Queenstown... rocks!

ok so short post cause i am paying for my time here...

i just bought myself a All Blacks top, old style not the ugly new things that are so tight they basically show your internal organs. i am so pleased with it.

Queenstown (where i am right now) is awesome and so picturesque, but i have not been takign that many photos due to my lack of orginisation and time. there are mountains in every direction and an awesome lake, jet boats all over the place spinning round with lots of screaming tourists, and generally cool shops and lots to do. i have not been doing that much because i am here for a rest and a break from non stop work... loving it!!! christmas is fast approaching and i have just finished all my christmas shopping. so all that it leaves to say is merry christmas and a happy new year.

God Bless

Andrew

ch...ch...ch...changing

Hello once again, I am so sorry for the mega long time in between this post and my last one, I feel really bad but now I have lots to tell you about.
Well since I last spoke to you all I have been doing all these different things:
Organising a helping run a Scripture Union Training event
Helping at a new Youth Group in a place called Huntly
Watching the rugby … all the games that were on
Getting into a fight… I will explain

With Warwick, one of the people who I work with, we ran a training weekend at one of the horse camp venues. So for like two weeks running up to it I was basically flat out trying to sort out programmes, menus, songs… all that kind of stuff but it was all really good fun. So the weekend was the one just past I think and I am still pretty tired after it all, just trying to take it a bit easier now but it is hard when I enjoy the work so much I just want to be doing something all the time.
Like 2 or 3 weeks ago, Judy and I went along to the youth group in Huntly, which is like 30min from Hamilton. It was pretty awesome there and they were really welcoming and cool. Huntly is not the nicest place to live, there is a lot of gang stuff that goes on and the youth there basically roam the streets at night and be “bad” but they are really just miss guided. So on a Wednesday night one of the churches runs a fun sort of youth group with a short message and stuff. It is pretty awesome and I heard the phrase “the gospel is caught not taught”. I was thinking how right that was, sure it is good to get some decent teaching on the gospel and how it works but the gospel message should be displayed in our lives. So they asked me along to be a regular leader which I was stoked about and go along ever week now. I also heard the phrase there (which is used quite a lot when talking about Huntly) “oh don’t fall in, it’s a bit of a hole”, I laughed.
Ok so we all know New Zealand have been tearing through west Europe and destroying any team they want and I have been forced (I am actually quite happy to) to watch all these matches. This means sometimes getting up at like 5am to see a match before people start work or school and cheer on the All Blacks. Then the other day when we were watching the league final between NZ and Auzzies there was an advert for Scotland Versus Australia in union. Some friends and I watched that and we all supported Scotland and I was so chuffed we scored first but pretty sad we lost. Aw well I was glad they supported Scotland.
Lastly in my list was that last Thursday night I was renting a video so I could just chill and relax before the training weekend and went to the local mall called Chartwell. On the way in there were some people shouting at each other and I just skirted round them with out looking at them, I got my money from the machine and then on my way out two Maori guys grabbed this white guy and threw him to the floor and started kicking him really hard, like in the face and stuff. The security guard came out and tried to tackle one of the guys but he kind of bounced off so I thought I better do something being the only other guy around. I said something really stupid like “oh please don’t do that, you might hurt him” and then got punched in the face (it really hurt and still does) and then that guy went back to kicking the guy, so I did the only thing I could, I rugby tackled him (being in NZ you think that he could take a tackle) turns out he wasn’t ready and went flying, same time the security guard had got up and had tackled the other guy properly this time and fight was over, white guy ran away and Maori guys ran after, police were called and security guard thanked me and I went and rented ‘she’s the man’ and we watched it and laughed.

Anyway I better get on this other things so I will update the Blog soon

God Bless
Andrew

Couch steal

Ok people of the world, new information on the inner workings of the youth group I am part of – chapel hill, radiator youth.

