graduation day

Bryan and I were honored to be invited to our friend Dave's graduation from the University of Canterbury with a Japanese Studies degree, which was held in the Town Hall this morning. Everything about the ceremony exuded a sense of New Zealand's geography, history, culture, and status as a Commonwealth country, and I can't think of a way I would rather have spent my morning.

First of all, the graduates and professors were part of a procession that made its way from the beautiful Arts Center building (the university's original home) to the Town Hall, a walk of about half a mile that must have made many of the graduates question their choice in footwear. I was sad to be seated inside the hall while this was taking place, but I did happen to witness this part of the University of Otago's graduation last time I was in Dunedin.

Then there was the ceremonial mace, which was crafted out of a piece of seasoned oak from a bell tower at Oxford. Very cool.

The ceremony opened with a traditional Maori call-and-response-type greeting between a woman on the stage and a group entering from the back of the auditorium, and included many elements of Maori ceremonies from start to finish. Many Maori graduates draped a flower lei over the Chancellor's neck while accepting their diplomas, which piled up throughout the morning so that he looked a bit lionlike by the end.

I was pleased to find that the national anthem was included in the program, as I have a special fondness for "God Defend New Zealand" and proudly sang along, though secretly relieved that both the Maori and English words were displayed on the screen for the benefit of those like me. We also sang a song in Latin at the closing end of the ceremony, though it didn't make up for the lack of Pomp and Circumstance.

One of my favorite elements of the graduation, which comes as no surprise to those of you who know the admiration for Ernest Shackleton and other Antarctic explorers that I've developed over the last few years, was the reminder of New Zealand's historical and geographical connections with the Great White Continent. I longed to be one of the graduates receiving a degree in Antarctic Studies or walking in under the (ironically) green banner representing this sacred academic discipline. The graduation speaker, a botanist and the head curator at the Canterbury Museum, even quoted a piece of Scott's journals during his brief oration.

Obviously the best part was being present to celebrate the end of a long season of study for Dave, and we were thrilled to be a part of this momentum occasion for him. Bryan's also receiving his degree from NCU this month (though, obviously, he won't be present for his graduation ceremony), so I suppose in a way they get to share this experience together.

-Rachel

a picture that i love

so i finally got my pictures off of my camera, which broke early on in our trip to kaikoura in october. here's a picture of mt fyffe hut, not far below the mt fyffe summit, where we spent two wonderfully cozy nights near the wonderful fire. i'm just glad to be looking at a picture of snow at christmastime. i started working at a homeware store at the mall this week (just until january), and am being reminded continually that christmas is coming, though our christmas stockings are marketed next to picnic blankets and bbq sets.

-rachel

job update

I figured it was about time I post a bit of a personal update, specifically regarding the ever-frustrating job searching. We knew that we were taking a big risk by quitting good jobs to move overseas, but I can't say that I ever actually expected to find myself in a prolonged stint of unemployment like the one that I've been in for the last nine months. I find myself much more able to empathize with others who spend long hours on library computers, sending CVs for boring, low-paying jobs that would only be accepted out of desperation. I had an interview at Valleygirl last week, a clothing store at the mall filled with overly frilly dresses for skinny 13-year-olds, and was both embarrassed and relieved not to have been offered the position.

A few weeks ago I committed two afternoons to handing out CVs at local malls, getting a dozen or more into the hands of store managers at Northlands Mall, but receiving little encouragement later in the week at Riccarton Mall, where one manager snapped at me, "we filled our Christmas positions a month ago!" in response to my inquiry about open positions. Yesterday my voicemail contained a message from a manager at the first mall asking if I was still interested in a seasonal position, though I haven't been able to make out her name or the store name despite replaying the message four times, so I may have to call the number blindly and hope the person who answers the phone includes the name of the store in her opening greeting.

I do have some cause for hope, though, depending on your view of the supernatural and of prophecy. :) Two Sundays ago our pastor initiated a special prayer time at the end of the service for those with financial needs, and I went forward to receive prayer for a job from the pastor's wife. After a brief prayer, she told me that she felt like there was a job waiting for me in the classifieds of the Saturday paper, and even pointed out where on the page she thought I'd find it. I popped down the the library early in the week, and though I browsed through every local paper from the previous Saturday, nothing popped out at me. Yesterday, however, while waiting for a computer to open up, I decided to make another try with the following weekend's paper, and excitedly discovered a position in student housing and activities at Canterbury University (exactly what I've been looking for) that hadn't been listed on the university website or on TradeMe. It was even located halfway down the right-hand page, right where my pastor's wife had indicated. I sent a cover letter and CV, and am even allowing myself to be a little hopeful, though I guess we'll have to see what happens from here, if anything.

