Team Retreat at Castle Point

As we finished out our first year of pioneering a spiritual movement in Wellington, we spent a great deal of time evaluating and reflecting on how we went about the vision of putting every student in Wellington within arm's reach of Jesus Christ. We found ourselves blown away by what is evidence of God's hand at work! In the course of one year, God has given us the beginnings of a movement, going from 2 students to 56 between February of 2006 to October of 2007! We also spent a good portion of time praying - asking for continued direction and blessing as well as praising God for what He's done.
With one year behind and transitioning of teams, we felt it was the perfect opportunity for all of us to get away from the city to enjoy fellowship, connect with God, and have fun. As combined teams, we headed further up the North Island to a place called Castle Point on the eastern shore. It was nice to get away and refreshing for us to see and take part in God's creation.

Following are some pictures of our retreat.

[The Castle Point Lighthouse]

Welcoming the 2008 STINT Team

There’s been a lot happening over this past month as we are saying our goodbyes to the 2007 STINT Team, giving hugs and shedding some tears. But there is also great joy as we’ve welcomed our 2008 STINT Team family (Kara, Lacey, Susanne, and Justin) into Wellington. So we’ve spent a good deal of time and energy helping them get settled into houses, meeting students, building relationships, and familiarizing them with the city of Wellington. It’s so great to see their excitement and anticipation for the year ahead. For fun, we greeted the new team (after their many hours of travel) at the airport dressed as Scooby Doo and the Gang!


[The 2007 STINTers and I wait patiently for the new
team to arrive in Wellington... dressed as Scooby Doo
and the Gang.]


[Isaac gets a huge kick out of Matt in his Scooby costume.]

[Laughs and shocked smiles from Kara and Lacey when
they set eyes on the cartoon characters come to life.]

[Both STINT Teams united at the Wellington Airport.
"Welcome to New Zealand gang!"]

"Missing the Mark"

Another highlight to my time in Australia was some archery lessons I took during a free day at the conference. The last time I did archery was back in 8th grade or something. I forgot how much I enjoyed it! Anyhow, it reminded me of the little analogy we make about our sinfulness and God's holiness. It was challenging for me consistently shoot an arrow at this target and attempt to get a bull's eye. I did get better the more I shot, but it still goes to show that we can't hit bull's eye of perfect holiness every time. I'm thankful that Jesus is a better archer than I am - able to live a perfect and holy life on my behalf! Anyways, enjoy the pictures.

[Aim]


[Release]

Cultural Dance

These are some pictures of some of our New Zealand staff men doing the Haka, a traditional Maori war dance, while in Australia. (This is the same tribal dance performed by The All Blacks - New Zealand's Rugby team - during their games.) It was pretty incredible... and intimidating to watch! The guys did the Haka out of appreciation for our Australian counterparts.

Pictures from Australia

I recently attended the Australian Campus Crusade for Christ staff conference near Sydney. There's sort of a rivalry between Aussies and Kiwis if you weren't aware. So one of the ways to sort out their differences was to take it to the water! Below are a few pictures of the dragon boat race between the Australian and New Zealand staff. Dragon boats are pretty much just big canoes with lots of people inside rowing like mad. :)


[Launching the Dragon Boat]

[Center: Justin O'Malley - Director of Student Life,
New Zealand - ready for the race.]

[Headed toward the finish line!]

Well, unfortunately New Zealand lost the race. But we claim that it was an unfair match, as the boats were supposed to have an even split of male and female rowers. The Aussies apparently couldn't get their genders figured out and won with testosterone. :)

Transitions

[Moving Day]

Once again I've been enormously horrible at updating this blog. I honestly don't know how some people blog as much as they do. Perhaps they've built it into their daily ritual somewhere! :) Anyhow, I attribute my lack of posts to the perpetual transition I feel like I'm in. Upon returning from the States until now there's been a lot of change happening! The picture above is the crew of guys and students who aided Jill and I on our moving day in early September. We love our new place that's both bigger and closer to the city centre. Just this week we finally unpacked some still packed items and acquired some furniture for the kids' rooms. Crazy! It feels more and more like home with each new day.

More than just physical changes, we have also been in a process of changing over our staff team. The 2007 STINT Team (Matt, Alex, Chris, and Jennifer) have completed there time in New Zealand and are returning to America. In light of that we've welcomed a new STINT Team for 2008 (Justin, Lacey, Kara, and Susanne).

[L-R: Justin, me, Lacey, Susanne, Kara. Copper Mt, CO]

It's been a bittersweet time for me as our first team of pioneers leaves these shores to go on to other things. We've done a lot and learned a lot together this past year in regards to planting and cultivating a new spiritual movement in this nation's capital city. It was so rewarding for me to see them interacting with the new team, oozing excitement and casting vision for the direction God's been leading us in here in Wellington! I know that this year of overseas mission work will forever impact their lives and view of ministry.

The Victoria University campus is also winding up and transitioning to the summer break. At our last Student Life Event (Crusade NZ) for the year, I was just praising God and encouraged to see that He has taken us in one year from 2 students to 56 students involved in our movement. Half of those are either young or new believers. Even more encouraging was to see students lead the event and cast vision to their peers about seeing the Holy Spirit at work on their campus, building a spiritual movement.

Finally, in the midst of all these happenings, I've been to three different conferences/training times in New Zealand and Australia. Needless to say, it's left me a little tired and just needing some to rest and reflect. Even now, I'm turning my attention to leading a Summer Beach Project on the South Island. Still, I'm hoping that there will be some time between now and then to get that needed R&R.