Easter prep

First big assignment was handed in this morning so you will understand why things have been a little quiet on the blog front. Plus Zach had a day off school on Tuesday as he came down with a temperature and headache, short term but added to the business. Chris stayed home and I went and took notes!!!

Ohope was a lovely and significant time away. The marae there is a lovely setting, we used one of my songs (a lot!), enjoyed spending time with our fellow ministers in training and even had some down time. I also found time to write 3 or 4 songs so it really was a productive time! We enjoyed getting to know John Daniels, the new national resource person and he has invited me to sing/use "You O Lord" at his induction on the 14th April. Cool! He is also putting a music resource together for parishes in Otago and Southland so he may use one or two more for that. Very Cool!!!

We are enjoying a quiet Easter at home. It will be funny not to head off to Easter Camp but we are looking forward to decorating eggs and some special cooking treats. Yum.

Katarina danced in a concert today at school which we were able to go and see. I am very proud as it is not easy to get up in front of your peers. The school has been having lots of fundraisers for next week's camp. Katarina organsed a water fight!! She even managed to convince people to pay to take part. She will go a long way...

Zach is back to being fighting fit, enjoying school and all his new friends. Hannah has started to bring home letters and sounds she is learning at Montessori and is also spent several dry nights without a nappy. Big news indeed.

Janine is now rostered on crossing patrol after school and continues to do a fabulous job getting us organised in the morning, including makiing lunches, not only for herself but for Katarina and Zach as well. She is awesome.

Ohope

We’re back, Ohope was fabulous, we have 47 emails to deal with, more later!
Kids are great, grandparents still smiling, all well.

Ohope it will be all right

We are packing tonight for our trip to Ohope. Our plane leaves at 10 so we are hoping to be away from here just before 8:30 as we have a van load of people to take with us to the airport.

Mum and Dad are on their way down to look after the mokopuna while we are away, which we are most grateful for. Monday, the day we come back is Otago anniversary day which some institutions celebrate and others don’t. Hannah has her Montessori school for example but Katarina has the day off and I’m still trying to work out what is happening with Janine and Zach!

I started today early at 6am which enabled me to get a head start on some reading for the week (and next!). Chris tends to work late into the night which I can’t manage! He got his first assignment for his block course in yesterday and I got my first assignment back – an A! which I’m very pleased about obviously.

We’ve been enjoying a lovely spell of fine weather. Warm, but the nights are starting to close in so we appreciated another load of firewood from the School of Ministry blokes (the male students or sons of students that is!). Only four trailorloads more to go, according to the expert locals!

We've been having some trouble with a tyre on the van; had that fixed today, finally and turns out a couple, not one, but several screws were responsible. I think they might have come from the windows we were fixing in Hay St; they were certainly pretty worn.

Otherwise, all is well, the children are pretty much happy and healthy although Katarina is having more fun fun raising for her camp when she really ought to be getting on with some homework! She is also chasing up sponsor's for the 40 hour famine. Thanks heaps for all those wonderful people who are encouraging her with sponsorship.

Wednesday is our community day and we share communion every week. Who would have thought there were so many different ways to celebrate the Lord's Supper. This week we used a sort of Maunday Thursday service which was very sad and poignant, held mostly in silence and finished by extinguising loads of candles, sort of a symbol of the way the light of the world went out when Jesus was cruficfied. Very moving.

The pressure is on!

Chris has written out all the dates of our assignments for the next 3 months! There are 18! That includes 3 sermons, 2 essays and a partidge in a pear tree! I am tempted to panic but I haven't got time.
However, the great thing about studying with a small group of people is that there are plenty of others to get hints from. Yay.

Tonight I met with the "woman's" group; technically it is the 'spouses' group but it was a lot of fun anyway, and it was fun to be able to just walk up the road to a meeting! Haven't been able to do that for a while!

There was an abrupt change in the weather as we were on the way home, we managed to sneak inside just before the heavens opened. This morning we enjoyed mild nor'westers; tonight, well, let's just say we have put the fire on!

I had an interview with Katarina's teacher this afternoon; all is well, they seem to be getting on. Katarina and a friend organised a fund raising water fight by themselves this week, which impressed Miss Glover. There are a couple of things to work on, aren't there always, but KJ is enjoying her school and seems to have a nice group of friends. Cool!

Visitors and visiting

We’ve been enjoying the company of two Belgian tourists we met on the way down to Dunedin who came to stay with us this week. Lots of fun and a chance to share some good conversations about God also. Being a student at the School of Ministry has been opening doors for us in many ways!

God continues to bless us. We had a lovely night away in Oamaru with my mum and dad and enjoyed Abby’s dedication in Timaru followed by a neat family BBQ time. We are all enjoying the chance to spend time with the McLeod side of the family. I also managed to make a start on recording some family history stories with dad – finally!

We came back laden with produce from Mum’s garden but there was another bonus as another SOM family had been blessed with the offerings from their support churches Harvest Thanksgiving. There was too much for them so they shared it around the 14 families, which has made a difference to the food budget this week.

Today we heard about another lot of “free” firewood i.e. cut it and split it and haul it yourself. But it’s all good! By the time we need it, it should have dried out sufficiently. And it is pine which burns hot and fast…when it’s dry!

Our curtains disappeared last week but have returned this week, in some cases twice as thick! We are certainly feeling warmer and I don’t it is just a placebo effect!

We are looking forward to seeing Dad again on Thursday who is staying before an early start from Dunedin airport tomorrow day trip to Wellington. And we saw Anna twice already this week, once for shopping on Monday night and again this afternoon as we were all heading home from lectures. So, all in all, lots of family stuff this week.

Happenings

We've finished lectures for the week, still with a ton of reading to do but that's OK.

We had pizza for tea last night thanks to the random generosity that arrived in the mail earlier with the week, along with a card from Barbara Carey and Bruce Chapman. Thanks!

Uncle Tim stayed for the last few days and was roped in to help with Zach's class trip, which he sort of enjoyed, I think... Great to see Tim and he got us organised and motivated to go and do a few things like visit Cargills castle, or rather, the ruins thereof, not that it is open to the public as we discovered, - and more succesfully, Tunnel Beach. Fantastic.

Tommorrow we head to Oamaru, and then Timaru on Sunday for Abigail McLeod's dedication; we will both be taking notes and collecting resources for our worship class!

So-no more blogs till Monday.