Warm and fuzzy feeling

You know, for me the biggest thing to come out of the induction course was the fact that it is all the general managers and CFO and CEO etc that turn up to give their presentations. It would be easy for them to send a minion to present the face of their department but they don't. It does make you feel valued. Also I like the way that there is one course for everyone in the country. Whether you're a tea lady in a factory, a loader driver at a lime works, an account manager or even a market analyst you all meet at head office for one induction course. There aren't streamed inductions depending on your job and perceived 'importance'. It makes a difference.

Semi-inducted (or is it induced?)

I had the first day of my staff induction today. Today we heard from the CEO about the company in general, the General Manager - Sales, Technical Development Manager, GM - HR, GM - Manufacturing and Stores, about the superannuation fund and then went on a tour of the Hornby factory. It was pretty full on but good to hear from a few more departments about what goes on in the rest of the company. And touring the factory was interesting. It wasn't quite as clean as the cocoa processing factories I looked around in Malaysia in March though.

This evening all of us who were being inducted/induced went out to dinner with a couple of people from HR and a couple of other HR staff. It was quite a pleasant evening really. All the other 'new' people were very friendly and it was good to be able to put faces to names for all the new field staff I report on week in week out.

Tomorrow we have the second day where the GM - Marketing (my boss), GM - IT, GM - Supply, Manager of the Customer Services Centre and CFO will all speak to us. It really is a good programme they run. It's a great idea to give new employees this background info. Definitely a good way for them to feel involved in the company right from the start.

A whole new world

It's amazing the things you have to do when you have a house that you don't have to do living in a two-bedroom flat on the fifth floor. Last Sunday I was washing the windows and I've just been watering the lawn. I don't know how people with a house and kids get anything done.

A global lunch

Claire and the rest of her TEAm met us at St John's as planned today and then followed us back to our place for lunch. Hopefully they got a lot out of the sermon today on Genesis 4 and 'the sophistication of sin'. It was so nice to meet them all though, open our home to them and get to hear all about their time in NZ so far (7 weeks down, 3 to go). They are a really lovely group of people from different countries and different backgrounds but united in Christ. It's great to hear how God has encouraged and strengthened them in their time together. Aswell as the others on the programme, Shirley, one of their leaders, joined us too so it was good to hear from her about the idea behind TEA and how it all happens and stuff.

It turns out that one of the guys and Shirley may possible have met Jason back in August at OM's global orientation conference in the Netherlands before he headed off to Chile. Small world, eh?

Gees, it's windy outside. I now know what the three little pigs would have experienced.

I've got a busy week this week. Tomorrow and Tuesday is the staff induction programme where everyone who has joined in the past six months gets to hear from all the general managers about how their teams fit into the big picture. As part of that we're out to dinner tomorrow night. Then on Wednesday I fly up to Auckland before driving south a bit to Pukekohe for Thursday and Friday's Soils 101, Arable 101 and Animal Health 101 courses. I hope Joanne remembers to pick me up from the airport on Friday evening.

Sealed

I know I really shouldn't get as excited as I do about kitchen gadgets and equipment, but I do. Hence my eagerness to attend Amy from our bible study group's tupperware party today. Tupperware can be really rather exciting, you know. All those containers that are just the right size for whatever you need them for. Yes, I know, sad.

Last night Joanne and I had dinner with Cam and Jo from church. Ryan was there too, which was nice. Cam and Jo are the couple who head up the Christianity Explored course at St John's which we're going to be helping with come February. Ryan works at St John's, will be starting on the St John's ministry training programme from January and plays 5-a-side with me on a Thursday. It really is lovely to be able to spend time with people getting to know them better. We were discussing the church parish camp last weekend and how we'd all found listening to the testimonies, listening to how people became a Christian, such a great thing. So we shared our own testimonies after dinner last night. It's amazing how much better you feel you know a person once you hear how God has been working in their life to bring them to know him.

Tomorrow we're going to have a busier day than we had expected. To explain, when we were back in the UK and back at St Helen's we were part of prayer group called KFC that met to prayer for New Zealand. In that group was an English girl called Claire who really felt a call to prayer for NZ and to one day come out here to tell people about Jesus. When we left St Helen's we kind of kept in touch with Claire occasionally and just before we left the UK we heard from her that she was planning on finally getting over here. Actually I think that it was Facebook was caused our paths to cross again. She had signed up for TEA, a ten week discipleship and evangelism training course for young people run by Operation Mobilisation in New Zealand. (TEA - training, evangelism, adventure.) So in October she arrived over here and met up with the other six people on her programme and after much travelling they all arrived in Christchurch today. I'd told Claire to get in touch when she was here as it'd be great to meet up and I got a text last night. The outcome of the texting back and forth was that she's coming to St John's with us tomorrow and then back here for lunch. The other six on the team are joining us. So tomorrow we get to meet Bellanie, Lisanne, Arne-Joost, Koen, Janine and Edgar, along with Claire again, and get to open our home to them and get to hear all about the last couple of months of what God's been doing with them in NZ. I'm quite excited.

