taken on what seems to have been the only sunny autumnal day in the last couple of weeks:


If you, or anyone you know is interested in a two bed house in Lincoln then do let us know or look at our ad on TradeMe - we'd be very pleased to hear from you or them!

Stew - Lao style

Hi Lizzy here.

When I helped organise a conference last year at work, my thank you present was a kaffir lime bush. Apparently the limes aren't much good, but the leaves get used a lot in Thai style food.
Now, although I am learning to enjoy cooking more I still don't really get creative enough to need to use the leaves very often - though it is a very pretty plant and pot that I was given, and looks very nice on our deck.



But today I'm pleased to report that the kaffir lime bush came into it's own as the entire Lao contingent of Lincoln University (all three of them) came to raid the leaves to make a stew.

Tim was talking to K at church today and learned that it is apparently the last day of the Lao year. She was bemoaning the fact that she didn't have lime leaves to make the traditional food to celebrate the event, and so we were pleased to offer to share ours!

She and her two friends arrived this afternoon, and were very happy - although they also thought it was hilarious that the bush is so small - apparently K was imaging the kind of huge lime trees they have in Laos, and was a bit bemused at how we could be growing it in a pot - now she understands.

So happy new year to all the Lao people reading this!

It's been wonderful getting to know K since she arrived at Lincoln this year. She is great fun, and her stories of what it's like to be a Christian in Laos are really humbling, but also so inspiring! (And it makes me realise just how easy we have it here).

Another interesting fact we learned is that today is the last day of the year, tomorrow is the inbetween day, and Tuesday is the first day of the new year. I wonder what happens to your birthday if you're born on the in-between day?

The Inaugural Microbial Products Petanque Cup Challenge

Hi, Lizzy here.

Today was the day of the Inaugural Microbial Products Petanque Cup Challenge at AgResearch, Lincoln. Above is my colleague Celine, who is genuine French, and showed us how it should be done (and she supplied the Pernod).


It was a great way to finish off the week! The premise was that the the microbial products formulation team would challenge their near neighbours - the entomology team, and then go on to thrash various other divisions of AgResearch over the coming weeks. However the entomologists were victorious, and so they now have to challenge the molecular biologists, or the biosecurity team next Friday.

The most auspicious microbial products cup is at stake, which you can just about make out on the top left of the beer and chips in this picture.



Strictly speaking it's a mug, (the green and yellow thing) but I can confirm that it has indeed got various furry brown microbial type products quietly growing away in the bottom, and up the sides...

As support staff I didn't feel strongly affiliated to one team more than the other, so they allowed me to play for both!Although I never would have dreamt that I'd end up working with people who coat biopolymer on to freeze dried rat (among other things) for a living, they are a very friendly bunch, and I do enjoy the atmosphere. Especially on Friday afternoons.

Living in the land of understatement....

'Living in the land of understatement' is the title of my colleague Ben's latest blog here.
Ben has come to work for TSCF from overseas so is seeing NZ culture new and fresh. He's much better at putting things than Lizzy or I, so do click through to his blog. It's cool he's had a yarn with Jesse Ryder, and more importantly we agree with his analysis of spirituality in NZ. Thanks Ben!