Sunday 25 May 2008

A pig of a weekend

Supposedly pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, providing about 38% of daily meat protein intake worldwide. We've certainly done our bit this weekend - bangers and mash with pork sausages on Friday night; bacon, brie and cranberry panini for Saturday lunch; pork loin out at dinner last night; pea and ham soup for lunch today; roast pork and all the trimmings for dinner tonight. It wasn't even on purpose or anything. Just bad planning, I guess. No-one seemed to complain though.

I have to admit though, my crackling does rock.

Saturday 24 May 2008

Invaders from the north

Shirley and Tom (Joanne's mum and step-dad, in case you've forgotten) are down for the weekend. They're taking a month to drive around NZ a bit visiting friends and family and this weekend they're down in Chch. It's nice to have them down here again and Tom hasn't seen the house since we bought it, of course, so he's enjoyed seeing what we've done with it.

This week's been another busy one. As well as the usual bible study group on Tuesday and week two of Exploring Discipleship on Wednesday it's been a totally mental week work-wise. Very stressful and full-on. People seem appreciative of what I'm doing and getting done though, which is good, and I've been told on numerous occasions that they wouldn't have been able to do the analysis I've been doing before I got here, which is good too.

To update you on the weekend's sport, Joanne's netball didn't go so well - 51-16, I think. Ouch. It sounds like the team they played shouldn't be in their division. Football-wise, we had a bit of a battle today. We went 1-0 up but then a silly back-pass allowed them to equalise. Then a flukey deflection off a knee in the box that could have gone anywhere meant we were 2-1 down at half-time. We got one back but then conceded again immediately. We fought back and equalised again before I had a chance with about five minutes to go to win it (would have meant a second successive hatrick too!) but it just dipped the wrong side of the crossbar. Gutted. Still, we fought back twice, have been living on our luck a little bit in the past few weeks, and so have to be happy with a draw. It does mean we'll probably drop to second from first (on goal difference) though.

Tonight we'd been out for dinner, to a place called Coyote on The Strip in town. It's a really nice place, great food. I'd recommend it to anyone. It was somewhere we went for food when we first Chch back in March 2005 actually, and incidentally where I first heard any tunes by the John Butler Trio. Not important or significant information really, but a fact all the same.

After dinner Shirley, Tom and I headed back home to watch the Crusaders in the Super 14 semi-final while Joanne headed out to Ruth's hen-night. She said she was just going to show her face. The plan was to end the night with karaoke. I knew she'd be out a while ;)

It's weird to think I've been writing on here over a year now. I guess looking back at what was happening this time last year is one of the reasons I started with blog.

Sunday 18 May 2008

Mmmmm, pie....

Gabi from work came over for dinner last night. It was great to see her socially and try to forget about work for a bit. I cooked lamb curry (which was perhaps a little too hot, in hindsight) with turmeric rice and cucumber and mint raita. This was followed by a totally yummy plum and boysenberry pie with icecream or custard. Or both. We have leftovers for dinner tonight and I'm really quite excited by the prospect. Mmmmm, boysenberries....

The first night of the Exploring Discipleship course Joanne and I are helping lead went well on Wednesday. We had a great turn out with almost everyone who signed up making it along, which was a real answer to prayer. We spent some time looking at assurance and how we can be sure of our salvation from Romans 5:8-9 before studying Philippians 1:1-11 together looking at how God is transforming his people to the likeness of Jesus more and more and that we can be assured "that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus". A great topic to look at at the start of the course. This week is 'Trusting in God' (Ephesians 2:8-9) and 'Living in Christ' (Philippians 1:12-26).

On Friday we went out with a few people to a comedy night at a theatre in town. It was a really good evening, a couple of the comics we very funny. But it does baffle me why some comedians feel the need to just be extremely crude and cross the line so completely that if there was a line its now in a different postcode and they were going so fast when they crossed it that they didn't even know it was there. The first guy on stage, the only Kiwi comic on the bill incidentally, was hilarious. He had everyone in stitches and stayed the right side of the line. For me that's real comedy. Comedy that says "I can be funny without being crude and getting cheap laughs". Maybe that's it. Cheap, low-grade humour is easier. It was a strange evening though, in that we were out with people we didn't know. A colleague of mine had organised the tickets. She'd invited her mates but then asked people at work in our team if anyone fancied it. Joanne and I did so went along. Only the colleague who organised it left earlier this week on a business trip to Germany at late notice. So we still went along, but with her husband and her friends, and without her. They made us feel welcome though, which was nice.

And today after church we got invited out to lunch over at Sarah's with a couple called Matt & Tina and a girl called Pam. Sarah's so great for that, having people over, and getting people to meet each other who might not know each other from church. Plus the food was tasty too.

Oh and I can't go without mentioning yesterday's football match. Given the team we were playing contained five guys who work in the same office as me, whether I could walk into work tomorrow with my head held high depended on the result. All in all, it went better than expected. We won 6-2, which was a great start, but the fact I scored three and set up another two really added to a grand afternoon all round. Now I can go into work tomorrow, head held high, a slight smile on my face and don't need to say a word.