Beaten

We lost 8-4 tonight. Out-run and out-passed by a better team. Hats off to them really. At least we haven't got a manager to sack though, eh?

Frustration

At work at the moment meetings I have scheduled keep not happening. It tends to be because one particular person always seems to be doing something else that is clearly more important. I wouldn't mind so much if he'd let me know rather than just not turn up. I'm not the only one who is getting a little frustrated be it.

There's a lot more facial hair around in New Zealand at the moment than there was last month. It could have something to do with Movember.

Powerful

Another thing I forgot to mention about the weekend was that before each talk one or two or three people would be called up to the front to be interviewed, to give their testimonies basically. It is amazingly powerful and moving to see and hear how God has worked in people's lives, bringing them to Him, how this is all real and practical. I love hearing people's testimonies.

Runners-up

I forgot to mention yesterday, on Saturday night on the parish camp there was a quiz organised for the evening's entertainment. We may have travelled 12,000 miles but Saturday night entertainment on church weekends away never changes, eh? Well, Joanne and I organised a team of six, and out of fifteen teams we came a very respectable second. We were definitely worth the bag of fun size Snickers we won.

I am really having difficulty believing Christmas is only six weeks away or so. It just seems wrong to see a giant Christmas tree in Hagley Park (ready for Christmas in the Park, a fizzy drink-sponsored music event being held on Saturday) while the sun shines late into the evening. It's definitely confusing me. And to make it worse, this year my company's Christmas party has the theme "White Christmas". They're just trying to mess with my head, aren't they?

Family growth

Well, we're just back from a marvellous long weekend away. The site was awesome, sitting just the other side of the Porthills, overlooking the Lyttleton bay and being perfectly equipped for the kids and familys and everyone. Just look at that view. It took less than 25 minutes to get to Living Springs from home.

The whole weekend was awesome really. Apart from the sunburn - I really need to learn that the NZ sun burns so much faster than the UK sun, even when it doesn't feel hot. We arrived on Thursday evening and in total I think there were almost 200 people either there the whole time or coming out for day visits. Probably 50 of that number were kids. I think that's one thing that has really struck us about St John's, is the family feel. On the Barge we had some people with kids but they were in the minority. At St John's, at least at the morning service, they're a whole lot more prevalent. Also, becuase the kids have grown up around each other and around each other's parents there is a true family feel. When a child falls over, anyone's child, any parent will comfort them. And more tellingly, the child is willing to be comforted by someone other than their parent. It made quite an impression on us.

We are really enjoying being part of a church family with a whole mix of people and ages. We had a church camp photo taken before we left today. I'll try and post a copy when I can get hold of one so that you can see what I mean. We've had chats this weekend with young people, people our age, and older people alike. Sometimes it was easy, being at St Helens or on the Barge, to think that the evangelical Christian world doesn't have any older people in it. It's refreshing to be around older, experienced Christians, Christians who have lived their lives following Jesus and so have so much to give to the younger generations.

The teaching has been fantastic this weekend too. Jay, who is Wally, our vicar's son, came to talk to us and taught us around a theme of Firm Foundations, the building blocks, if you like, of the Christian faith - faith, love, hope and repentance. Faith - trusting in and relying on the work of Christ on the cross; love - for God and our neighbour, as perfectly demonstrated in the Father sending his Son for us; hope - hope in the world to come, focussing our hope on God's promises for the future; and repentance - the right response to our salvation through Christ.

There were also a couple of seminars we attended. One on living a rich married life - we shouldn't need it, but it is good to be reminded to refocus our relationship with each other on God, and another on St John's - the next ten years. This weekend was perfect timing for us in so many ways. It was great to have a chance to spend time with our church family (the last one was four years ago) and given we moved to Christchurch to be involved at St John's it was great to have a chance to hear about the developing plan for the next ten years.

Speaking of our involvement at St John's we've been asked to be involved in the Christianity Explored course that is being running, starting in February. We're really looking forward to it. We enjoyed leading CE back on the Barge and then the follow-up course. It's going to be exciting, and challenging, to be involved in it again. Also, it's on Wednesdays so we can still be involved in our Tuesday bible study group.