So the youth group I help out at and am part of is awesome and has some really awesome people at it. it has about 20 regular attendees and 30 on a Saturday night. It runs a bible study type thing on a Sunday night instead of an evening service and it has Saturday night fun activity. Sunday also includes dinner, which is awesome. The Saturday just past I ran a Scottish night with highland games and haggis and irn-bru!!! We tossed the cabers, had a strong man event and even a battle or Culloden but the week before that we did something more fun than being Scottish… almost.
So basically the activity couch steal is about a team of people, like 5 or 6, getting a couch from one point to another by carrying it. Sounds easy, well then there are ‘spotters’ in cars and on bikes going around the area and if they see you with your couch and you are not sitting on it then they take one of your 10 lives away. Oh but there’s more, the distance we took ours was like 3km and we had a 4 person couch and 6 of us with 4 girls 2 guys. Furthermore (nice conjunction word) on the way back to the point (the church) we had to collect or buy stuff with the money we had paid at the start, which included; supper for the team, something with the Waikato colours on it (red, black and yellow – McDonalds box), a rugby shirt or ball (I was wearing my Scotland top), a pair of baby socks or gloves, a can of food for an offering, a raw egg… and so on. Each team got points for each item retrieved and points for being first or second or third back. All in all it was awesome fun and we basically had a ball carrying a couch around for 2 hours. Anyway now I must go and do some real work as much as I would like to say this is work it is not. So good day to you all.

God bless
Andrew

Busy week at the top

Hello, long time no Blog and for that I am truly sorry. I do have a good reason though.
Ok so last weekend (started on Friday the 20th) I went on a camp with a church in Hamilton (not the church I regularly attend). The camp was called “Fuel” and was for kids aged 13 – 15. It was a cool camp for many reasons; it was in a big field (or paddock) in tents, it was not too bad weather the whole weekend, we had some awesome talks and devotions and I got the chance to teach everyone the Scottish national anthem. I was asked to do a devotion on Job which was really cool because I had just finished reading it so had all these little notes about it, its cool how God works like that. I was pretty nervous though because the church we went with is called “the reformed church” so they are pretty old school and do very well pick hymns with very theological words even if there is a chord change every second beat. They have like this old school teaching style that I had heard about that was like uber theological and deep so I was really worried I would say something that was totally contradictory to what they believe. So in the end the camp was awesome, we did lots of stupid games and sang lots of stupid songs and lots of things like that. It was all really tiring and I was looking forward to my own bed but alas not to be.
So we all drove home from camp to the place we left off in Hamilton then immediately I had to be dropped off home and have a shower (muddy boy I was) so spent about 30 minuets in my house then drove to Auckland, so like an hour and a half to pick up the new intern and then drove another hour to go on another camp thing. I don’t know if I have ever been so tired in my life. This other camp was really a meeting for the directors of Scripture Unions of the pacific region (long title I know but it is the guys who run SU around the pacific). What was I doing there you might ask …?
I was a human dishwasher … hooray. It was actually pretty good fun. 3 times a day I washed or dried lots of dishes of the important people so that they could go and have important talks and discussions. So from Monday to Friday that was my life. But as well as dish washing I got to talk with lots of the SU people about the bible and stuff. It was awesome fun and many late nights talking to people about the different issues a Christian will face in life.
So on Friday when we had cleaned up and sorted everything out I was ready to die of exhaustion but still had to drive back to Auckland and I decided to visit the bible college there because I know some people there. That was cool but then I drove back to Hamilton ready to drop but alas I had a prayer meeting (that is a good thing but it had to be open eye prayer or I may have fallen asleep). Then I finally got home about 12:30am!!!! To go to bed and sleep. I slept till like 10 and got up and did all the stuff I needed to do.
Anyway this has been a long rambling Blog but you guys haven’t heard from me in ages.
God bless
Andrew

P.S. I will write in the next couple of days about the youth group activity of “couch steal”

WOOO HOOO come on the Moobells!!

