Catching up on my blog reading, I clicked through Dave Funkypancake’s pictures to find one of me, enjoying myself at the afternoon tea celebrating the Funkypancake family’s first year in New Zealand. Nothing remarkable in that, save to say that it was nice to note that the photo was in Dave’s ‘friends’ category and I am glad to have him as my friend.
Archive for the ‘Family & Friends’ Category
Non-Feathered Friend
Monday, October 18th, 2010Pray for me, Daddy
Friday, July 9th, 2010I have been wanting to write about something for a week or so but, at the same time, have been avoiding doing so because, I suspect, I want what I write to be deep, impacting, important and perfect. All these reasons are shallow and, sadly, will tell you more about me than I’m comfortable admitting.
This being the case, I’ll simply tell you that one of our daughters was taken ill recently with what turned out to be bacterial meningitis. Over five days, she complained of headaches and tiredness, running a fever and generally feeling unwell – nothing, as parents of four, we hadn’t seen and dealt with before. However, while she is usually the fittest of us all, she was definitely not herself and, by the evening of the fifth day, she was very drowsy and in great pain.
As I sat holding her late in the evening, I silently wondered what else I could do to make my child better. I recalled my own childhood illnesses and the soft promise of my Dad saying ‘if I could take it away, I would’ as he cuddled me, while my district nurse Mum took my temperature and gave me medicine. While grateful for my Mum’s knowledge and experience, like every kid I wanted whatever it was to go away and alwayshoped my Dad’s wish would come true.
As all this was swirling round my head, very quietly yet very clearly I heard my daughter say ‘Please pray for me, Daddy’. As I fulfilled her request, in that one moment, my life shifted irrevocably. As I prayed, I knew that without a shadow of a doubt my daughter was gravely ill and I shouted for my wife to call an ambulance. Secondly, I finally knew the raw enormity of a parent’s love for their child and the aching truth of the promises my Dad made all those years ago. Lastly and most importantly, in those five quiet words, I experienced the vast and humbling depth of my daughter’s faith, in her asking for prayer above all else.
Thankfully, she was diagnosed and treated promptly by the good folk at North Shore Hospital and then transferred into the equally good care of the The Rangitira facility at Waitakere Hospital. Within three days, she was sent home with an IV drip and daily visits from the home care nurse and discharged three days after that. For all the exemplary medical care and the expertise of the doctors, I take most comfort from knowing that He not only watches over us but that he answers prayers – even from broken sinners like me.
Getting To Simple
Tuesday, June 15th, 2010Isn’t it funny how our self-reliance and self-centredness so easily convinces us that we’re the only one that feels a particular way when all along there are many, including those close to us, who feel the same or share the same concerns?
Having been enlightened by Tony and Felicity Dale’s Simply Church, I have spent a week or two processing my reactions to the politics and demands of denominational church and how it affects my behaviour and feelings. After a year of scratching this particular itch, I am now aware that I am not the only one feeling this way and can now see more and more people are seeking a more authentic expression of their faith.
Reading further on simple faith, I am drawing some comfort and much inspiration from Marcus Borg’s Reading The Bible Again for the First Time, finding it to be a serious, cogent and scholarly examination of the scriptural literalism that I find so hard to process intellectually. Likewise, I have been similarly intrigued by the simplicity of the The Church of Two concept which, in its simplest form, is about two people practising two spriritual disciplines and sharing together daily. From the stories posted at LK10 resources, Stories From The Revolution and The Scilla Blog amongst other places, it seems like this practise is helping folk to deepen friendships, get closer to their families and initiate postive change in their lives.
I mentioned CO2 to the three guys I meet with weekly with a view to taking things up a notch between our weekly catch-ups. As a result, I have swapped a couple of emails and calls with one of them by way of a gentle try-out and we intend to explore it as a group. Then, at the end of the Sunday service, our youth pastor was prompted to speak on our need to been more immediate and authentic with each other. Rightly calling us to reflect on dashing off from church the second the service is over or remaining only to swap snippets of news over coffee after the service, he asked why we don’t stay and share the deeper fellowship we so easily speak about but rarely practice.
In the discussion that followed, I shared a little about my recent journeying and CO2, while others spoke of seeking more connection and relationship, rather than religion and ‘church’. After praying for a couple who are leading a youth mission to the US to work at The Dream Center in the weeks to come, we parted with a commitment to make small but intentional changes to support one another better.
Elsewhere, we have been trying to be a little more intentional and missional in our lives. One way of doing this has been our Tuesday night pot luck dinners where we open our home to all comers for a few hours, with the only aim being to share food and friendship with whoever steps across the threshold. While far from a new idea, we felt this was a solid and sustainable way to get alongside others on a more regular basis.