Farming life

Today, despite the terrible weather, I headed with a couple of colleagues to the A&P Show at the Canterbury Agricultural Park. As the website puts it - "The nationally renowned Royal New Zealand Show brings country to town and offers an experience that makes you feel like selling up your eighth of an acre block and heading to where there's not a neighbour in sight." Well, I'm not quite sure I was persuaded to sell our house and buy a big remote farm, but it was interesting.

My company have a big stand at the show and the basic agenda for today was to go out to see what goes on. There was talk of having to 'be on duty' and talk to customers but in the end there weren't enough customers to warrant it. I think that may have been down to the weather and the fact the show has two more days to run. The way I saw it, so long as there were Account Managers free and able to talk to customers it made a lot more sense for them to do that rather than me just tell the customers how little I know.

I wore my wax jacket today to try and feel a bit more 'rural'. I think I almost pulled it off. Only the amount I was bothered about getting mud on my shoes ruined the facade. And there was a lot of mud. There's a time and a place for mud and it's when you're dressed for it, not when you're in office clothes. Who ever thought of having an Agricultural and Pastoral Show in a field, eh? It would have been ok if it hadn't rained for the previous 12 hours.

I think the highlight of the show for me, other than the excellent burger off the barbecue in our tent, were the Belted Galloways. If you're too lazy to click on the link, imagine a cut and shut job on two cows, one black and one white, or maybe a black cow in a white boob tube and you'll be close. There were some pretty sizeable bulls too. One of them was just huge. If it had wanted, the little blonde lass holding its rope would not have been able to stop its rampage.

Ooh, and Grimsby won this morning (NZ time, of course) to reach the Johnstone's Paint Trophy northern area semi-finals. Bit of a mouthful, I know, but reaching the final eight in any competition is worth being cheerful about, however unwieldy its name. Now all we need to do is get a run going in the league.

Right, better go and pack. We leave for the church family weekend away right after work tomorrow.

Cooking with gas

Hurray! The new 'internet month' has begun and we are back up to full speed after two weeks of dial-up speed. It's amazing how spoiled you get with broadband speeds. How did we ever manage with dial-up modems to do everything on the net?

Well, it's been a full on weekend of entertaining. On Friday night we had Mark and Renee round for dinner and their four children. I don't know how people manage with more than two kids. How do they keep their eye on them all all the time. The food seemed to go down well and the kids loved the Playstation once we fired it up after dinner. Pro Evolution Soccer is the answer to so many questions.

In case you're interested, I cooked gnocchi bolognaise (kind of like a lasagne but with gnocchi instead of pasta) followed by chocolate and black cherry crumble.

On Saturday Joanne and I had a good sesh at the gym and she joined up as her one-week trial pass was up. I've really enjoyed going to the gym with her and sharing that time with her. I try not to be too bossy forcing her to squeeze out another two reps. I don't always succeed.

On Saturday evening we had more guests over, namley Simon and Rebekah and Anne and Sarah. (The menu consisted of a lamb tagine done all day in the slow-cooker followed by a spiced tropical fruit crumble.) Again, it was a really lovely evening. It's so nice being able to entertain and have people over. It really is something we enjoy.

Something that's different here to back in the UK is how people at church are more spontaneous. To arrange to do something with someone back at the Barge, or at St Helens before that, you'd need to diarise about six weeks in advance. At least six weeks in advance. Here it's quite normal to invite someone over for lunch as church finishes. That's less than half an hours notice in some cases! It's going to be hard for me to adjust to that, I think, but I think it's a good thing. Last week Al and Naomi invited us over as we were walking to the car after church (but we couldn't make it as we had Tim and Christine and Lizzy coming over to ours) and then this week Jane and Jona invited us for lunch. I cannot stress enough how welcoming and encouraging it's been how inviting people have been, wanting to open their homes and lives to us. It really is the way church should be and our new family at St John's have modelled it perfectly.

After lunch we headed back to home to get some chores done. I don't know how people have kids and look after a house and get their washing done and everything. Where does the time come from? I washed the little car and then made a fist of washing the windows (they're not too streaky) while Joanne did a load of washing and zapped some weeds. The 'wild flower' garden is coming on rather nicely.

A short week this week, with Friday being 'Canterbury day' or whatever. And next weekend is the church parish camp. We're really looking forward to that actually. It'll be a great time to get to know people at church a bit better by spending some time with them. Plus the location looks idyllic. Much like much of New Zealand, to be honest. I never cease to get blown away by the scenery here. I have to pinch myself sometimes when I suddenly remember I live in New Zealand. It still strikes me as rather an abstract concept sometimes. It's going to be interesting having friends from 'our previous life' visiting us out here (as we hopefully will have in the next couple of months - fingers crossed), or my family. I'm not sure what will happen when the two worlds collide. I remember when I first moved to London it took ages for it to sink in and the novelty to cease. I have a feeling it will take a lot longer here.

