Posts from September 2021

Kia ora e te whānau. I’m wondering how people are getting on with reading through the Book of Daniel week by week in our services. It is a real anomaly of a book, isn’t it? And yet the stories are really absorbing – although in some ways intensely irritating, too, in their glibness. I’m convinced that they were intended to be read with a sense of drama, as they are filled with so much exaggeration and repetition, and they are almost…

Kia ora e te whanau Another week of learning to live at Alert Level 2 has passed! I don’t know how you’re finding things – for me, the 2 “in between” levels (2 and 3) always seem to be the hardest – we’re “almost there”, but not quite. To mask, or not to mask – that is the question! Last Sunday we met as Ilam in Groups – in the end around 110 of us across 9 groups, which was…

We’re past mid-September already! Unbelievable! Ski season is fast coming to an end – I’m sure there will be many Ilamites scuttling backwards and forwards to the mountains just now, as time (and lingering snow) permit! For the non-skiers among us, we still get to appreciate the glimpses of snow-covered mountains across the plains (or for those of you who live in the more elevated suburbs, the expansive vistas of snow-capped mountains which backdrop your living room views). This Sunday…

Well…we have made it safely into Delta Alert Level 2; so far so good. Although it feels to me a bit like playing an online game in which we’ve made it to a new level! What challenges are we going to discover in this new reality? (Hopefully the game isn’t snakes and ladders, or we might find ourselves slithering back down to where we started!) It will have been a busy week for many of you, changing work rhythms and…

Kia ora e te Whānau We have undergone two significant transitions this week – from COVID Alert Level 4 to Alert Level 3, and (more excitingly, maybe) from winter to what they call “meteorological spring”! In respect of the first of those transitions, I’m guessing that most of us are all still pretty much glued to the media broadcasts around 1.00 pm every day … a necessity of daily existence for us as we try to reassess the likely journey…