6 days later

Our world has changed again.

We are blessed. Our family in Christchurch are safe, and not badly affected.

Here in Timaru, we felt the earthquake. I was about to conduct final funeral prayers for a family at the crematorium. But there was no way of knowing at that moment how severely Christchurch was affected.

I came home to find the internet full of the unfolding drama, and our upstairs office is a most interesting place to be for aftershocks.

Chris' parents were due to fly into Christchurch the following day, and while the airport was closed for checks on Tuesday, they were able to complete their journey, although it took some time and effort to find a rental car. They arrived safely Wednesday night, and we enjoyed having them here for a few days until they continued their journey south, stopping at my parents' home in Oamaru for the weekend and heading off at 9:30 this morning.

Already the children have extras in their classrooms, as Christchurch people plan to be away for months. Many are saying they will never return.

Many in our parish have friends and family in Christchurch. Their houses are full, often with grandchildren. Many are also changing plans to relocate to Christchurch to be nearer family. Others have lost family members or friends.

Some were in Christchurch at the time, and are working through the impact. One lost two workers and a volunteer, and had another member of staff injured as they were working inside a church that collapsed. There will be funerals this week.

We welcomed many visitors on Sunday, a difficult service to plan as we need to remain positive and hopeful for the children, and yet deal realistically with the variety of responses in our parish. People want to help, and yet we must be mindful that we are in this for the long haul. Short term knee jerk responses can be exhausting, and we need to find sustainable ways of being God's hands and feet in the months and years to come.

And the days roll by

Katarina is learning to drive, mostly with me and a little with dad. She has settled back into the school routine without any dramas apart from getting the Year 13 braid sewn onto her blazer - a costly exercise, bah humbug.
Janine is quietly bringing friends to youth group on Wednesday and getting stuck into work at school.
Zach is busy with futsal and music. He is head technician at school.
Hannah has taken to walking her bike home as she keeps two other friends company on the way home from school. The classes this year don't include any of her friends so there is a lot to catch up on. The teachers obviously felt she was spending too much time in class talking to her friends... but she still manages to do all the work.

Back to the usual

Music starts again this week, and there is a bit of reshuffling with routines and so on, but it will all work out fine in the end.
Katarina is enjoying her last year of school, apart from the study.
Janine was the only year 12 to go up on stage last week for school officers - she is the deputy student librarian. (She is also vice president for Interact (junior Rotary) and will be president next year).
Zach is flat out with soccer academy Monday, fitness on Tuesday, futsal on Wednesday, piano on Friday and futsal reps on Sunday afternoon. We are trying to find time and a teacher for clarinet. And he still finds time for computer games!
Hannah is just as busy. Although she has no rep commitments, she also does the soccer academy, and then there is Girls' Brigade on Tuesday, orchestra, futsal and recorder ensemble on Wednesday and piano on Friday.
Over-programed? Well, I've said no to dancing...

And we're back!

We've just started the second week of the school term - and guess what! We've been busy! It was a much less stressful start in that we didn't have to change school uniforms, and everyone knew where they were going. This is our last year with all four children at school. I don't know what Katarina will be doing next year, but it won't be school!
Futsal, rep soccer practice, and music all start this week. Youth group started too.
We nearly melted yesterday in the 40 degree heat. I had three services, two to take and one induction to attend. Fortunately the afternoon venues were fairly cool.
The poor garden suffered yesterday with lots of wilted plants - they just couldn't keep up with the transpiration rates and shut down in protest. As I write this it is raining steadily and heavily, so quite a contrast for us over the last three days.