OK I will explain that out burst so that you guys don't think I am crazy....
I went to my first big rugby game on Saturday, which was Waikato chiefs versus Otago (I don't know their nick name thing). It was part of the air new Zealand cup and it was the semi final. In case you were wondering I very much support the chiefs not just by force but because they are the coolest team. The game was awesome and like mega pro rugby and huge tackles, I was like on the edge of my seat the whole time. The game was awesome as I said but the support was much cooler, I found out above the entrance to the stadium it says, "this is where we worship". It really was like these people in the stands were like worshiping while supporting; they were uber passionate and getting into the game so much. The best part of the whole support thing was the fact everyone had cowbells (everyone) because the team mascot is a cow and little children come out before the match all dressed as cows (you can tell it is dairy farming country) they are called the moobells. At almost every point in the game there is a cow bell ringing, but the best parts was when the other team (Otago) had line outs, because the whole stadium just erupted into mega loud cowbell ringing so that the hooker could not here the calls and had to go forward and get them shouted at him... everyone laughed at him, but I felt kinda bad cause it happed every time. The other point of note about the game was there was this guy on a cherry picker parked just outside the stands that I found out to be the local lumberjack, and he is like a legend. He just screams and shouts from the cherry picker and revs up a chainsaw to get the crowd fired up, it was really cool. We had a moments silence at the start for someone but about 10 seconds in he starts revving up the chainsaw and screaming "come on the moobells!!" just to let you all know the final score was 15 - 44 to the chiefs so it is a home final that I am not going to be around for because I am on camp for that weekend. I am devastated... oh well the camp should be fun
God Bless
Andrew

ok ...... go!

right so i am a saddo but i love it ...... you tube rocks!!!
so i had been finding cool videos on itone night for my friend sam who is a teacher and came accross some cool ones but i saw the best music video ever made. try this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxeQN2GWAzw
it is this band called OK GO and they rock. but beyond that video and by far the funniest thing i have ever witnessed is the Look Around You serise on you tube. seriously i beg you to watch it. try music on first which is this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYfBTXiurDs
the forbiden notes bit is hillarious, try maths after that, then whatever you want.
new Zealand is sweet as and i am starting to sound new Zealandy, i say "real" a lot and sometimes go up at the end of sentances even if it is not a question.
i just droped claire Mckinlay off at the bus station in hamilton to get on the "magic bus" to go off on her travels but for now i must go to school (so i can teach bible)

God Bless
Andrew

A Good Mid Term

Hello,
Ok so turns out that the terms are different over here (if you did not know that now you do) where they start the school year at the end of the Christmas holidays, which happen to also be the summer holidays (please tell me if that does not sound weird to you). So that means we are now in the 4th term of the school year and have just had the break between 3rd and 4th terms (mid term). In those 2 weeks I spent a week on a Scripture Union Camp but I already told you about that so that’s cool but also half a week with Andy Banks, who is the SU Schools director I think… not too sure.
Andy works in Auckland (the big city north of Hamilton) in the Scripture Union Offices. For the time I was there we basically chatted through all the administration stuff and talked a lot about SU camps. It was pretty cool because he’s from England and had a really funny sense of humor that could only be British. We watched Peter Kay and did some things around Auckland. We went up this hill called “one tree hill” but the ‘one tree’ was chopped down by some activist so now it is really “the hill formally know as: one tree hill”. From the top we got an awesome view of Auckland, it is massive, like mega huge. It just sprawls out as far as the eye can see, but it only has like a handful of skyscrapers in the center of town, with the sky tower in the middle.
Apart from that I really did not do too much for the first part of the second week. I did go to the warehouse, which is like a massive shop that is a bit like Argos (it has everything) but bigger and without the annoying ordering system. So I bought some shorts there. Now I am just getting back into he way of life when the schools are back. Hope everyone is well back home.

God Bless
Andrew

P.S someone asked how different the churches are here, well they are pretty similar but there are loads of churches about that have really lively worship. Really, really lively worship and not too much real teaching.