Joanne's netball didn't go quite so well. They lost 30-44. Joanne said that last week the girl she was marking was a bit shorter than her so her height advantage made up to some degree for her lack of experience. This week the girl she was marking was the same height as her, negating last week's advantage. She's still enjoying playing though, and that's what it's all about, eh?

Sunday 11 May 2008

More sport

Joanne had her first netball match of the season yesterday. She seemed rather pleased with how it went. They lost 23-21 but given it was the first time many of her team have played together in a match and they were 12-7 down at half time Jo said they all seemed pleased with the overall performance, especially in the second half. As for her personal performance, Joanne thought she played well, really enjoyed herself and is looking forward to next week.

As for my football, we won 4-2. It was a pleasing performance against the team that was previously top of our league. We went 2-0 up (the first was an own goal - the defender nodded it into his own net from a cross as I challenged him for the ball, and the second was a powerful header from our central midfielder after I'd whipped in a left wing cross) before the opposition pulled it back to 2-2 on the stroke of half-time. In the second half it was fairly even, and the difference between us was that we took our chances while they hit the post twice, if not three times. It got a bit tasty at times with a couple of bad tackles and a bit of niggle and even quite a lot of blood split, although that was due to a total accident when two players went for the same ball and clashed heads. Pretty nasty stuff, although they both cleaned up, bandaged up and played on. No thought of a concussion risk or anything.

For those that do, please pray that Joanne and I can stand out as different among our team-mates and that that would be a great witness for Jesus. Obviously comptetive sport is an arena where aggression, anger, frustration and a lack of sportsmanship (ironically) can come to the fore. Please pray that our words and actions on the sports field would reflect our identities in Christ.

Tuesday 6 May 2008

Carrying on

Joanne and I went round to Cam & Jo's last night to discuss the Exploring Discipleship course we're going to be helping to run. It's a kind of follow-up to the Christianity Explored course we ran for people that want to continue or for anyone else within the church who wants to go over (as a recap or for the first time) the basics of living like a Christian. I'm really excited about the course. It covers thing like church and prayer and the Holy Spirit and evangelism and assurance and other stuff too. It will have short talk and then a short Bible study each week working through Philippians. It's kind of cobbled together at the moment from a few other similar courses but it really is a great idea. So often people come to Christ and make a commitment but what next? Theiy're left with questions. What difference will this make in my everyday life? How do I tell people? How do I read the Bible and pray? Quite often they're not ready to be thrown in to an established Bible study group and so this eight-week course aims to bridge that gap and answer those questions.

If it's what you do, we'd really appreciate your prayers for the course. Please pray for us, and Cam and Tim and Ryan as we lead the course; that we can find another female leader; that people who've expressed an interest would commit to coming along; and that people who are just toying with the idea of coming after hearing about it in the service last Sunday do something about it.

Also I'd personally like prayer regarding a men's event that St John's is helping put on in a week or so. Brad Thorn, the pretty well-known rugby player (played for All Blacks in rugby union and Australia in rugby league), is part of St John's too and there's been a guest event organised in the corporate lounge at the AMI stadium where he will "talk about his life, the sport he loves and his faith that pushes him to be the best he can be". It promises to be an interesting evening and what I'd like prayer for particularly is wisdom in knowing who to invite along and boldness to ask them. Thank you.

Oh, and just quickly, congratulations Sun and Naomi on the safe arrival of Joshua! Very exciting :)

Missed opportunity

Sometimes I wish I had my camera with me everywhere I go. I'd look like one of those people who always have their camera with them but then I wouldn't miss those shots I want to keep or share. Take this morning as an example. I was driving in to work and just saw a scene that I would have loved to share. There was a heavy frost last night that remained this morning, accompanied by hazy, low clouds sitting just above the ground. As I drove past one of the fields on the edge of town cows stood around lazily on the hard, white field. Their breath caused small clouds of condensation in the cold air, and they disappeared off into the misty distance, shadowy, ghostly forms, while the low, winter sun tried in vain to shine through a leafless row of windbreak trees. It was a beautiful scene. And now it's gone. Forever.

One day we'll be able to download snapshots of our memory as jpegs. When that happens we'll be able to share the moments of beauty only we experience.

Saturday 3 May 2008

May the force be with you

Last night Joanne and I went round with Anthony to Sarah's. She'd borrowed the Star Wars videos (the original three only, of course) for us to watch. One mammoth marathon evening of film watching, home-made curry, crisps, chocolate and diet coke followed. Accompanied by much laughing as is usual round Sarah's. I think I amused/startled the others with my knowledge of the Star Wars universe. I prefer the word 'fan' to 'geek', thankyervurrymuch. I think it's the first time I've watched all three right through in a row, you know.

Football's been cancelled today. It's basically rained for almost 24 hours now. There are ponds where there used to be dips in the ground and the road outside our house more closely resembles a river. It's definitely a day to be wrapped up nice and warm in front of the fire.