Bryan had an interview yesterday for a position as the manager of an after-school kids program connected with a Presbyterian church in Hornby. His current visa doesn't allow him to work anywhere but at our church, but if he's offered the job, he's going to petition for an exception. The hope is that, as it's connected to a church, he can argue that he has training specific to the role because of his ministry degree. It's worth a shot, eh? It also gave him an opportunity to meet the children's pastor at the church, so maybe it will at least help him network a bit. I think he should have been offered the job based solely on the tightness of his pants - we've both chunked up a bit since getting off the trail, and the dress pants he bought a year ago were amusingly snug. :)

-Rachel

The Day of Delicious American Sweet Treats

We have unofficially declared today to be the Day of Delicious American Sweet Treats and are celebrating in style with those who happen to find themselves in our vicinity today, and who we hope are appreciating their good fortune. This day is especially exciting because we are in the middle of another self-declared calendar period, No-Sweets November, in which I am attempting to curb my out-of-control sweet tooth by allowing myself only three days in which to indulge in chocolate and other desserty items, so we've already gone nearly sugarless for a full week, which is pretty much the same length as forever.

Already today we have been privileged to introduce to our church colleagues the delicious treat known as the Root Beer Float, in a country where ginger beer reigns and root beer is practically unheard of. Fortunately, we have been consistently supplied by classic A&W root beer by, of all places, the Asian Food Warehouse, just a block away from the church, at the very affordable price of $1 each (canned soda in New Zealand is ridiculously expensive). The floats were met with a very positive response ("wow, what is this?"), though our intern, Hannah, compared to the taste of medicine ("but I love medicine!"), and a second round was quickly prepared for all.

This evening, if all goes well, we will be presenting our young adults small group with the opportunity to sample the delectable fare known by the unassuming title of Puppy Chow - Crispix cereal with melted peanut butter and chocolate, rolled in powdered sugar. Peanut butter and chocolate is, lamentably, not a widely appreciated combination here, so we're hoping to win a few converts to the cause and thereby improve their standards of living :)

Very proud to be an American,

Rachel

the world's most boring town

Two weeks ago, Bryan and I visited the world's most boring town. We took advantage of cheap train tickets to Kaikoura, a town three hours up the coast that we had been meaning to visit since breezing through on the bus from Nelson in January, and discovered that 27 hours in this town is more than enough time to see all of its not-so-numerous and less-than-enthralling sights.

We left on a Wednesday and returned on a Saturday, spending the first 3 days tramping at Mt. Fyffe, which looms over the plains of Kaikoura and serves as the easternmost mountain in the Kaikoura Ranges. As it only takes 5 hours to reach the summit (and half that time to return to the carpark), most people do this hike in a day, but we spent two nights in cozy Mt. Fyffe Hut, enjoying the unbelievable efficiency of its wood stove and appreciating the view of the Kaikoura Peninsula and its beaches in springtime while snow was falling around us. We'd been planning to spend one night at this hut, reach the summit the next morning, and follow the ridge down on the other side to Hapuku Hut, but the amount of snow at the top was a concern and my out-of-shape self didn't need much of an excuse to take it easy instead. We had wonderful company in the hut on our first night - Benjamin, a 19-year-old German who has been a licensed glider pilot since the age of 14 (four years before he could legally drive a car in Germany), and Tally, a 65-year-old Coloradan who sold her house 8 years ago and has been travelling the world ever since (Alaska to Antarctica). She seemed to view New Zealand as a second home, this being something like her fifth or sixth time here, though she seemed to be viewing her current trip as the last one, or at least the last one for a while.

On Friday we returned to lower elevations, hoping desperately but futilely to hitch a ride for the remaining 10 miles into town, and limped into a holiday park just after lunchtime with painful blisters from my not-quite-broken-in boots. We paid way too much for a cabin that turned out to consist only of a bed (no blankets) and a breakfast table with two chairs, as we couldn't be bothered to walk any farther in search of slightly cheaper accommodation. The one highlight of this holiday park was its possession of the mysteriously-titled Jumping Pillow, which turned out to be exactly what it sounds like - a gigantic (15'x60'?), pillow-shaped inflatable that we are now determined to purchase for our church. The amount of joy that Bryan derived from this new toy alone was worth the $60 we paid for the night.