Another week of Extraordinary life

Hello people time for another update (yey)
Ok so I have been away from my home stay of Hamilton while I was on my first New Zealand Scripture Union camp at a place called Karapiro but I was staying in a lodge type thing called the ABS lodge (adventure bible school) where people connected with the Capenwray hall back in England (there is also one over here) have started doing a more adventure outdoors approach to learning about the bible in a 6 week course. They run 3 every year and they sound pretty intense. The site of the lodge was amazing, it was right on a lake and it had big areas of grass and nice decking … it really was amazing. also we had the nicest weather ever, like real sunny and warm so it was shorts all week. So from the 24th to the 29th of September I was there helping out with a SU camp. It was really different to SU camps in Scotland, much smaller and more activities. We went on lots of ‘tramps’ which are walks or treks through the ‘bush’ which is like dense forest and stuff. We also did quite a bit of kayaking and some ‘biscuiting’, which is like ringos, or rubber rings pulled behind a boat that you sit in … wow I feel like I am speaking a foreign language. All these things were really god fun but quite intense. We had only 17 campers on the camp with 5 leaders. It was nice to have such a good camper leader ratio so in that sense that camp was really good but I still think I prefer a bigger camp. Since the camp I have been completely wiped out but thankfully I am still on holiday for a week but I go to Auckland on Wednesday for a while to meet Andy Banks who is the SU Director of Schools (official or what!) so I am excited about that. If you guys want you can send me emails and ask specific things about life in NZ. But for now I better get going.
God Bless
Andrew

P.S. the time difference is exactly 12 hours ahead now so you can just reverse the a.m. to a p.m. or vice versa and get what time I am at.

Long time .... Ago (i wrote)

Hello fine people (I know you are all fine because you a reading my post .... modesty has never been my strong point)
Ok it has been ages since I last wrote to you all and told you guys what I have been doing, like by ages I mean I have not written since I have been in New Zealand which is kinda the point of the Blog but now the purpose shall be fulfilled! So here is the quick run down of what has happened since I have been here then I will metion the parts that I enjoyed or thought was the coolest.
I arrived early in the morning (5:30ish) at Auckland airport after two 12-hour flights and a 7-hour wait the phrase tired didn’t quite describe what I was feeling. I stayed in Auckland for half a day but only really slept and played guitar then was picked up by the people I would be staying with, Chris and Judy Bennet. Judy is really my boss but she does not see it that way … it is more like slave, jokingly of course but we do have a pretty hectic week which is one of the reasons I have not had a chance to write to you lovely people (from fine to lovely, you guys are moving up in the world). I had the church youth group to go to that night where I could not have been any more interesting than a rock because I could barely string the two syllables of my name together I was SOOOOO TIRED! Then I had a day of loafing about on Monday, similar on Tuesday but then I went to a farm to get “accustomed” into kiwi life. Farms are fun, I will explain in a minuet. So spent up until Saturday on the farm then went to youth group thing on Saturday (it was a sing star social) so got to know people when I did not feel I was unable to stay vertical for longer than a minuet. Sunday I got to go to church at Chapel hill church and I enjoyed that, then the youth group that evening which is like bible class but not over a service because there is no evening service because everyone are farmers and need to milk cows. I then spent a week at the Bennets living out a pretty ordinary work week and got the car I will be driving that week too (check out the model http://img.drive.com.au/drive_images/CasualAds_images/1611823__m.jpg
Apart from in gold and with no left wing mirror). That Saturday I met up with Warwick who is the other SU worker in the Waikato (area of New Zealand that Hamilton is in) and met the youth group he works in and we all played Laser Strike/quest/tag whatever you call it. Then I stayed with Warwick for a while and then came back to Judy’s, who lives just outside Hamilton, for a couple of days then I moved into the house I will be staying in for the rest of my time here. They are a family called the Perry’s and they are really nice, so now I have my own little room and my own desk and even my own white board. So that was yesterday and todays today, I am sitting in the main sanctuary of the church using the computer to write this because 52kbps just does not handle blogger properly.
So after that long rant of what has happened here are the best bits.

