I feel so guilty. My blog counter reveals that many of you have visited our kiwi-green blog and been disappointed- maybe even more than once. It bothers me so much, that I have decided to right a short note, as well as bait you with the promise that soon there will be new pictures uploaded.
Until then, here are a few New Zealand tidbits:
Various teachers and students have been sick with the dreaded swine-flue (H1N1)... or "high-nigh" as one elderly man in Ontario called it, when he mistakenly confused the numbers with capital letters. In fact, at one stage, over 30% of our students were missing. Do the math for a school with a total of 70ish students! Those of us spared from this pervasive 'flu' have had to juggle classes and cover extra periods to deal with the lack of healthy teachers, which I am going to use as an excuse for my lack of posts :). Thankfully, most students have fully recovered and are noticeably back into the swing of things!
This week, Sam and I have been invited by three different families from our church for dinner. Talk about a hospitable church! These pleasant evenings consisting of delicious home-cooked meals and fellowship are such a treat- especially since I don't have to think about cooking or kick myself for forgetting to take meat out of our freezer.
One of my college students performed a moving speech at a competition for all the schools in our region. In front of a mainly secular audience, she spoke passionately about persecuted Christians around the world. I don't think there was one eye in the entire audience that wasn't sharply focused on her throughout her entire, eight-minute, memorized speech. I felt like a proud parent. I think she should have won first prize- and that is NOT due to bias. But it doesn't even really matter. It was enough to know that this ignored topic was frankly put in front of so many consciences and hearts.
Sam works with an innovative guy named Koos. He is one of those health nuts who grinds his own grain before making bread. I knew he was truly committed to a naturalistic lifestyle when he passed up one of my mom's famous cookies. Who does that?! On top of his healthy eating habits (which I really do admire), he also has many projects "on the go" or already very much in motion! For instance, he invented a "chicken plucker", which consists of an old washing machine that has rubber-glove fingertips secured along the inside wall. Throw a chicken in, turn to spin, and VOILA- a plucked bird! Then there is his attempt at creating home-made bio-gas. Unfortunately, the 2000 dead chickens in water-tanks beside his home were too potent, so the bio-gas recipe didn't work. They lay patiently waiting, smelling, as he thinks of a way to "water it down". This guy is legend. He's also made his own water ionizer and had his diesel truck running on hydrogen gas. Sam loves working with him and I love hearing the conspiracy theories every night. Koos is inspiring- to the point that Sam was up at 10p.m. last night whipping up some home-made mayonnaise; apparently, store-bought mayo contains "deadly chemicals" (Sam's exact words). Today, on their way home from work, Koos and Sam spotted a flock of turkeys. They stopped in the middle of a windy, dangerous, New Zealand road, and proceeded to run around chasing the fowl. They managed to corner four turkeys, but not before they were scratched viciously. The grand plan is to "beef?" them up and sell them just before Christmas.
We found a Dutch shop in a town approximately 40 minutes away. Last week, I went on a school trip to Wellington with the college students. It was a "Career Day Convention" and students were able to browse through information on universities, poly-tech schools, etc. (As an aside, they give so much free stuff out at those conventions, it's ridiculous! As if my students need twenty different pens, bags and lolly-pops!) On the way home from the class trip, I was able to convince the bus driver to make a quick stop at the Dutch shop, where I proceeded to stock up on dropjes, dropjes and dropjes. It felt like home!
It's getting late. There is lots more to share, but I will wait until next time. Cheerio!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Sunrise on the Pacific
I was going to write a detailed post about our Saturday journey to the ocean, but it's just too difficult to put into words. Frustrating. I want to, because I worry that I will eventually forget this special memory. But I can't...at least not tonight. Teaching my students how to write creatively has sapped all of my own writing energy :). I'll let the pictures do all the work, and you just exercise your imagination.
Ocean + Stars + Lighthouse + Sunrise + Wind + Waves + Husband = Blessings.
Ocean + Stars + Lighthouse + Sunrise + Wind + Waves + Husband = Blessings.
Gold, Silver, Precious Stones
"If we find ourselves thinking we can do the Lord's work in the world's way, as though worldly weapons were adequate, then we have drastically underestimated the nature of the battle. For the real battle is not in the seen world only, but chiefly in the unseen world. The battle is not "against flesh and blood," Paul says (Ephesians 6:12), and if we try to fight it in the flesh, we will be merely shadowboxing...