Winning ways

Football is going so well at the moment. We won again tonight. That's five in a row now I think. Tonight was a tougher match, against a very physical team, but we let our football do the talking and ran out 8-5 winners (or maybe 9-5). I can't make next week which is disappointing. We have the church weekend away starting next Thursday, so it's not a bad reason to miss the match, I guess. It will be the first one I've missed so far though.

We're really looking forward to the weekend away. It's going to be great to spend some more time with people from church getting to know them better.

A few weeks ago Joanne noticed there was a dojo in Christchurch for the style of karate she used to do, and tonight she went along for the first time. It's been quite a few years since she's done any karate but they have a 'returning members' class which is ideal for her. I think she really quite enjoyed it. I know she's missed karate. It used to be such a big part of her life.

Succumbed

Joanne's finally joined Facebook. It's what all the cool kids are doing.

It's Guy Fawkes night tonight. It seems strange that it's warm outside and fireworks displays are delayed until 9pm so that it's dark and you don't need to wrap up like the Michelin man in Alaska to stand outside for an hour.

This time last year I was in Manchester, going to Old Trafford and then a bonfire and fireworks display with Miles, Cath and Louis. Seems a million miles away now, when in actual fact it's only around 12,000. 12,000 miles. Wow. It's like the other side of the world and everything.

Nuzziland News - the pdf version

I forgot to mention, I spent some time yesterday (while Joanne was entertaining the girls from our bible study group) knocking up our second newsletter for Christian family. I've emailed it out but if you would like a copy and haven't received one somehow please do let me know. Although, as I said last time, if you're reading this regularly, it won't contain anything you don't know already. Again, Barge folk, I've emailed it to Marcus (and John and Jane and Melissa) so hopefully one of them will do the do and have some copies for you at some point in the near future.

One point I made in the newsletter though that I'd like to re-emphasise on here is how encouraging Joanne and I find it to hear from our friends, being so far away from them all, and so we want to thank those of you that have supported us with posts on here, messages on Facebook and good old-fashioned emails. I wish we could fully express what it means to us to know we're in your thoughts and prayers as you are in ours.

We love hearing your news too. Congratulations, Debbie!

Entertaining

This weekend we've done our first proper entertaining in our new house. Yesterday Joanne had the girls from our bible study group round for lunch and then today Tim and Christine and Lizzy (an English lady who's been here about five years, lives less than five minutes from us and goes to St John's too) came round after church for lunch. Next weekend's the house is going to be full of people too. We've got Mark and Renee and their kids over for tea on Friday and on Saturday Sarah and Anne and Simon and Rebekah are coming round for dinner.

It's so great to be able to have people round and have plenty of space. The open living room - dining room - kitchen space worked exactly as we had hoped it would. I always felt that when we had people round at our flat in London I missed half the conversation as I'd be in the kitchen cooking. Now I can be in the kitchen, Joanne can be helping and neither of us are ignoring our guests.

I never realised before today how satisfying it can be to wash a dirty car and have it gleaming when you're finished. I'm not sure washing house windows will give me the same sense of satisfaction but I think perhaps I ought to give it a go as they're looking a tad grubby.

I spent a decent amount of time yesterday going through our photos on my laptop. We have three or four groups of four photos in the same frames (there's the four seasons of the same bridge in Central Park in New York, the four iconic New York structures, four San Francisco shots, ...) that we like the idea of and wanted to replicate with our own memories. I think we've come up with some striking combinations but you can tell us when you see them maybe. Now we just need to get them printed and framed. But the main thing that struck me when going through all these shots is just how fortunate we are to have been able to travel and see so much of the world. Why even only this year I have been to Ghana, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Romania. It all made me realise I am so fortunate to have been born in western society and to have the priviledges and opportunities that's afforded me. I pray I would never take that for granted and would always thank God for how he has blessed me and use what He has given me to serve Him better. In our bible study group at the moment we're looking at 1 Timothy and last week we studied chapter 6 verses 3-11. As part of that we spent some time thinking about how godliness should bring contentment and love of money leads to "ruin and destruction." We need to remember that money is a gift from God given as a blessing, true, but also (and mainly) given to us to allow us to serve Him. It's something I forget sometimes. Why is it that the more God blesses us the more we take His blessings for granted?