April 5 - 13

Ugh…this week was exhausting. After church on Sunday Ken decided he wanted to go backpacking in Otaki. So we packed up our bags and hiked up a three hour uphill mountain! When I thought I could go no further, a most beautiful sight appeared: the hut! It was sunset as we set up camp and warmed up our canned spaghetti. Monday morning we woke up and decided to take a hike up to Table Top – wow, was it worth it! We were on top of the mountain ranges, watching the clouds fly by us (it was storming) and was very spectacular. Then we packed up our gear and trekked back down the mountain…only to realize at the base we had left our pocket knife and head lamp back at the hut! We decided to leave a note with the caretaker and drove back home. Two days later – we got a phone call that someone found our stuff, read our note, and left both items with the caretaker! Yes! So we’ll be going back on Monday to pick it up. After that journey (our first official backpacking journey in New Zealand) we got back to work. Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with a million meetings for Ken and a lot of prep for national youth camp for myself.

At the bottom of the hike

Pepper got nice and dirty

The most glorious site!

Views from Table Top

On top of the world!

The hike back down

One last shot of our hut

Ken found out some sad news about the BCNZ this week...the Palmerston North campus will be closing it's doors in the fall 2009! But on a happier note, all the students told him how much they love his class and even some of the other faculty are impressed with his class!

We're finally getting things running at Trinity again. In January, their kitchen was burned down and therefore we didn't not have the live music evening service. In February, none of us were around for that service and then in March, Trinity joined St. Luke's in the evening for the movie night to see End of the Spear. SO, 13 April is the first live worship service at Trinity! It was awesome to meet with the team after three months off and play together again - we actually felt like we hadn't taken such a long time off, because we all jivved really well together!

Ken had a busy Saturday morning - Shedmen, the men's ministry for the Manawatu Parish, was held at our flat. That meant at 7:30am 15 men were coming over for breakfast and devotions! Ken was a sweetie and let me sleep in, taking care of cooking the hash browns and sausages for them all.

Our Shed

Anyone up for bangers and mash?

Last but least, Ken and I received some interesting news this week...the Themba Foundation contacted us and asked for our CVs. They will be having a management meeting on 18 May to discuss our CVs, however, the director of the program told us that she is sure the board will be as excited as she is to welcome us to the Themba project next year! Wow, so we'll know more next month, but it seems that if this is where the Lord wants us next, that doors are beginning to open! Please continue to keep this in your prayers.

"But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience." Romans 5:25