Team Retreat

Our team has set aside the next two days to do some specific planning. We have finished visiting each of the ten potential city centers and will be narrowing down these ten cities to three or less that would be a good fit for our team to plant a church. We will be spending a lot of time in prayer and a lot of time reviewing each of the reports we have written on the cities we have visited. At the end of the two days we hope to have a more specific plan of what our church will look like, how we will go about launching it, and many of the logistics of starting a church.  In addition to this, we will begin planning the next trips to the few cities that we feel are the cities of biggest need. We will end on Saturday morning with a meeting via internet with our management team. 

Would you pray for us over the next couple of days? Please pray for...

...wisdom in our decisions about the new church.

...unity in our discussions and decisions.

...energy for the other couples on our team as they are still adjusting to new babies. 

...perseverance as there is much to plan and six different minds coming together to work! 

...the cities that we will be choosing. 

Thank you for your prayers! We will be sure to give you an update after the weekend! 

Visitors!

This week we had our first visitors from the States! My best friend, Abby (Harris) Clark, and her husband Andy, who works at Northside Christian Church are here! Northside partners with us in our ministry here and wanted to come check out New Zealand and what we are up to. We have had a busy week so far and still have a lot planned. They have gotten a chance to see a lot of our normal life acrivities in addition to spending some time in the city and seeing some sites. Today they helped us finish our last day of survey work!

In addition to an exciting week with our visitors, Nate and Whitney, our team mates, had their baby girl! Meet Lane Marie Hutchison!

More about our week later!

See What We Have Done...

Here is a short video that I made as an update of what we are doing in New Zealand. I hope you like it.

4 Years in 6 Minutes or Less...

Yesterday, June 5, marked 4 years of marriage for Amy and I. As a gift, on a limited budget, I tinkered with on of my new hobbies. Nate, our team mate, is an wizard of video editing and has been teaching me a few new tricks. I decided to make Amy a video, nothing fancy, just some pictures, to commemorate this occasion. She wanted me to share it with all of you guys. Here ya go.

Champs

A couple of weeks ago I began volunteering at an after school program called "Champs." This has been a great opportunity for me since it is similar to what I did in the States. This program is part of the Housing New Zealand Corporation (HNZC.) HNZC is a community renewal program that finds neighborhoods in need and then sends representatives to set up office in one of the houses in the area. 

The renewal is a five year process where they begin to clean up the community through training, teaching,  and restoring the people of the community. The area that I am working in is in Northcote, which is about a ten minute drive from our house. 

This is an area of about three blocks of government housing that has become a very rough area. Before Christmas, some primary school children were 'pretending' that they were in gangs. They were dressing in certain colors and doing certain things that were very realistic, even though these young children were just pretending. 

One of the employees of HNZC decided that these kids needed a positive outlet for their energy with role models who could possibly help steer them clear of the gang scene. She began hosting a program for primary school children two days a week called Champs. Champs has been a success thus far as there are many kids involved in the program. These kids are amazing! 

I am learning so much by being a part of Champs. Most of the children are Pacific Islanders, which means that they have a very different culture than what I am used to! 

It has been so much fun getting to know the kids and learning about their lives. I am also starting to get to know some of the other volunteers. Many of the volunteers live in the community of the program; it is really cool to see community members getting on board with HNZC to help make their community a better place for themselves and the children. Here are some pictures from the program: 

Here is a picture with me and some of the girls learning Mau Rakau (ma-u-rah-koo). Mau Rakau it is like Maori martial arts. Mau Rakau means 'skilled use of weapons'- not sure how skilled I am yet!

This is how you are supposed to swing the stick to strike you opponent. We are getting trained how to defend as well. The defense in this move is to jump over the weapon or stick.

Two of the boys taking a break from playing! 

Some of the older boys playing Touch-touch rugby that is, but 'touch' and 'rugby' are seen as two completely different games- I am still learning!  The kids in the background are playing cricket.