Overwhelmed By Witnesses

Our new home!


I got broadband today. It’s very exciting – the setting up of our new home is going well, and now I have a bit of a space set up to work from: a desk, a printer/fax and for the first time broadband from home: no promises and no commitment, but it may mean I get to blog more often.

In setting up the office space we unpacked the stuff that I had brought with me from the UK – a few files, some books and a poster. I’d completely forgotten about the poster, it took me by surprise. It was a gift on leaving UCCF. It is a collage of every passport photo we had on file for Relay Workers from 1993-2005. So I’m sat here typing being smiled at (and sometimes blankely stared at!) by hundreds of people who went through the Relay Programme over the last 12 years. I’m looking at engineers, teachers, parents, army officers, administrators, pastors, student workers, pioneering missionaries, accountants, IT specialists, international student workers, PhD students, Doctors, Nurses… the list goes on.

I feel overwhelmed.

It is not that the photo’s are particularly ugly or particularly striking (one or two are particularly telling though!) but that as I look up I see men and women who love the lord Jesus and who have taken small and large risks for the gospel. Most are walking well, some have strayed and some are fighting hard to maintain or retrieve their walk with God. I’m overwhelmed by them all – people who have been encouraged and challenged, sometimes broken, often built up, by the challenges that Relay brings. I praise God for each and every one – He is amazing and his work in our lives tells of His greater glory.

Next week is TSCF staff and families conference and in 3 weeks MINTY begins – please pray that we would all be aware of God’s amazing work of grace in our lives and that in the years to come there may be many who would look at their time with TSCF (either on staff, as part of MINTY, in the student groups or as graduate helpers) as a time where they knew the encouragement of being grown, challenged and changed by God: that He may receive the greater glory!

Seven

This blog is brought to you by the Number 7!

We're now into our new house and slowly filling it with the stuff necessary for everyday life - this involves spending large amounts of time trawling http://www.trademe.co.nz/ (like ebay) and then trawling the streets of Auckland to find the places to pick up the stuff we've bought. So far aquired a sofa, a wooden chest, a washing machine and a home cinema system this way.

OK - the home cinema sytem is not necessary for everyday life but it was seriously cheap!

:o)

Seriously, if you are the praying sort, pray that as we get the stuff for our home that we would not lose sight of the lessons we have learned in the last 4 months.

The list below seems to be doing the blogging rounds - so here's mine. It does seem a whole lot more personal than some of the other stuff that I've written. Bizarre really!

7 things to do before I die:
1) Read the final Harry Potter book (ie the one that’s not published yet)
2) Do some DIY project at home that I’m proud of at the end
3) Write a book – a good one
4) See my children become successful human beings (ie – the emphasis is on human beings rather than success)
5) See my wider family understanding the gospel and coming to faith in Jesus
6) Speak German fluently
7) Teach through the whole of the Bible at least once (not in one sitting silly! But to have spoken on it all) and to do so faithfully

7 things I can't do:
1) DIY
2) Speak German fluently
3) The dishes and talk at the same time (at least my wife says I can’t)
4) Change people’s hearts – that’s God’s work
5) Obey The Law – that’s sin at work in me
6) Better grace – as if anyone could
7) Stop saying cheesy things – I try, and try but it just bursts out (see what I mean!?!)

7 things I say most often
1) Sorry
2) Hello, Andy speaking (on the phone – not to people I’m with, that would be rude)
3) Just because we are in a new place does not mean that the rules have changed (to the kids)
4) Hurray
5) Erm
6) Please
7) Thanks

7 films I watch over and over
1) Romeo and Juliet (Baz Luhrman)
2) The Matrix
3) Toy Story
4) The Incredibles
5) Star Wars IV– A New Hope
6) The Lord of the Rings – Trilogy, extended version
7) The Godfather - Trilogy

7 Books I love
1) The Bible - God
2) ANY Calvin and Hobbes anthology (I have them all) – Bill Watterson
3) The Oxford English Dictionary – Mr “Oxford”
4) The Harry Potter books (Prisoner of Azkaban is my favourite – but together they are truly great) – JK Rowling
5) How Long O Lord – DA Carson
6) Systematic Theology – Wayne Grudem
7) A Land of two Halves (a brit tours New Zealand after 15 years of living here – very funny and very acutely observed but he does use rude language, tut, tut!) - Joe Bennet

7 Songs I listen to the most
1) American Pie – Don McLean
2) Father and Son – Cat Stevens
3) Hallelujah – Leonard Cohen
4) Mercedes Benz – Janis Joplin
5) My Doorbell – The white stripes
6) Piano Man – Billy Joel
7) In Christ Alone – Stuart Townend and Keith Getty

Mark This

Here are two prayer bookmarks - for you to print off and as an aide memoire in praying for us. The one on the right is for the Brits and one on the left is for those in NZ (people elsewhere - you know you are loved but it might get confusing/ridiculous for me to offer more than two versions).

Doing OK and looking forward to moving into our house next Monday. Get in touch if you want to come and visit!

Moving & Progressing

The Pohutukawa - the Kiwi Christmas Tree

A sign of the height of summer

Ines managed to avoid injury or any more embarrassing encounters (see last entry) and we had a happily uneventful Christmas and New Year. We did have an unsuccessful attempt at buying fireworks for New Year (illegal to sell them here except between Oct 31st and Nov 5th) and spent a very happy afternoon at Auckland Zoo without loss or injury. We’re currently preparing for our move into our own place in less than two weeks and have now begun to collect the furniture and fittings that we need. Beds, crockery, cutlery and vacuum cleaner are now secured – lots more to go (school uniforms & books included)!

Christmas on the beach is just not the same. I’m not ungrateful, truly not, but there was a large part of me that wanted to be in the cold of the northern hemisphere – wrapped up, complaining that the nights are too dark and the weather miserable.

The beach was packed, families sharing picnics and kids running mad. Our three were trying out their bikes and snorkel sets. Aliyah gave her snorkel a very short first outing – after 1 second with her face in the water she objected to the sea being salty. Ines and I sat watching the fun, feeling like we were playing at Christmas in the middle of summer; feeling out of place and a long way from home.

I sound like a miserable so and so don’t I? I’m no Scrooge – it’s not ‘bah, humbug’ but the reality of being a long way away from friends and family. All of the unfamiliar reality of Christmas in the heat has underscored the distance; although being near a landline phone has made it all the easier to speak to our friends and family. The differences also made us think hard about how ‘religious’ and how commercialised Christmas in Britain is and challenged us to get focus on the celebration of Jesus birth rather than enjoying rich food and fine wines (though, to be honest, we didn’t do too badly in the culinary stakes either).

The turn of New Year gave us a chance to reflect on the last year and to talk as a family. Over lunch on New Year’s day we looked back and spoke about our gratitude that God has provided for us in amazing ways: the job here, the visas, the financial support, our friends and family, the beauty of New Zealand, the place where we are living and the place we are going to live. We also reflected on the fact that the last couple of years have been the hardest of times for us – the losses and the gains have tested us beyond what we thought was possible to bear. God has been at work, refining us and calling us closer to Himself.

“Growth does not always feel like progress” is something that I have, no doubt, infuriated people by saying when they have faced up to the realities of sin in their hearts and lives. Yet, it is true – growth for us has meant losing much that we treasured and learning that the treasure of heaven is worth the loss of all things on earth. It is not a lesson we have learned easily or (yet) completely. Please pray for us as we continue to learn and as the Lord continues to produce growth in us, that we will be joyful, obedient and grateful for his generous provision.