A fun Saturday

This is us at the wedding of our old flatmate Serkan, and Yuana. On the right are John and Shirley Bright, a wonderfully wise and generous couple from our church.
It was good to celebrate with Serkan and Yuana, especially as they're both away from their homes (Turkey and Indonesia respectively). It was our first Muslim wedding too, so that was interesting. The Qu'ran was read in Arabic, Indonesian and English, and we all sat on the floor for the ceremony, but in many repects it wasn't so different to most weddings I've been to. (Yuana didn't get to say anything in the Muslim bit of the ceremony, though she did in the civil bit, but she didn't seem to mind).


That same evening we went to a mid-winter Christmas party with our home group. This picture is of our equally wise and generous home-group leaders, Mark and Robyn. They're great, and invite Mothy round to watch rugby when important matches are on!

Phanfare & Rodrigo y Gabriela

Back in April we bought our first digital camera, a Pentax Optio E10. If you're in the market, don't bother, it's only average (but if you'd like to buy ours let us know!!). But we used it to snap away as it's more convenient than our 25 year old Canon A1 SLR and various lenses. So, in June, I took the Pentax to Minty training. Stupidly, I left it at the bach, but David (the owner) found it and returning it to me, for which we're very greatful. Consequently, I tried uploading some of the shots to www.timliz.phanfare.com, our online photo album. Failed miserably. I was blaming Telecom, as usual. But we tried this morning and it worked a treat. Do look at www.timliz.phanfare.com and let us know what you think.

Lizzy rang her sister in London last night. She tells me they spoke for 104 minutes. Wow. They talked alot about last week's Cambridge Folk Festival (www.cambridgefolkfestival.co.uk). I don't care for EmmyLou Harris, but I would have loved to hear Rodrigo y Gabriela, who are busy re-writing acoustic guitar rules. Have a listen to www.rodgab.com. Good stuff. Shame they're busy touring Europe (mostly Ireland and UK) and Australia but not NZ.

For the first time in days, so it seems, the sun is shining so it's time to get out and enjoy it.

Gore Bay

We went to Gore Bay at the weekend and did not much. It was beautiful, the bach we stayed in had a stunning view of the ocean, and we drove home on Sunday via a wine tasting winery and beer tasting at Brew Moon.
I've (Liz) been feeling pretty bleugh after that though - that's the trouble if you have a nice holiday - going back to work is pretty pants.
Just been reading a book by Amy Orr-Ewing It's great. She says, and I 100% agree, that Christianity is 'intellectually robust and existentially satisfying'. Yeah!!!
So why, I ask myself, do we as Christians sing such rambling rubbish in church? That's my latest rant. Actually my second to latest rant. The very latest rant is linked to it though. People keep saying, (when I embark on afore-mentioned rant - that we keep singing songs all about me me me) that Jesus loves me so much that even if I were the only person who needed him to, he would have still died for me. Maybe that's true, but it's a kinda pointless thing to say cos I'm not, nor will ever be, the only person in need of God's grace and Christ's death. We all are in dire need, together. Surely.
Grrr.

Crickets & travels....

Off to see Will Henson today, down in Ashburton. One of his roles is that of Lincoln Uni CF president this year, and I haven't seen him since the end of term. He's been spending the summer working on a farm as practical work for his degree, so it'll be great to spend some time with him today. I hope to read a Psalm with him (like in SLC), pray and chat about next year; specifically Orientation, Wed meetings and cell groups. He's such an encouragement to me, the way he 'gets' that CF is a mission team. I hope I'm some encouragement to him too.

Heh - even more exciting than seeing Will in Ashburton is the cricket! Yah! NZ beat Aus for the first time in 8 attempts! What a run-fest. Great to be at Jade on Saturday for the day/nighter, even managed to convince Hamish it was time for him to see his first cricket match. What a great atmosphere. Aus set 331/8 - huge score. For NZ to win it'd mean the highest run chase in a ODI - EVER! And they did it! Some huge hitting from Styris, Oram, McCullum (50 of just 25 balls) and the solid Vettori. Always love seeing Aus loose.... felt a bit bad at getting caught up in it all and cheering when Johnson, Aussie fielder, fumbled the ball. But felt better seeing a Chch pastor doing the same. Surely, it can't be that bad if he's doing it too?!?! There's a lesson in there eh......

SLC reflections

SLC - Student Leadership Conference - for 2005 has now been and gone. I've been surprised at just how long it's taken me to recover! It was an intense time. Good, encouraging, but still intense with a full programme. There were three major areas:
1. Soaking in the Psalms
2. Psalms talks in evening meetings
3. Streams according to years in student leadership.

So, one: Soaking in the Psalms. Graham and I had the privaledge of working with ten student leaders from CFs and OCFs from Auckland, Waikato, Suva, Massey and Victoria. Great stories of how they came to know Jesus, and great dedication to 'soak in the psalms'. This was manuscript study, a print-out of a Psalm (we looked at Ps 1, 23, 55, 110 - all very different) where we all circled key words, underlined joining phrases, highlighted repeated phrases - all to pull the Psalm apart and put it back together with a clearer understand of what God was saying. Good to see them all grappling with some of the harder Psalms (eg 55), reminded of the goodness of God in a familiar Psalm (eg 23), wonder at a Messianic Psalm pointing to Jesus (eg 110) and realise the reality of God's judgement (Ps 1). All in all, probably my favourite 90 minutes of the day.

2. Evening meetings - talk on Psalms. Great praise times with lots of variety from quiet reflection to 'normal' (?!) singing-with-key-and-guitar, to beautiful Fijian harmonies (PSFC in Fiji send a contingent over for SLC and it's always great to learn from them). THe talks were varied too, from staff - Nigel on Ps 1 to motivate for mission on campus, and Andy on Ps 92 and the MINTY (new intern scheme) verse (14-15) as an encouragement to persevere in the hard places of the campuses of NZ next year, and Val on Ps introduction; from Andrew Lim, a Malysian pastor of a church in Palmie North on the impractory Psalms (the ones all about wrath, very challenging talk); and from Andrew Becroft, TSCF President this year talking about leadership and Ps1 from his experiences as a judge in Wtgn.

3. Streams - I was helping with Stream2, for students on their second SLC. Working through the gospel from Ephesians and a tool for planning of mission. Great tool for Lincolnites, so glad Margo was there.

Yep, SLC was an encouraging time, but I look forward to it improving as well.

SLC coming up

November already. And time for SLC (Student Leadership Conference) shortly, up in Paraparaumu. Should be good, focussing on the Psalms.
Flying north today, on Origin Pacific - nice small planes with great views (I hope) over the Sounds.
Best go and pack me bag....

'Tis July already?

Not said much here lately eh? 'Tis July already. Some encouragements in Lincoln, much tiredness. Think I'm bloggin just to avoid two Carey essays.......Best get back to it.