On the first Tuesday, no-one came. We sat around the table eating our meal and feeling a little deflated that nobody had taken up the invitation. On reflection, this was a good thing and perhaps challenged us on our motives and ensured our hearts were in the right place. Last week, with our expectations adjusted and hearts humbled, we were blessed to see another family of six and two couples join us at the table for what was a lovely evening of simply fellowship. The eight kids wolfed their food and were soon engrossed in a variety of games, while the eight grown-ups shared freely and laughed heartily for a couple of hours. With today being Tuesday, it’ll be interesting to see who, if indeed anyone, joins us in half an hour’s time.
Godincidence?
Thursday, June 10th, 2010
A quick post for no other reason than to share a nice true story.
- Yesterday, I grabbed a burger and fries with a young guy from church and chatted through some stuff he’s got on his mind.
- This morning, walking to the college bus with my daughter, the young guy finds $120 in crisp new notes in the street.
- They call me on my cellphone for advice and I say keep it safe and hand it in to the police station as soon as possible.
- The young guy passes the money to my daughter as she’ll be able to get there sooner.
- After school, she goes to the police and they ask her to check with the three local banks before they take the money into safekeeping.
- The banks all say no-one has reported the loss to them so she signs it over to the police. They say that if it isn’t claimed in 90 days, the $120 bucks will go to the young guy.
- Meanwhile, the young guy’s mum is waiting for her lodger to return from work and pay the rent.
- The sad lodger returns home to report that although he drew the rent money out of ATM this morning but has somehow lost it during the day.
- The young guy overhears and gets to deliver the ‘happy ever after’ punchline to the story.
- They call us to say they’re heading to the police station first thing in the morning.
As Hannibal Smith used to say, ‘I love it when a plan comes together.’
[edited as ecto swallowed the text of the original post somehow]
Catch up
Sunday, March 7th, 2010Life has been busy since my last post and I have had a fair amount to occupy my time. Consequently, blogging has taken second place to real life but, in the fashion of my good chum David, here’s a quick visual catch up.
Home made Cornish Pasties
SWMBO is a great if somewhat reluctant cook and regularly surpasses herself in serving up just the right dish at the right time. In recent weeks, we have been treated to a few dishes and flavours that recalled memories of our life in England. One of these greeted my nostrils when I arrived home one evening recently. A great and enticing smell wafting from the kitchen heralded a great supper of homemade Cornish Pasties which tasted as good as they looked.
Homemade goodies were supplemented with a few bits and bobs from the shops. On a recent trip to Countdown, our local chain supermarket, she picked up some English Marmite which, in my opinion and those of most other UK folk I know here, is far superior to the Aussie and Kiwi varieties. However, even this tasty surprise was trumped by a lovely chunk of Tuxford & Tebbutt Cheshire cheese. While the Kiwis make some good cheeses, I do miss the drier, crumblier and saltier British cheeses like my Dad’s favourite, Wensleydale.
Fush without chups
We headed into our local pet store a couple of weeks ago to check a few things out, little knowing that they were having an open day. Having successfully deflected pleadings for another kitten or puppy, we left an hour later with a starter cold water aquarium but no fish.
The instructions from the very helpful fish lass in the store was that we set this up in the family room for a week, filling and treating the water so it could get a good stock of healthy bacteria in it before we introduced this fish.
Last week, SWMBO returned with the smallest of our four to choose the occupants and came home with a bug-eyed black eyed fish and a white and orange bug-eyed fish (the proper names elude me). These were joined a few days back by the last of the additions to our menagerie, a skinny golden algae eater who vacuums the glass and stones free of algae. There was a mild panic earlier today when this little fellow went missing. Presumed eaten by the other, he was eventually traced to the interior of the tiny amphora we had picked up for a dollar and sunk in the tank. Hopefully, he’ll come out before he grows too big to do so.
Never say never
With redundancy a real prospect later this year, I have started to be a little more intentional about seeking alternative work. I have a few avenues to explore including a secondment that will see me working in a different area of my field in a very different environment.
To aid me in this and keep things neatly divided, I have grabbed up an HP Mini 210 netbook running Windows 7. This is my first purchase of a personal computer running Windows in about 7 years. I like the form factor with the 10″ screen being a good compromise between the 7″ of my Eeepc’s and my iMac’s whopping 24″ screen.
It is early days yet but Windows 7 is also proving to be more user-friendly than the XP of my employer-supplied Omnibook or the Vista machines that friends moan about. I am also trying to keep the apps to a minimum and use web-based stuff where possible, keeping the reasonable resources freed up for document writing, PDF work and the multi-tabbed browsing of desktop research.