The farm
It was awesome, I arrived to a massive feast of a tea with lots of meat and stuff that makes happy. The next morning I got up late because I was still adjusting I went down to the farm and saw what was going on, but I did not do much that day, just really sat about and watched TV to try and recover from Jet Lag. The next day I got right into it all, I was helping feed the calves which was cool and then we had breakfast because farmers get up early and then have breakfast at like 9. Then went back along to the farm and helped to catch so calves. There was 8 the day but I only caught 2. then we just did stuff about the farm like feeding the cows, opening gates …. Shutting gates, avoiding electric fences (a New Zealand invention I have to add because any time I said anything about electric fences someone would go “that’s a kiwi thing you know!”) then the best part of the whole week was learning to ride a motor bike, and not one of these rubbish 50cc things like a big dirt bike. It was awesome rounding up cattle with a dirt bike. I did also crash it into an electric fence but no one saw and I did not fall over so all’s fine. So that was the farm, and here is a picture of a couple of calves.

RUGBY
I am surprised when you enter New Zealand instead of like customs and stuff they don’t have like a big tackle bag and some guys with pads that you have to drive your way past. NZ is rugby mad, and I am serious. Everything is about rugby. The chiefs (waikato’s rugby team and one of the better ones in the league) rugby shirt colours are yellow black and red. I have never seen a city with so many thin yellow black and red. Canopies, fences, buildings, people, there is seriously no end to the support of the teams here. I love it. The tri nations finished just the other day with south Africa beating Australia, but the all blacks won over all because they won all their games minus one.

So yeah that is my NZ life so far, sorry it has been so long but now I have more of a routine I think I will be writing most weeks about this time but we shall see.

God Bless

Andrew

Social and stressful!

Hello again, it is now only 2 days until I start travelling to New Zealand and I am well excited. Although I managed to like forget my PIN number to my bank account but the less said about that the better. Over the past few days I have been doing 2 main things, organising going away and socialising.
I have had to do quite a lot of shopping because I need new clothes and some other stuff and one of the other things I needed was a new small suitcase (the whole terrorism thing is annoying) and I have never known anything to be so complicated: wheels or not, straps or not, hard or soft, handle or strap… the list was endless of things they had on them. But what was more the price of them in Jenners anyway was ridiculous!!! Tiny little bags that I am sure would only be good for like a lunch box were about £150, we promptly left after finding out the price range.
On the socialising front I have just been trying to see most people before I go so I can say proper good byes. I went to the pub quiz on Sunday but alas we lost because of a stupid movies round … who does know the 3 mad max films names? So for like the 6th week running I have not won, I am starting to think it’s something to do with me.
For now I think that’s all I have time for but hope that you’re all well.

God Bless
Andrew

A new Beginning...

Hello one and all, this is the first Blog to my new Blog page and it is the beginning of a brand new adventure to New Zealand. In actual fact I am not there yet but this is the warm up Blog to let you all know how this is going to work. Whenever I get the chance or after something super cool has happened I will write to this Blog and tell of the excitingness that has happened. Please feel free to leave comments and questions about what I am doing because it will be easier if I tell everyone what I am doing not just sending lots of emails saying the same things.
For the moment I will tell you guys what I will be doing when I get to New Zealand (NZ for short) - I will be working with Scripture Union in Hamilton, which is just below Auckland in the picture, on the north island. I think it is the 4th biggest city in NZ and it sounds like I will fit right in there. I will be staying with a family for the year and working in many different areas. I will do work in different schools during the week with SU groups in the schools, helping and supporting the time they have. I will also be helping with the youth group at a church and when the schools are off there are SU camps running that I will be involved in. My week is pretty much set out for me because each school obviously has a time already set for their SU group to run and the church has youth event times sorted out too. One of the things I am most excited about my time in NZ is collaborating a music book for SU to use so that it is easier for them to get songs sorted out for the camps and such events (so any suggestions would be welcomed).
But for now I think that is really all I have to tell you guys. I travel to London on Thursday the 17th of august, which is like in 5 days, and then leave for New Zealand on the 18th.

God Bless
Andrew