Nelson Anglican Youth Spring Camp

The Nelson diocese covers from Greymouth to Reefton to Nelson to Blenheim to Kaikoura - a large area, about the size of Wales, and it was a delight to be invited to be the speaker at the Nelson Anglican Youth Spring Camp held in St Arnaud recently, though I was slightly apprehensive and overawed hearing the stories about some previous speakers - I mean, come on, I'm just a muppet for Jesus!

All was well however. I took 3 main sessions: Jesus & Sex; Jesus & Alcohol; and Jesus 100% Pure Jesus. Each session was very different stylistically, but each one focused on Jesus & grace when we sin. Think they got it, which is great.

It was great to work with my colleague Sarah - she led an excellent seminar for high school leavers about transitioning to uni life, and showed how she is vastly more experienced than me at these kinds of camps, by cunningly packing ear-plugs to avoid sleep deprivation!

The camp was also a great opportunity to meet and work with various other staff members, helpers and leaders; including Bishop Richard with his obvious joy in the gospel, Peter who works for the diocese as an educator, (and was excited to re-connect with TSCF and hear how TSCF is the same/different to TSCF in his day in the 1980s), Michael who organised the whole camp and invited us, and even blogged about me & TSCF which must be a first! It was also fun meeting one youth group leader from Westport who, it turns out, is in the same home group as some of our supporters - ah the never-ending connections in the Christian sub-culture of a small nation!

Overall it was a hugely beneficial four days for me in assessing how we as TSCF can best resource the church throughout NZ in the transition times from church youth groups to independent adults and missionaries on campus as students, and to see how many (or few?) are prepared for that.

I would love to see more of this - people grappling with applying the Bible to the differet stages of life. There are still gaps and areas to be worked on - future camps could benefit with more focused small group times to build relationships across different youth groups and to process what the Spirit was teaching this group of people - but the idea of gathering people from around the region with an open Bible expecting to hear God speak is excellent and I'm so pleased to have been invited.

There was so many other things to encourage and inspire us in the camp, not least the stunning scenery of the Nelson Lakes and time at Rainbow Ski Field (even if the mountain tops remained elusive), the friendly locals (I loved visiting the shop in St Arnaud where I had to return a few hours later to collect my change from the postie when he came through town) and I really enjoyed meeting and interacting with teenagers from around the district, and the wonderful youth group leaders, with their obvious dedication in introducing Jesus to the kids under their care.

I'm now looking forward to a similar occasion, just for one day this time, November 1st, back in Nelson, working with Richmond New Life Church & Scripture Union. Still musing and preparing for that on the back of this Spring Camp......

Lincoln Norovirus

The Press reports a norovirus outbreak at Lincoln Uni. Not a nice way to start your exams.....

The big move (4 doors down)

Hooray! We've shifted! We now live at 5 William Street, Lincoln.

It seemed to take a long time to get to moving day, but on the day things happened super fast! We had so many wonderful people helping us, in so many ways, and we certainly wouldn't be able to sit outside, lazing in the sun, blogging about life just 2 days later if they hadn't all done such a sterling job!


Here is the roll of honour. Our very grateful thanks go to:

Junita, Silke, (on her penultimate day in Lincoln, before returning home to Germany!) Lyndy, Anna, (even though we were moving to her childhood home - thanks for trusting us with it), Will, Steve, Nathan, Rhys, Justin, Phil, Cammy (almost carried the piano single-handedly at one point!), Ian, Tassy, Khalid, Kongchay (found homes for everything in the kitchen).

These guys all turned up early, champing at the bit and emptied our house, before we even got the keys to the new one!
Here's all our worldly goods on the drive with Will and Steve.


And then it was round the corner top the new place. For about an hour all I, large-with-child-Lizzy, got to do was stand by the front door, saying "1st room on the left please", "second room on the left", "garage please"....

The list continues:

Dr. Mark, M.J. Wilson (brawn as well as brains - and supplied his trailer!), Pam (delicious muffins and pie!), Sam (supplied miracle cleaning products, and made short work of cleaning 105 from top to bottom) Jeremy, (just a few months old - thanks for lending us your mum for a few hours), 3 or 4 rather inebriated students who grabbed some shelves and carried them round the corner before wending their way to the big Lincoln Uni end of term Garden Party on campus, Stuart & Lizzy (made our bed for us), Andrew, Margo, Neal & Nancy (sold us a wonderful home, complete with stunning veggie garden, which Mothy is very excited about) Ian, Mike, (transplanted very important plants for us!) Paul & Christine, (supplied exactly the right amount of packing boxes), the sturgeon family, (freezer collection), and of course Hugo the cat (general - er - helpfulness)


We are very pleased (and relieved) to be here!

Here's Mothy ceremonially planting his Mr Jones, the quince tree. Happy days!

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......