Posts from 2024

Overwhelmed and Overjoyed Driving down Pages Rd, last week, on the way back home from Brighton beach, I was ‘ambushed by grief.” A wave of sadness suddenly swept up from my gut, squeezed my chest, gripped my throat and washed into my eyes. A bunch of precious people from my whanau are buried in the nearby Ruru Lawn Cemetery and one of them had come to visit me. It was my tuakana, my older brother Nick. We buried Nick just two…

Adelaide and I have been enjoying reading Pete Majendie’s memoirs together.  One of the chapters is called ‘Front Doors and Front Rooms.’  Pete’s Dad tells him that “if God ever wants to talk to you, He comes in the back door.”  Pete then asks the question, “like friends and neighbours?” He says, “I’ve never been in or out of any of my friends’ front doors.  All the indoor/outdoor flow is through the back door.  Brighton’s a back-door sort of place,…

Ramblings of an Old Dog. There is a big old Saint Bernard dog at Hotel Dezor, in the village of Kaza, in the Spiti Valley, India. This canine warrior, however, is a bit of a sad and sorry sight. He stands tall among his street dog mates, but his fur is bedraggled, his two rear feet are bandaged, and he limps slowly and painfully around the hotel and surrounding streets. Karan, the hotel owner, looks after him. He feeds him well,…

Around the end of September, I came down with a nasty throat infection that was confirmed to be Glandular Fever/Mono after a blood test. The doctor told me that by age 35 most New Zealanders have had Mono without even realising it because of a lack of symptoms. Apparently, it only gets you if you are a bit run down already (lucky me!).  This has meant two months of forced slowing down, more sleeping, not going out, university extensions, boredom,…

I spent most of last week at Baptist Hui related things including a day with some other like minded Baptist pastors at Little River; a day with other chaplains in the Baptist movement and then 3 days at the Hui itself at Rangiora Baptist Church. I thought I’d share a few of my reflections. Feel free to ask me (or Rachelle, Fern or Steph) for more thoughts.Take careHelen

Standing in Awe of the Poor“Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what the poor have to carry rather than stand in judgment at how they carry it.” Father Gregory Boyle. All of us in the Vision Team have been deeply moved and impacted by the people we are journeying with here in Bangladesh and meeting along the way. In many respects, we have been in awe of them. The Baptist workers who organised our…

I was touched this week by some of the tributes that were given at Gordon Dewar’s funeral, particularly those of his children and grandchildren. I also loved the sense of mystery and trust in God conveyed by this hymn by John Parker, which was also shared at Gordon’s funeral: God holds the key of all unknown,And I am glad;If other hands should hold the key,Or if He trusted it to me,I might be sad. What if tomorrow’s cares were hereWithout its rest?I’d rather…

Mātauranga Māori at Church Ilam has made an effort to include some waiata in the song selections, pounamu was gifted to Hamid and Mohammed and we are slowly getting less clumsy at the Māori version of the benediction. Increasing numbers of organisations and companies are rebranding to have a te reo name and incorporate a relevant whakataukī/proverb to be politically correct. Mātauranga Māori is beautiful and should be prominent in our society. But sometimes the effort to include it is only at…

Deconstruction and Reconstruction Many of us, during our life time will go through periods of deconstruction and reconstruction around areas of our faith. For some this can be caused by a time of suffering when it seems that the God is absent or not acting in the way we have expected; for some our childhood faith and family were pretty dysfunctional and we need to explore faith without the toxicity; for some faith or faith rules don’t fit how we…

On a recent children’s ministry zoom call, the discussion turned to ‘signs of Spring’- in other words, areas where we are seeing God’s Spirit at work, bringing life and growth. I recently attended a children’s ministry block course in Auckland, on the topic of faith formation in children.  We stayed at the Friary, a Franciscan monastery in Hillsborough.  One morning I took a walk through the garden and enjoyed discovering some ‘signs of Spring’ and slowing down to watch some…

Weaving Memories and Building Ties  I sat with two of my brothers recently and went through some boxes of old photos from my parents’ estate. My Mum and Dad both passed away some years ago and we are getting ready to create a digital library of snaps and stories for the coming generations. Camera tech was pretty naf back in the day and a lot of the old black and white and colour images are blurry and faded. We found some ‘goodies’ however…

Expect the Unexpected I spent multiple hours earlier this week navigating random glitches on Indian Immigrations online e-visa application form.  After several fails it finally accepted my details and payment.  I breathed a sigh of relief and went off for a stress-relieving walk around Halswell Quarry. The grazing ewes and newborn lambs looked pretty calm and content and the wind on my face was soothing. A few hours later I received an email telling me I had 24hrs to send…