The people of our July Holiday

Our July Holiday included a catch up of massive proportions. There was those who live in Christchurch Corryn and the Toganivalus. The Bray, Marshall, stevens and Lequ families. So as you can imagine there was chaos at meal times when we were all together at either Corryn's house or Shelley and Tiko's house. Here are photos of some of the funnier people who showed up.

Ethan trying to prove that his mouth is bigger than his ice cream and stomach.

Shelley as seen by a smaller person.

Julie at her multitasking best. Eating and making a round of hot drinks.

Talei, Christina (black eye included) and Hannah.

The day before school finished Christina crashed with a high school student while at Buller High to do technology. The result was a huge and impressive black eye. This photo is almost 8 days later and the colours are still changing.

Talei making faces

Simeon doing that thing with the eyes

Christina and Hannah together again

Feeding time ...... why are we waiting....

Tiko makes eyes at the camera

Rueben and his ice cream

This of course was not everybody only those who made it in front of our camera. Corryn is strangely absent. She had been ill while we were visiting..... I think this night she stayed home to throw up.

July Holiday - Christchurch

For the first week of the holidays we decided that a catch up in Christchurch was in order and so we packed our bags and headed out. The first problem of the holiday was how to get to Christchurch when the Lewis Pass is closed.... Thats easy you go to Greymouth (1 1/2 hour drive) and then hang a left somewhere and then drive to Christchurch through the Arthur's and Porters Pass. (Another 4 hours)

The road through the Arthurs and Porters pass was also marginal but at least it was open and we had chains. Chains that were slightly too small but they would do.

The scenery was spectacular and the drive was reasonable.... At least the road was not closed. We did have to try the chains for a small 500 mtr stretch as a truck had jackknifed in the ice that was a little scary but we made it through safely. We did at that stage decide that chains that fit were necessary.

Here are some of the photos of the scenery on our trip.

Share and share alike I say... This bridge just out of Greymouth is a one lane bridge but I am guessing that the trains get right of way.

Our first decent view of the mountains to come.

Snowy conditions are on their way.....

This bridge has been built over the road to allow the snow that comes down the side of the hill to fall harmlessly to the river below.... It was cool.

And this structure just 150 mtrs up the road to allow water to go in the same direction. Some of the water was in frozen icicles hanging off the end of the bridge. This photo was taken from the lookout area.

Christina having some fun in the snow.

Patrick has found his own footsteps in the snow.

A Kea that came out to play with us.... or maybe it was the food he came for.

Emily is enjoying the snow too.

We finally made it to Christchurch after having to put the snow chains on the car to discover that they were too small but they were enough to get us past a really tricky bit of ice that had caused a logging truck to jackknife.

God's Love - Article Four

This was my last article of four - Published on 27 June 2008

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Over the last three weeks in this space I have been talking about the love that God has for each of us, about God’s pursuit of our hearts and the empty space that all of us have within that only God has the power to fill.

So what does God’s love, His pursuit of our hearts and our empty space have to do with anything?

Well it has everything to do with Christian faith and hope. God’s pursuit of our hearts went to the extreme of Him sending His Son to die for our brokenness. To pay the penalty that must be paid for the sins of the world. Our empty space was caused by the broken relationship between us and God that we experience because of sin.

Christ’s death on the cross has given us the opportunity to mend that relationship with God but it is a choice that we need to make for ourselves. It is not something that is forced upon us or that we earn by proxy. We need to make a choice to accept God’s pursuit of us through the cross of Christ. It is through Christ that we have access to a friendship with God.

All of what I have talked about over the past 3 weeks means nothing if I am to just leave it there. God’s pursuit of you and the love that he has for you means nothing if this is where I leave it. What all this comes down to is that you have to make a decision to accept the love that God has and then to start pursuing for yourself the life that is available to you through choosing to have Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, looking to God as the head of your life.

This might mean taking a look at this life that those who live in relationship with God and believe that Jesus is their Saviour call the Christian life. For you maybe this designation of being a Christian brings with it so much baggage of what you think that this kind of life might be and the things that other people say this life is. But you need to move past that and discover for yourself what a life with Christ is like.

God wants you to know that a life with Christ is a life lived to the full. Jesus tells us in Scripture that “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

The Christian life is often described as something that is full of restrictions a long list of things that you have to do and many things that you shouldn’t do.
In all reality there is a freedom that comes with the life that is lived with God at its centre, because we live lives that are grounded in the truth and lives that look more and more like what God intended our lives to be. Jesus says that ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Yes you might have to make changes in your life but those changes will be for the better, they will be changes that bring joy and happiness, changes that complete you and teach you and will bring about the restoration of your broken relationship with God.

The reality is that a life with Christ is about becoming a child of God. A much loved child of the creator of the universe. The Christian life is living a life that conforms to the rules of the family, the rules of the Father and these rules are just ways for us to live in better relationship with God and one another. These rules are not really rules but more a way of life.

