New Contact Info

Our New Zealand Address is: 

Joe and Amy Flammer 

7 Fleur Lane 

Burwood, Christchurch 8083

 New Zealand 

Also, please remember that we have a new forwarding agent as of the first of May. Our forwarding agent is responsible for most of our Stateside matters, including finances. The address for our new forwarding agent is: 

South Pacific Christian Fellowship 

c/o Mindy Bennett 

6 Natick Circle 

Rochester, IL 62563

Love

The other day while reading 1 Peter in the Bible I ran across a verse that stuck out to me in a new way. The verse is 1 Peter 1:22:

You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.

Love each other deeply with all of your heart. Other translations say "love each other deeply and earnestly" and "love as if your life depends on it." These words are powerful and they kept coming back to me throughout the day. I really started to think about this idea of loving others if my life depends on it and loving others so deeply and earnestly. 

Yes, we are in Christchurch to start a new church, but how do we do this. For me, this verse sums it up. How do you start a church from nothing? How do you get people interested in a God that can change their lives? The answer to me can be found in 1 Peter 1:22- loving the people of Christchurch as if my life depends on it! Sounds easy enough, but what does that mean? 

What does that mean when I am frustrated that our house isn't in great condition when we moved in? 

What does that mean about how I act towards our landlord or the people that have been in our home getting it together? 

What does it mean to the lady behind the desk I see at the library? 

What does it mean to the person I am running next to at the gym?

What does that mean when I interact with our team?

How does it look when I interact with Joe?

What does it mean to our new neighbors?

I must ask, how can we show everyone we come in contact with the love of Christ? Maybe it is performing every action and even going out of our way to love people as if my life depends on it. Hopefully with this pure love, the people we interact with begin to see the hope that we have in Christ. 

After all, we love each other because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

Fresh and Fabulous in Fleur Lane

Okay, so it's a little cheesey, but that's the line that caught our attention. We spent what felt like a long time looking for a house. Really it was only two days, but after going through house after house that we weren't excited about it was wonderful to walk through a house that we loved! 

We were hopeful about the pictures that we had seen but didn't want to get our hopes up too much until we could walk through the house. Sure enough, the house on Fleur Lane is exactly what we were looking for. We are excited to move in next week and for our belongings to arrive from Auckland shortly after that. 

Our teammates begin arriving this week. We have joined the library and the gym. We found a grocery store near our house. Life in Christchurch has begun! 

We are Here!!

We have arrived in Christchurch! It was great to be in Auckland and catch up with some friends when we got back. It also feels great to have that LONG journey from Auckland to Christchurch behind us. 

Now we are in Christchurch and looking for a place to live. We are excited for our team to join us in the next couple of weeks. We will spend the next few weeks looking for a place to live and becoming more familiar with this new city that we now call home! 

We will keep you posted as we make progress, though posts may not be frequent until we are settled as we do not have regular internet access.  We'd love your prayers as we begin life in Christchurch! 

See you in Christchurch

Last week we had a chance to meet up with our team in Indianapolis. We have all been so busy while on furlough that we haven't connected much, but had planned these few days for that reason. It was great to have a couple of days to catch up and plan. Nate's parents came along to spend a couple of days with us as well. Nate's parents have a lot of experience in ministry and even in church planting so it was a great opportunity to learn from them and get their advice on different theological and practical issues. 

Aside from the planning and discussion times, it was just great to be together as a team! We are all going separate ways again until we see each other in Christchurch, New Zealand! Joe and I will be the first family back to Christchurch, but Each family will be in Christchurch by the first of May. 

Please continue to pray for our team as our time in the States is coming to an end. We will soon be going back to the other side of the world and starting from scratch again! Please pray for safe travel and for each of us to find housing soon after arriving. 

Blast from the Past

We have had a blast spending the last few days in Rochester, IL where we used to live. We were able to spend time at South Fork, the church where Joe served as the youth minister, and share with them about our time in New Zealand. We were also able to spend time with many people who have a very important place in our lives. 

Here are Bob and Phyllis. These are two very special people who have taken us into their home before we had our own, and always have an open room for us when we come to visit, and always have ice tea and chocolate chips cookies and time for a chat! We were able to stay with them while in Rochester and enjoyed every moment.

Spending time with Josh (the minister from South Fork) and his wife and sweet little boy.

Joe speaking at South Fork.

Our old house! 

Most of our old small group, it was great to catch up.

Now we are back in Bloomington for a few days to catch up. Joe has been fighting a bad cold and hoping to recover before we hit the road again. We will be going to a few different locations in Indiana to meet with churches, friends, and finally our team. We will try to update you when we get back! 

International Focus Event

We have been so blessed by the last couple of days. We were able to be a part of the International Focus Event at Lincoln Christian College this year. the International Focus Event is a two day event that helps raise awareness of missions around the world for the students at Lincoln. For those two days classes are canceled and there are classes, workshops, chapel services, and events for different missionaries/mission organizations to get in touch with the students. 

We were able to teach a class and hang out with some of the students. We had a booth set up to explain more about our ministry in New Zealand and even had some interest for some interns and future teams to come to New Zealand. 

The main speaker for the event was from Australia. Though New Zealand and Australia have many differences, there are quite a few similarities and we enjoyed hearing him tell stories of Australia and chatting with him a bit.