This past week was very busy, playing catch up after our Auckland adventure. Thank you for your prayers as we worked a lot, yet weren't overly stressed.
Tuesday and Wednesday morning I was at Massey University playing the patient for nursing students taking their final exams. It was an interesting experience, but I was able to meet quite a few people from around New Zealand (they traveled to Massey for their final), and share a lot about my faith and work at the church since faith/work questions were part of their medical history forms. Tuesday night was guitar class and now that Ken's teaching me the chords, I was able to re-teach them to the students who came. It was really fun! Although my fingers hurt. And Wednesday night was the new praise team's final practice before Sunday worship! Thursday I spent the morning learning the ropes at Trade Aid where I am volunteering, and had fun meeting new people (one of whom is interested in the free guitar classes running out of the church, so long as she doesn't have to come to church - that's cool!) Then I spent the rest of Thursday and Friday working on music for various praise teams, writing the new Bass Line newsletter, and updating the bulletin board with November's music news.
Ken had a great week spending time with people from the congregation, getting know them better over a cuppa. He also was asked to preach on November 18th on "signs of the end time" - he spent a lot of time researching and preparing for this! Another exciting opportunity has been presented to him as well: teaching one hour a week at the Bible College of New Zealand in Palmerston North! We are praying about it and he will meet with the dean to discuss his qualifications sometime soon. Otherwise, he's been busy working with the children's minstiry team discussing how to include the kids more in worship. Right now, children meet for 20-30 minutes during the church service sermon for a type of "sunday school." However in 2008 the children will meet before the service, that way the kids can stay for the whole service since they are part of the church as well. Ken is also brainstorming ways to create an adult education system since as of right now, there are no adult Bible studies running. Finally, Friday night was the kick-off of the latest Bible study series for the youth: Signs. He is going through Jesus' miracles in John for the next four weeks. The kids really got into it, esepcially since it was one of the studies they requested for (earlier this year Ken did a survey asking what they would be interested in studying).
Saturday we had a blast going to the A&P show (much like our State Fair). We enjoyed seeing all the animals, watching the pig races (Lawrence colored his piglets blue and green!), lumber jack shows, and even a hypnotism show! But it seemed fake, especially since the hypnotist would say "1-2-3 waki waki" to get people out of their trance...hmmm. However, we had some great sandwiches made from "wild" meat, and ran into a lot of people from the church! It's really quite fun living in a farming community...
Enjoying some sun in an awesome carved chair!
English riding skills
Now that's a tractor!
See?! Wild food!
There were lotsandlotsa llamas!
Feeding the llamas
Harry Mclarry!
This little calf kept moo-ing every time I stopped rubbing him!
Lawrence's little piggies!
Lumber Jacks
And what's a fair without the clown on stilts?
Saturday we had another practice with the team from Trinity - we are planning on creating a "living room" feel for the Novemeber 11th service. We will start with a short video clip and discuss it, much like you would do in a living room with your family at the tv. The service will also include various parts for kids to be involved since we are trying to create an outreach service for families. We're excited to see how it takes shape!
Sunday the new praise team sounded great! It was so cool to see how God took all our hard work and made it to His glory - so many people in the congregation told us how great it was to see some of the boys playing instruments (especially since these boys usually don't come to church because their dads highly discourage them). It was a blessing to everyone.
And Ken led his first youth-leader team meeting Sunday afternoon and had a great show of about five leaders! There are three others who are "on the fence" thinking about being part of the team. It was a great training session on how to be a small group leader for teens and different ways to handle situations. It will be great for these leaders to plug in starting in the new year - they will each take four weeks at a time so that there is continuity in the small groups so that the youth can really get to know their leaders, trust them with life issues, and grow in their faith walk.
And final conflict was healed between some music members and myself. Thank you for your prayers about that situation as we worked through the issues/pain we've had. It's nice to finally feel open and free to smile genuinely together again!
So, it's a new month and God is promising good things already! Proverbs 16:4a comes to mind: "The Lord has made everything for its purpose..." How good it is to relax in this, knowing that no matter what we run into or where we find ourselves, that God is in control!
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