Wednesday morning started out weird - the car wouldn't start again! This time it wasn't the battery, but some other connecting part that needed to be fixed. So Ken got a ride out to Feilding with Pastor Rob for Blast. He led songtime alone since I had a music meeting for the conference in October I'm co-planning. The meeting was awesome - it was at Guy Jansen's home and Pauline, Mark W and myself met with him to get the logistics of the conference on paper. It's not until late October, but we still have a lot of publicizing to do. It feels great to have the whole schedule down though. The title for the conference will be Segue: The Rhythm of Worship. Guy Jansen will be speaking on why we worship, and there will be various break-out sessions on worship leading, bands, choral readings, organ techniques, etc. It is going to be so great, especially for the Lutherans of New Zealand, most of whom are leading their congregations (since we are so short on pastors) but have no formal training. This will be a great weekend to learn more about worship, planning and leading in services. Please keep this in your prayers that the Lutheran lay leaders in NZ churches will come to this conference!
Thurs and Friday Ken and I both led music at Blast as well as helped with crafts and storytime. Friday we had 17 kids show up! Wow, what an awesome blessing! It was a lot of fun, although Ken caught a cold and was feeling a bit under the weather again!
Friday night we had a "fun nite" for the youth, playing mini golf from 6-8pm. Mini golf down here is way different than in the states...imagine a mini golf range and that's the mini golf of NZ! Reminded me more of a pool and outdoor store than a game, but we had a great time, so that's all that matters, right? It was neat to see some of the youth from Feilding come out to join us as well!
My toe was itching really bad
The youth playing mini golf
Saturday we had a fun day relaxing with the dog - took her to her favorite store (the pet store) for some treats and a nice long walk at the park where we got soaked! The rains came fast and unexpectedly!
When we were walking around town, we found this new sign: no hats, hoods, helmets, sunglasses...This is starting to get ridiculous! Ken had to take off his hoodie to get inside!
Sunday night was the Trinity pm service - we geared it around Blast and had lots of songs and readings from the holiday program. Although, I wrote a horrible blooper...for Away in the Manger I typed..."bless all the dead children in thy tender care"!!! During practice we laughed so hard. Luckly the team was able to fix the bulletins with little stickers going over the "d" and writing in an "r" - phew!
By Sunday night Ken was finally feeling 100% better! Maybe that walk in the rain on Saturday cleansed his system! :)
Monday we learned some BIG news...it looks like our next stop is South Africa! Themba got back to me saying that they've already began planning for us next year and have our rooms scheduled and everything! Turns out the meeting they were supposed to have in May was postponed to next week in July, but it will only be formalities - they can't wait to see us next year! We don't all the details yet, but if you want to learn more about the organization and where we'll be living, check out some of these websites! Wow - we are sooooooo excited! Watch this spot for more details as we learn them!
The best one to check out to learn more about the team that runs the schools is http://thembatrust.net/ (check out the "photo album")
http://www.thembatrust.co.za/
http://www.lcms.org/ca/worldrelief/themba/detail.asp?pg=ThembaTrust (check out the "gallery" and watch the vidoe on Reinhild Neibuhr - she is who we are working with currently. Also the documentary is great to watch too).
http://www.lcms.org/pages/print.asp?print=1&NavID=11740&path=%2Fpages%2Frpage.asp (this is an article the LCMS wrote about Themba)
Also, if you want to see on a map where we will be, the town/village is called Dirkesdorp. It is in the Mpumalanga province and the nearest big city is Johannesburg (which is about 3.5 hours north-west of Dirkesdorp). If you google map it you should be able to find it. :)
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