The Agile Three
After church, SWMBO and I took our youngest to Scruffs, a local fun dog show. We got there pretty late but had enough time to enter our Jack Russell/Maltese Terrier cross Abby into the scruffiest dog competition and give her a run out around the agility course. In two clear runs around the course, Abby managed to reduce her time from 45 seconds to a very creditable 39 seconds, giving all three of us humans a brief but energetic workout at the same time.
We rounded off the day at a friend’s place, eating barbecue and salad whilst catching up on news and swapping offspring horror stories.
Dad & Daughter Camp
Sunday, February 14th, 2010
I have just returned from an absolutely fantastic 48 hours attending the Kotare Brownie’s ‘Dad & Daughter’ Camp with my youngest daughter. We joined fourteen other dads and girls for a weekend of adventure, campfires, tall stories and hot chocolate at the marvelous Motu Moana Scout Camp & Outdoor Activity Centre which set in native bush overlooking Green Bay and Manukau Harbour beyond.
To say that we had a good time would be an understatement. In teams comprised of three daughters and three dads, we managed to pack in kayaking, archery, Burma trails, abseiling, challenge courses, bush tracking, quizzes, craft sessions and badge work in between the all important kitchen duties, tent inspections and ablutions block cleaning.
Over the last two days, I have seen a whole new side to my daughter which I never knew existed – the dedicated and responsible leader. As a newly promoted sixer, she stepped up and took her role as leader of our group seriously. Following her Mum’s advice to listen to others as well as talk, she played the diplomat and did a great job in shepherding the group and reporting back to Hoa, the pack leader. For reasons best known to her, my daughter is an energetic and thorough toilet cleaner at home so I had to smile when I overheard her trying to inject her pals with the same enthusiasm while cleaning the men’s toilets yesterday!
I was also impressed by the selfless dedication of the three female leaders, Hoa, Kea and Ruru who give up their time to run the pack each week and do so much at these camps to provide the girls with a truly memorable time. At campfire, Hoa wore a cloak that had badges awarded to her and her Mum, who was a leader before her, dating back 80 years. The oldest badge on Hoa’s cloak was just a badge, hand made by Hoa’s mother in 1939. During the Second World War, Guides and Brownies in New Zealand and Australia had to embroider their own camp, jamboree and merit award badges as they were unable to obtain them from England as they had done previously.
When I asked Hoa if the popularity of Guides and Brownies was dwindling in the face of competing attractions like iPods, computers and the Wii, her answer surprised me. ‘No’ she said, ‘Brownies are as popular as ever and we have a waiting list three times bigger than we could handle as a pack – sadly, the thing we lack is leaders and helpers’. She went on to say that she thought the increase in mums working (or the need for mum to work) and adults increasingly looking for more ‘me’ time in their leisure hours meant less people were willing or able to volunteer. Clearly, there are plenty of parents who want their girls and boys to get out of the house, mix with others, acquire new skills and learn about the wider world. It is just a pity that so few of of us are willing or able to help them do so.
iCake™
Tuesday, February 9th, 2010
Another year on the planet, another cake but there’s a twist this year.
In previous years, She Who Must Be Obeyed has been the architect and builder of many a fine birthday cake for each member of the family. However, this year, my birthday cake was created and decorated by my eight year old daughter. The photo above shows the end result; the iCake™ is a fine representation of an Apple iBook – with innovative iDigestive™ mouse – detailed right down to the digital clock in the upper right corner and the Apple space image screen saver.
I love my family and am thankful everyday for the blessings and joy I know through them
John Key meets local leader
Friday, January 29th, 2010
At her recent junior school graduation, our daughter Robyn was awarded her school’s Leadership Cup for outstanding leadership throughout the school year. Earlier today, she was presented with cup by its sponsor, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, at his electorate office near our home. Cheerful and modest, Robyn lives her life to a high standard and is the model of a servant leader, never asking more than she herself is prepared to give. I am humbled by her selflessness and I count myself as fortunate to be her Dad.
Football Ferns Germany-bound
Monday, January 25th, 2010
Caitlin Campbell (NZ)
After three days of convincing football, New Zealand’s Junior Football Ferns have secured Oceania’s sole qualification spot for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Germany in 2010. Postponed in October 2009 as a sign of respect for the loss of life in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, the tournament was a showcase of the Oceania talent we can expect to see playing in the next few years at the FIFA Women’s World Cup and the Olympic Football Tournament. Click either photo for more shots from the weekend’s games.
Hannah Wilkinson (NZ) takes on Jennifer Akavi (Tonga)
Seaside fun
Sunday, January 17th, 2010
Click for more photos
Last night, we spent a lovely evening with @funkypancake and family at Te Haruhi Bay in Shakespear Park on the Whangaparaoa peninsula. As well as much idle chatter whilst munching a beach side picnic, there was a fair amount of swimming, skimboarding and rock pool plundering as well. The evening was rounded of with a lazy game of cricket until the setting sun nudged us homeward.