hey all,

Over the last few weeks its been SO FANTASTIC having old friends out here visiting. Managed two separate weeks with Nav & Luke (both good friends from Southampton). They arrived in NZ on the same day, but Nav turning up in Auckland & Luke 8 hours south in Wellington.
Nav was here on a brief 9 day visit - on his way around the world before starting work in Sri Lanka (good on ya bro - hope its all going well!). We got to spend much of that time on the road with a German friend, Louise who's been over here on uni holidays. Took in the delights of the mountains and some lakes whilst driving down to Wellington to meet up with Luke who had spent his first week with Matt Watson, and Mieke. (with a bit of a scary car break-down on the way - which fortunately got repaired immediately & at no cost to myself, about an hour after meeting the prime minister - and getting our faces briefly featured on the national news!)

Navin's blog entries tell the stories much better than I ever could (with 4 items from 20th to 27th August on his time in NZ):
http://www.getjealous.com/getjealous.php?action=showdiaryarchive&go=navinsukram

Then on our return to Hamilton, Luke joined us for the final leg of Nav's trip, as we posted him off to Sydney and further afield, Luke then spent the next week with me in Hamilton. We had some real fun times catching up, with the same old banter (none of the jokes have changed!). Including a 'be still' style chilled out afternoon in some lovely gardens, watching a game of rugby at our city stadium, and a couple of day-trips out - to the smells of Roturua (a geothermally heated region with geyzers & mudpools) and a surfing beach at Raglan.

Things at church are also going real well - getting stuck into a couple of projects at the moment, one of them being a community action initiative which I'm looking to setup towards the end of November - which would be similar (but on a much smaller scale to the 'soul in the city' event in London last year). Would involve folk from our church getting involved in a week's mission around Hamilton - with various things running. The main area would be helping to renovate/ decorate a local school in the community. Alongside this hopefully we'll be having a week of 24-7 prayer, opening up a cafe in the evenings with live music, putting on some events for youth in afternoons - like some touch rugby, and maybe doing some other painting/ gardening activities with the poorer/ struggling communities.

Over the last week or so I've been putting my ideas & heart down on paper, and am in the process of getting a team of folk on-board if this thing is going to be able to get off the ground. Exciting days - but none of it yet set in stone.
Plenty of other ideas brewing & avenues to explore as well if I get the time in the coming months.

Its nearly school holidays here - and with that I'll be travelling down to the south island for just over a week - driving down with Mieke, with some English friends of ours, Rob & Sarah flying down and meeting us there. Will be my first real chance to check out the south island (where Luke probably still is as I write). The plan was to get in as much time ski-ing as possible - but that is not looking likely at the moment - as the weather has been glorious the last 2-3 weeks which has a down-side of thawing all the snow. Pity, so it may well be more of a sight-seeing trip than a ski-trip but exciting all the same.

That's all I've got time for now - but do check out some of the pictures if you get the chance.

thanks so much for those of you who sent out things with Nav & Luke - so appreciated - and makes me miss you all the more.
Have loved watching the video clips of some of you from the eve cong barbeque

bless ya all heaps,
time is racing by - which is sad as I don't want my year to end - and the thought of returning to real 9-5 work is a pretty daunting prospect SO gonna make the most of my remaining months before it becomes a distant memory

keep the texts, emails and phone calls coming
(landine 006478562339, mob 0064211388365)
love to you all
Mat