Wonderful wetness

While it hasn't exactly rained all day every day since the last post, there has been significant precipitation; all but the haymakers and harvesters are happy! Oh, and the Wine and Food Festival who canned their event before it could be washed out. Sunday was reasonably fine as it happens but you never can tell.
Everyone is well at our place. We are hosting a quad tournament student for a couple of days this week, no extra services but lots of extra meetings counting down to the March 7 summit.

Timaru Tidings

It's my day off. It is raining in Timaru, for which gardeners and farmers are grateful, although not dog walkers and mothers taking children to school. We are all fabulous today. Katarina, Janine and I went to the Whirlygig Shakespeare companies production of 12th Night, held at the Caroline Bay soundshell on Saturday. This new company has the ambitious ideal of presenting the bard's plays yearly in a form similiar to what they would've first been performed -outdoors, in the company of friends and family. They made excellent use of the extra room, with various entrances made down the long paths coming into the venue. The highlight of the production was one of those unscripted moments; a toddler was fascinated by the action on stage, and spent much of the performance trying to climb the stairs, but thwarted by her minder. Finally, in the last scene, she succeeded in escaping all care-givers and joined the actors, one of whom simply picked her up, and included her. She led the applause at the end of the play - just delightful!
Youth group met on Friday with 15 emerging from the wood work -cool. They are all of course far too busy to meet every week, but here is a start! Our services went mostly well, apart from a couple of techinical hitches at the start.
The Timaru Herald printed a lovely photo of Chris and I but managed to get a couple of important points wrong; oops!
Zach has had a couple of friends over, which is great, and he is feeling much more settled about life. He also received a certificate at school for sharing his knowledge of Maori with the class, which perhaps says more about the respective levels of expertise of Opoho and Glen-iti schools than it does about Zach's overall knowledge in this area. He has also started piano lessons.
Hannah was "Star of the Day" - she called the roll this morning, and we've hosted the class mascot this weekend and had to write up a short story about what we did in the weekend, not that it was very exciting.
Katarina had a school service last night at St Mary's which led to a discussion on the way home about the differences between Anglicans and Presbyterians. At the end she said - "I'm glad we're Presbyterian!", which is perhaps more indicative of her socialisation than my powers of explanation -but nice to hear, none-the-less. Communion was a bit of a surprise for her too, as they use port, whereas our practice is grape juice.
Janine is delighting in her drama classes at school, really enjoying the regular opportunity to 'perform'!
And Chris is taking it quietly today, but has been up to all hours, sorting stuff for the dog, sorting technical issues for both home and church, and like me, trying to get to grips with a new routine with two churches, and juggle the extra meetings for the March 7 summit, where we will discuss the possibility of the 4 Presbyterian churches in Timaru becoming one parish, with 4 or more congregations.

What month is it again?

The trouble with starting work in the first week of February is that is is a short week here in New Zealand. I won't tell you the trouble we had trying to describe to our Australian colleagues what Waitangi Day is or how they should celebrate it here in South Canterbury (understated). Anyway, we've managed the first week of ministry across two parishes, with three services! Most weeks there will only be two. I think.

We put Chris' parents on the bus to Christchurch this morning; we will miss them, but enjoy the benefits of all their hard work in the garden and all around the place. We visited my mum and dad in Oamaru on Saturday which was a lot of fun, although a late night by the time we drove back. At least it is only an hour's drive.

Zach had his first official piano lesson this week, which I think he enjoyed by the end of the time. The two younger children are enjoying school and enjoying the bike ride to school.

A new start

Sunday 1 February, Chris and I were inducted in the parishes of St Stephen's and Trinity, Timaru. We celebrated with friends and family, while Shadow whined in the background as she was tied up at home, rather than in the centre of things as she prefers! Tracey and Duncan led the contemporary worship at the St Stephen's end which was awesome. A small bus load came up from Mosgiel to wish us well. And the bon mot for the day was John Roxborogh's uncharacteristically brief word. He was invited to share a greeting, and introduced as being responsible for training us, to which he said "Their gifts are all their own - and now they are all yours!" and sat down to a round of applause!
Both Chris' dad and mine read the scriptures, Brian Gilmore preached the word, and Ian Hyslop led the service. Zachary read a book through most of the service, when he wasn't taking photo's. Hannah insisted on sitting by mum. Janine and Katarina were brilliant. After the service, we shared in a light meal at St Stephen's.
Today the children all start their respective schools, Glen-iti, Timaru Girls and Craighead. They all look very smart in their uniforms, and the uniforms all look very smart thanks to lots of work by Chris' mum. I don't know how I would have got them ready on time without her, Annie has really lightened the load.