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.