We can go so far as to say that if Christians win their battles by worldly methods, then they have really lost. Visible results can be deceptive. In the seen world, we may appear to make a great advance- win professional recognition, attract people to our cause, raise money for our program, distribute tons of literature, win passage of an important bill. But if it was done by humanistic reliance on technical methods, without the leading of the Spirit, then we have accomplished little of value in the unseen world.
The opposite is likewise true: If Christians use the weapons God has ordained- if we lay our talents at His feet, dying to our own pride and ambition, obeying biblical moral principles, empowered by His Spirit, guided by a Christian worldview perspective- then even if by external standards we seem to have lost, we have really won. Outsiders looking on may conclude that we have failed. Even Christian friends and leaders may shake their heads disapprovingly and advise us that we've made a mistake. But if we have genuinely given our lives over to God's purposes and are being led by Him, then we have won a battle in the unseen world.
An old spiritual classic says the Christian life really begins when we understand by hard experience that "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). It's a verse many of us have memorized and can quote at the drop of a hat. But it rarely becomes real in practice until we encounter an overwhelming crisis that pushes us to the end of our own resources. For people with a lot of resources, that may not be until midlife or even later. But at some point, the realization crashes in on us that life is not what we had hoped for, and we ask, Is this all there is? We realize that in a fall world, even the good things cannot fully satisfy our deepest hungers, and everything we have loved and lived for turns to sawdust and slips through our fingers. If we are honest, we have to admit that our personal relationships are often driven by what we want and need from others, not by a genuinely unselfish love for them. Even our efforts at Christian ministry are often motivated more by personal zeal and ambition than by God's Spirit. And the greater our natural zeal, the greater the crisis God has to allow in order to bring us to the end of our rope. Only after dying to everything we have ever lived for do we genuinely come to believe, as a practical reality, that "apart from Me you can do nothing." And only then can God really pour His life and power into our work.
When life ends and we stand at the believers' judgment described in 1 Corinthians 3, some of our most successful and impressive projects may prove to be nothing but wood, hay, and stubble- devoured by the flames. But the activities that were truly led and empowered by God, in obedience to His truth, whether the results were visible or not, will sparkle as gold, silver and precious stones. And God will set them as jewels in our heavenly crown."
Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey
We can go so far as to say that if Christians win their battles by worldly methods, then they have really lost. Visible results can be deceptive. In the seen world, we may appear to make a great advance- win professional recognition, attract people to our cause, raise money for our program, distribute tons of literature, win passage of an important bill. But if it was done by humanistic reliance on technical methods, without the leading of the Spirit, then we have accomplished little of value in the unseen world.
The opposite is likewise true: If Christians use the weapons God has ordained- if we lay our talents at His feet, dying to our own pride and ambition, obeying biblical moral principles, empowered by His Spirit, guided by a Christian worldview perspective- then even if by external standards we seem to have lost, we have really won. Outsiders looking on may conclude that we have failed. Even Christian friends and leaders may shake their heads disapprovingly and advise us that we've made a mistake. But if we have genuinely given our lives over to God's purposes and are being led by Him, then we have won a battle in the unseen world.
An old spiritual classic says the Christian life really begins when we understand by hard experience that "apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). It's a verse many of us have memorized and can quote at the drop of a hat. But it rarely becomes real in practice until we encounter an overwhelming crisis that pushes us to the end of our own resources. For people with a lot of resources, that may not be until midlife or even later. But at some point, the realization crashes in on us that life is not what we had hoped for, and we ask, Is this all there is? We realize that in a fall world, even the good things cannot fully satisfy our deepest hungers, and everything we have loved and lived for turns to sawdust and slips through our fingers. If we are honest, we have to admit that our personal relationships are often driven by what we want and need from others, not by a genuinely unselfish love for them. Even our efforts at Christian ministry are often motivated more by personal zeal and ambition than by God's Spirit. And the greater our natural zeal, the greater the crisis God has to allow in order to bring us to the end of our rope. Only after dying to everything we have ever lived for do we genuinely come to believe, as a practical reality, that "apart from Me you can do nothing." And only then can God really pour His life and power into our work.
When life ends and we stand at the believers' judgment described in 1 Corinthians 3, some of our most successful and impressive projects may prove to be nothing but wood, hay, and stubble- devoured by the flames. But the activities that were truly led and empowered by God, in obedience to His truth, whether the results were visible or not, will sparkle as gold, silver and precious stones. And God will set them as jewels in our heavenly crown."
Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey
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