The Past Few Weeks...

The past couple of weeks have been full on but very awesome! We have been picking up a lot of momentum at church and in the community. I apologise for not keeping up better with the blog, but as a baby is on the way, I will not make any promises to do better! Below are a few quick updates about what’s been happening with us and Rechurch:

Christmas Service:

We had a wonderful Christmas service with many new faces and many ‘regulars’ in attendance. This was an encouragement to us as we had expected a lower turnout this time of year as summer break had just begun and many people are traveling for the summer holidays. We had a fun service and a great time with the people who came.

Venue Update:

After months of asking for prayer and praying about where to go for a long term venue, God has opened up and given us our number one choice! We are so excited and think that this is nothing less than a miracle! Rechurch will be meeting in Reading Cinemas once we go to weekly services. This venue is just upstairs in the same complex where we are currently meeting. We already have advertising in the cinemas as well as relationships with many people in that shopping complex. We found out two days before our Christmas service about getting this venue, it was the best Christmas present that we could have asked for! We call it a miracle because we had been talking with the management in the cinemas since July and were getting consistent lack of interest and ‘no’ for an answer. We decided to give it one last shot pitching them a ridiculously low price (one third of what they were asking!!) in a written proposal. After over a month and a half of waiting to hear back, they emailed us last week and told us they would be happy to meet our requests and have us start meeting there when we are ready…for the low price we offered! Thank you for praying with us to get this venue

Holiday:

Joe and I took off for a few days around Christmas for a bit of a holiday break. Most of our friends were going to visit family or had family coming in, so we decided to take that chance to get away. We drove north of Christchurch to stay just outside of the Abel Tasman National Park. It was a great getaway for us and a good time to relax and reflect on the last (crazy) year. We hiked, kayacked, swam, and relaxed. It was good to have that time away to get ready for this week…

Mission Team:

This week we have a group of fourteen adults visiting Rechurch from Ohio. The church that they are with supports Rechurch and has come out to help us and to see whats happening. We have heaps of activities planned, one of the main ones being on New Year’s Eve. Rechurch is hosting a family friendly New Years Eve party for the community. We have lots of fun things planned (bouncy houses, cotton candy machines, giant twister, live music, free sausages etc…) and are hoping that this is a huge outreach for the church. The team will be helping to get that ready and promote the event as well as helping with many other community events to help get Rechurch’s name even better known in Christchurch.

I will post another blog once the team is gone about the trip and about how our NYE09 event goes. Please pray for this event.

If you made if this far, you are a legend, that was a lot to update you on, but there is a lot happening here which is great! Thanks for keeping up with all that’s going on!

I'm lovin' it!

I realise that it has been a while since I have posted something fun about life in New Zealand. Most of our updates lately have been about Rechurch, but I thought today's events would make for a perfect glimpse into other parts of New Zealand life and culture.

Being such a small country out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, New Zealand wants to be known. Sure we have the best rugby team (the All Blacks) and beauty that is hard to find anywhere else in the world, but other than that and the recent Lord of the Rings and Narnia, how else is New Zealand going to get recognised in the world?

We have found that many Kiwis and organisations in New Zealand have taken it upon themselves to beat world records and make it in the Guinness Book of World Records. Now, you might think this sounds typical, but we find the records that kiwis are trying to beat are so funny.

Last month there was a "Largest Mattress Domino Competition" where people were to bring out their mattresses and stand them in a line like a domino chain. Also last month was an attempt to have the "Longest Line Dance"- we had intentions to go to this but it was rainy and cold that day! Everyone in Christchurch was invited to a local park where we would learn dance moves and then perform them in a line to create the record.

This morning however, even though cold and rainy, the four of us on staff decided to be a part of a new world record. Today, in Christchurch, New Zealand the world record was set for the largest scrambled egg ever! McDonalds set up a tent in Cathedral square and scrambled up thousands of eggs and then gave away free breakfast to anyone who showed up. We have staff meetings on Tuesday mornings so we met early to go down to the city to be a part of this momentous occasion...and to get free breakfast.

Enjoy the pictures below of our experience:

Disgustingly large amount of scrambled eggs, I am glad I am not still in my first trimester or I would have had to leave.

Yes, this is a normal sized garden rake, they also had huge snow shovels to scoop the eggs.

As you can imagine, Joe was definitely lovin' it. The rest of us were quite disgusted by the eggs, Joe may have had seconds...and finished mine...and didn't find anything gross about the massive amounts of eggs! Also, notice the winter coats in the picture. Today is officially the first day of summer in New Zealand, based on today's weather, it's not looking promising!

What's a McDonald's party without Ronald?