Wednesday our car broke down AGAIN! It's been breaking down every Wednesday fortnightly...unfortunately, our mechanic doesn't know what's the problem so returned it to us saying next time it breaks down he'll hopefully know what to do! We're planning for that breakdown to be on August 6 (a fortnight from now!) haha...hope not!
Thursday we had lunch with the old administrator, Judith. She is moving to England soon and wanted to catch up with us before she leaves. When she returns, we will be back in the states. Ken had his children's ministry meeting that evening - that team is such a dynamic group! Ken feels like that will be the best thing he leaves behind: a group of dedicated children's minsters who are interested in growing, learning, have a kind heart, and a desire to serve. Getting them together monthly for these communication meetings lead to vibrant growth. Most of the leaders are attending Faith Incubators next week in Auckland as well, which is awesome!
Friday morning was the fortnightly prayer morning for the church. I haven’t been able to make it in the past, so it was nice to be back in prayer for an hour with the Lord and other leaders in the church, praying for things on our hearts, but also for whatever the Spirit directed us to pray about.
Thursday we had lunch with the old administrator, Judith. She is moving to England soon and wanted to catch up with us before she leaves. When she returns, we will be back in the states. Ken had his children's ministry meeting that evening - that team is such a dynamic group! Ken feels like that will be the best thing he leaves behind: a group of dedicated children's minsters who are interested in growing, learning, have a kind heart, and a desire to serve. Getting them together monthly for these communication meetings lead to vibrant growth. Most of the leaders are attending Faith Incubators next week in Auckland as well, which is awesome!
Friday morning was the fortnightly prayer morning for the church. I haven’t been able to make it in the past, so it was nice to be back in prayer for an hour with the Lord and other leaders in the church, praying for things on our hearts, but also for whatever the Spirit directed us to pray about.
Friday night youth went really great - the students were digging into why we read the Bible, it's validity, etc. and one student mentioned he doesn't have a Bible and would like one. Another student asked if Ken would take time during the week to dig deeper into it together! Wow, it is soooo cool to see God move in these kids hearts like that! The youth also decided on a t-shirt design for the youth group, so Ken will be looking into getting the shirts made so the Manawatu have a shirt to sport for their youth.
We both found this week to be a whirlwind as we prepare to leave next week for church workers conference. So we spent Saturday at Starbucks doing quite a bit of extra work (while still enjoying a nice cup of coffee!)
Sunday our team led and we introduced a new song I wrote (Facedown) during communion and it was a great success! Everyone enjoyed hearing and asked who it was by – they would like to learn it as a congregation and another team has volunteered to learn it as well! This is so exciting!
Ken had a confirmation meeting in the afternoon on Sunday as well – please continue to keep the students in your prayers. Some of the students are really blooming in their faith development and desire to learn more, so Ken will be working with the one-on-one during the coming months to do deeper Bible digging. However, there is one student in particular who does not put forth any time or work into confirmation. Ken doesn't want anyone to be forced into the process, since this is a choice that each student should make for themselves. If it's not a priority right now, then maybe they should consider waiting a few more years. However, please keep this one student in your prayers that their disruptive and negative attitude and behaviour would be challenged by the Spirit.
We also decided to buy a new camera - there are huge winter sales going on right now, so we thought we'd use our Christmas funds now for ourselves to get "Fuji" (yes, we've named our new camera!) It's an amazing little thing!
Meet Fuji
A close up of Ken's jeans!
Fuji's text capabilities
Pep in the office with us
Sunday evening we finally decided to cook Ken's duck that he shot and cleaned a few months ago! The duck itself was amazing and Ken was super excited to be able to say he killed, cleaned, and cooked our food! Fuji was able to capture some great shots to!
Ken cooking his duck
Fugi even captures the steam!
Our nice candle-lit duck dinner
Pepper in her new sweater, wishing she could have some duck too (doesn't she have bad seating posture?!)
Monday we packed up, dropped Pepper off at Lois and Roy's home, dropped off a song I wrote about the Manawatu into a competition to win a $1500 keyboard (if I win it, I'd like to bring it to South Africa with me to teach the children piano and leave it there with them), and picked up Cheryl from the airport to head down to Otaki for the church workers conference. Delta Ministries will be training us this week on leadership and team building -should be a great week to catch up with other LCNZ workers, as well as grow more as church leaders through the training.
A storm front moving in near Opiki on our way to Otaki
No comments:
Post a Comment