Day Trip to Auckland

Sounds a bit strange doesn't it? Day trip to Auckland!!! but it is actually quite common here! This year's TSCF Student conference is happening at Willow Park Conference Centre on Eastern Beach in Auckland so I headed up there this morning to do a site visit. I am coming down with a cold and very annoying cough so the prospect of getting up at 6.30 this morning was not an attractive one! It is about 1 hours flight up to Auckland from Wellington. It was a stunning day in Auckland and I was picked up by a collegue and taken via another collegues house to Willow Park. The visit was really helpful in my preperations for conference. We then stopped for lunch at a lovely cafe overlooking Eastern Beach:

I was then whizzed back to the airport ready for my 2.45 flight back to Wellington. Whew what an exhausting day!

Autumn in May!!!!!

So it's coming to the end of May and Autumn is definitely here. It feels very strange to see trees looking like this in May! With the dark cold evenings setting in I keep getting the urge to go Christmas shopping! I find it quite confusing to realise that it would be very early! It got me thinking about how much our brains rely on visual signs to determine where we are and what time of year it is. If there is a bank holiday for instance, it confuses me about what day of the week it is! My friend Lizzy, for the first three years of living here started thinking about her birthday as soon as the weather turned colder beacuse it is in September! I don't think I will ever get used to May meaning cold autumn weather and September meaning Spring! I am really glad I live in a place with clear seasons though even if they are the opposite way round.

Which way is North?

I had an interesting conversation the other day. We were talking about what could be causing the headaches I have been having. Somebody suggested that it was because I was upside down. It was then suggested that maybe I was the right way up. We then had a discussion on the fact that space has no top or bottom. Who says North is up and South is down? Maps were initially drawn by Europeans! I found this very confusing! I still do I think! If there is a scientific reason that suggests that the Northern hemisphere is at the top and the southern is at the bottom then please let me know, I would be very interested to hear. Otherwise it is a good reminder to consider a different perspective! Especially of those in the southern hemisphere constantly being told they are upside down! :o) The conversation did put my brain into a bit of a spin though and that definitely didn't help my headache!

Personal Reflections

(left: me 2005, right: me 2008)
I suddenly realised at church this morning that today is exactly 3 years since my world started to unravel and fall apart! When I say 3 years, it hardly feels like anything and yet so much has happened. I started to reflect on where I was then and where God has brought me to now and the two are miles apart not just in terms of physical distance but spiritually and emotionally aswell! I have such a testimony of God's faithfulness and sovereignty.
While I was thinking about this journy that God has taken me on over the last 3 years I was overwhelmed with such a feeling of God bringing me to this city, to this church, to this work and at this time. I am so sure that I am in the right place for this time and involved in the right things and that is so exciting!!!!
In Romans 8 it says:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

This is my testimony, nothing has or will ever seperate me from the love of God. I'm so excited about what God will do with me here in New Zealand for the time he has brought me here!