So what about you? Are you looking for that thing that will fill your empty space inside? I want to tell you that God is the answer to the empty space and to that need for completion that you have in your life. God is drawing you to himself and He wants you to discover that you need Him in your life and He wants you to learn what it means to be a child of God.

It is your choice. Find a church that suits your personality, not all churches are the same and ask the right questions …. You owe it to your empty space and yourself…..
God is waiting for you.

Officers Residential Fellowship

Just a small break in the articles. At the end of June Perry & I attended our Divisional Residential Officers Fellowship. It was a great time of refreshment and catching up with other officers. We spent much time in the hot pools, eating good food and laughing with session mates and others.

The fellowship was held at Hanmer Springs and while we were there it snowed and in fact we had lots of snow on our way home on Thursday. This made the week even more special as it is the first time I have actually been snowed on in my life. Yes I have seen snow and made snow balls etc but I have never been there when it fell. Here are some photos of our week and the way home.

The first snow fall.... Tuesday or Wednesday

The morning before we left. What a beautiful day and look at the snow on them there hills

But the drive home proved to be beautiful for very different reasons. The roads had been closed up until 2 & 1/2 minutes before we left.

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The snow on the trees was amazing. There was waist high ploughed snow on the sides of the road. It was more than a little bit disconcerting when the snow got too heavy for the trees and plopped onto the roof of the car.

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Everywhere we looked was snow through out the Lewis Pass to just past Springs Junction. We were snowed on while driving.

The Empty Space Inside - Article Three

This was my third article for the Westport News - Published 20 June 2008

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The Empty Space Inside

Have you ever felt like there was something missing in your life, something you know you need and sometimes it seems like it is just about in your grasp but then in a brief moment it disappears again. You feel like there is something that you need to make life complete. Or as that intrepid little mouse Stuart Little put it in the movie of the same name when he was wondering about his real parents and where he had come from he told his adoptive parents the Littles “I have an empty space inside”. Here he was living in a house with a family who were able to give him everything that he needed he still felt that there was something in his life that was incomplete and he was searching for the thing that would fill that empty space.

As human beings I’m sure that we have all at some time or another felt that there has to be something more that we need in our lives to make it better and to make us feel complete. Many of us spend so much time searching for that perfect thing that will make us feel complete and whole. We think that if we could just be more confident, have more friends, be more popular or making more money, then everything will better. The problem is that so often the things that we try filling up our empty space with in reality are not really good for us and are things that will not make any difference to the empty space that we have.

There are plenty of things that people try to fill this empty space with. Some people try eating all the nicest food and end up overweight, they might think that alcohol might make them more likeable and confident but they end up just being drunk, using drugs might make people feel happy to begin with but that is just a false sense of wellbeing. When we look at being more popular or having more friends we end up being in destructive relationships that have the opposite effect and end up leaving us feeling less confident about our self worth than we did before. Working as many hours as we can to have money also is not the answer and neither is filling up every moment of every day with stuff to do. There are many other compulsive and addictive behaviours that can trap us into believing that we are filling up that empty space inside.

And so no matter how hard we try the emptiness still remains and we go on thinking that there has to be something to fill it.

I believe that all of us have within us something a friend of mine once called “A God shaped hole”. An empty space that only the love of God can fill. God is the answer to the empty space that we all have within us. He is the perfect person to fill the void that we all feel.
A relationship with our creator gives us everything we need to fill those areas in our lives where we think that there is something lacking. God is the friend to those who are lonely you do not need to be more confident, you do not need more money and you definitely do not need to prove your worth to him. As I have said previously he is pursuing your heart anyway because you are worth it.

All you need to do is to respond to His pursuit of your heart. Go to a church and find out how God through Jesus can fill the empty space that you have in your heart and you will find out that there is a “YOU” shaped hole in the heart of God because He is waiting ….. just for you.

God's Pursuit of Your Heart - Article Two

This is my second article in the Westport News June 13th
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In last week's comment I talked about God’s relentless pursuit of each of us and God’s intimate interest in you. I thought that this week I would talk to you about God’s pursuit of us, God’s pursuit of you.

Consider the courting couple who are doing everything that they can to declare their love for one another; the gifts, the words spoken, the written words, the snatching of every possible moment together and hurdles that they will jump over to prove their love for one another. They pursue the one they believe to be their true love and soul mate.

God’s pursuit of us can be looked at in much the same way only much much more profound. His pursuit began at the beginning of time andhe will continue it until the end of time. He will not let anything hold him back in His pursuit to win your heart. Everything that he has ever done has been in the hope of winning your heart and having you become one of His children.

The difference between the courting couple’s pursuit of each other and God’s pursuit of us is that the courting couples only see and show the very best to each other. They do not wear the comfy at home or in the garden clothing while out together, they do not show each other the things that are lurking in the closet.

But God already knows the worst about each of us, he has seen us in those comfy clothes that have holes in them and stains on them and He has seen all the warts that we possess. Yet He pursues us anyway because He loves us for who we are not what we are or what we look like.

Throughout the Old Testament we see stories of God rescuing His people from near disaster, disaster that they brought on themselves by making choices that were not in God’s will for them, but every time they called on God he came and rescued them. All these stories that we have did not happen just to fill the Bible with words but to win your heart. To show you the lengths that He is prepared to go to demonstrate that His is a relentless pursuit and that His love for you is beyond anything that you can conceive or imagine.

It is true that in all of the stories of the Bible God is teaching Christians about living a Godly and righteous life but He is also trying to show you what a life lived with him can be like. He is showing you what you can expect when you accept his pursuit of your heart.

In the story of David and Goliath (1 Samuel 17) he is telling you that with Him in your life you can know that he will help you to slay the giants in your life. In the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) he is showing you that no matter what you do in life that when you ask Him for forgiveness you are forgiven and blessed.

In the story of Joseph being sold into slavery by his brothers (Genesis 37:12) he is showing you that while trouble may come in your life that over time when you trust in Him even the worst things can be used for the good of you and many others besides.

In the New Testament’s story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) God is trying to tell you of the welcome you will receive from Him our Father, even after you have rejected him and thrown everything he has given you away, when you decide to return to Him with a sincere heart. In the story of the woman at the well God is showing you that it does not matter to Him who you are and what you have done your heart is worth pursuing and that He loves you.

In His pursuit of your heart God even let Jesus die a painful death on the cross to pay the penalty of sin, so that you and I can find forgiveness and know that the pursuit of our hearts continues. He is saying in this act that you and I are worth the effort and cost of His pursuit.You are special and God is pursuing your heart and will continue to pursue it. So will you accept His court-ship, His pursuit of your heart and His love?

He is waiting for you and He will not give up on you. God Bless.

Westport News Articles

Here in Westport the ministers of the different church take turns to write articles for the local paper called 'Church and Community' in June it was the turn of The Salvation Army. Perry decided that this was part of my job description.

During the year most of the ministers had not bothered to submit stuff so I had to do this a little bit blind I found out how many words they wanted and went from there. I am going to put each of the articles that I wrote onto my blog over the next couple of weeks. I wrote these articles expressly for no believers and perhaps to encourage the believer who has lost sight of who God is in the grand scheme of things.

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Week One - Printed in the Westport News 6th June 2008

You may have recently seen the ads that we (The Salvation Army) ran in this paper advertising our Sermon Series over the months of March and April which used the popular “YEAH RIGHT” in response to a question.

I have been doing some thinking about this “YEAH RIGHT” thing over the past couple of days and how it relates to a much bigger train of thought when we look at Christianity and the idea of God. Many people will hear the Gospel being talked about and hear the words that God loves them and their first thoughts will be “YEAH RIGHT”. It might even be something that you reading this comment would say to me if I was talking to you right now. And you might follow it up with something like “How could God love me after ……” and you insert the worse thing you have done in your life. Or the other side of this could be is you say “if there is a God how could he let …….. happen to me” and in this space you would put the worst thing that has happened to you.

No matter what your comments are after you have uttered those now famous “YEAH RIGHT” words the fact still remains that God does love each of us individually. One of the most read scriptures confirms this to us “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”. (John 3:16 New International Version).

We live in a world where things are not perfect and we do things and things happen to us that we would prefer did not happen but they do happen because of the choices that we and or others make that go against what God wants for each one of us. But be assured that God is relentlessly pursuing each of us to show us that a life lived with Him at its centre is to live life to its full. No matter what we have done we are forgiven through the sacrifice of Jesus, (the only person who is perfect) he paid the ultimate price for our wrongdoings so that we can concentrate on receiving the forgiveness that is on offer from God through Jesus.

Yes God does love you and he will do anything for you. Sometimes the pain in our lives can serve as a reminder to look for or turn to God. C.S Lewis says that “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: pain is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” It no doubt causes God pain when he has to use this megaphone but if it turns you to him then mission accomplished.

But he does so much more in our lives to get our attention, in so many much nicer ways. Every Sunrise and Sunset he paints a picture in the sky for you to see or if it is raining there is the rainbow to remind us. You know that didn’t have to happen God could have made everything black and white right from the beginning and we would not have known the difference.

Here in Westport we are so close to some beautiful reminders in nature of his love for us, places for us to rest, relax and enjoy ourselves. We also see here his provision for us through natural resources that feed us, warm us and employ many us. God didn’t have to provide these things either but he has done it out of love for us and he can’t wait to see the smile on our faces when we are up close and personal with some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.

God is intimately interested in you and wants for you to know and understand him and his will for your life and before you say “YEAH RIGHT” read this message from Jesus in Matthew 10:30 “What is the price of two sparrows—one copper coin? But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.” (New Living Translation).

You are valuable to God and he wants you to know that.