Kaikoura is known for two things: its whale watching tours and its seafood. As neither are in the least bit budget-friendly, we had to settle for cheaper activities, of which there are very few in existence. A person can only wander around Kaikoura's two-block shopping area for so long, and the cool breeze on the pebbly shore kept us out of the water, so we were thrilled to find that the one-screen historic art-deco cinema had a 7:30 showing of The Runaways, which we had been interested in seeing, and planned our entire night around this event. Our arrival at 7:20 brought us to an empty but open-doored theater, where a teenaged kid with a broom scurryied about without acknowledging our presence at the concession/ticket counter. When an older woman, who I assumed to be the owner, sauntered up a few minutes later, our attempts to purchase tickets ended with the discovery that this cinema is cash-only and the nearest ATM is a ten-minute walk away. This completely unadvertised policy was made even more frustrating by the casual way in which the woman shrugged as we expressed our disappointment and walked away. We sat on the rocks across from the cinema and watched as an older couple and a child (a granddaughter, maybe?) wandered in, but didn't see any other moviegoers that night. How is this theater staying in business?

On Saturday, again having nothing to do, we arrived at the tiny train station to wait for the TranzCoastal as early as we possibly could without looking completely homeless, breathing a sigh of relief when it finally pulled up and we were allowed to sink into its comfy seats on our way back home to beautiful, glorious, civilized, credit card-taking Christchurch. Our good friend Phil picked us up from the train station, which hides behind a shopping center ("there's a train station in Christchurch?"), and we threaded our way home through concert traffic from a free outdoor show in Hagley Park, where many of New Zealand's biggest names in music (Dave Dobbyn, Op Shop, Bic Runga, and others that I feigned knowledge of and enthusiam about) were playing in front of 100,000 people (a quarter of the city's population) as a sort of earthquake-survival tribute. It was good to be home.

-Rachel

earthquake photos

having finally gotten my poor camera to allow me to transfer photos again, i figured i should finally post some of the photos i took right after last month's earthquake. certainly there are better pictures available, but hopefully this will help you see it from our perspective.

not having experienced any earthquakes before, we had no sense of magnitude and actually expected a 7.1 to feel much worse than it did. our upstairs bedroom shook violently for those few seconds, some pots and pans fell out of the cupboards, but afterwards we look at each other, laughed, and guessed its magnitude as a 4.0. it wasn't until a few hours later, not being able to go back to sleep (the earthquake occurred around 4:30 am) because of the excitement, that we wandered outside and saw that not every building had fared as well as our solid little home. we had planned to grab a bite to eat at the daily bagel, but from the picture below, you can see how that turned out. i was originally glad to see that next door my favorite local eatery, the new york deli (look for the red sign), was still standing, but it has since been torn down.

one of the first evidences of the quake, visible along the street just outside of our house, was the strange mud-like substance that lay in small hills along fences and in streams in the gutter. we've since learned that this is silt from the river that forced its way up through the soil when the quake triggered a sudden wave down the river...something like that.

i think my favorite destroyed building, if i can be so insensitive as to call it that, is the one that housed the south of the border restaurant (it was reportedly terrible) on colombo st. mainly i just like that the second-floor bathroom is fully exposed, a roll of toilet paper still hanging on the wall.

one of the shops that i felt bad for was the painted room, a sort of odds-n-ends/antique shop that had just moved into this new location (left) weeks before. its old location (right) was just a block away, and didn't appear to have sustained any damage save for this poor mannequin sprawled awkwardly on the floor. terrible timing.

while the suburbs near the beach didn't fare too well, in general the damage was limited to chimneys falling through roofs, like this sad example in a lovely old home. even now, six weeks later, any residential street contains homes with tarps strapped over chimney holes.

we're still experiencing aftershocks daily (anything above a 4.0 is worth remarking on), and expect the same for the coming months. in one sense, i think we'll miss the experience when it's all over, but don't tell that to the poor people who've lost homes or who are suffering psychologically (which is actually quite a large part of the population). hope this gives you a taste for what the christchurch streets look like - while many of the damaged buildings have been demolished, just as many are still cordoned off, their doors and windows marked with spraypainted Xs and the words "NO GO".

-rachel

my apologies for the long delay between posts of late - we are still alive and living it up in new zealand, never fear. the big thrill for bryan this week was the much-anticipated arrival of about 70 of our movies (plus some great treats that my parents threw in) that we, of course, have not had access to for the last 14 months. so when i threw open the curtains last weekend and decided to spend my warm spring saturday dayhiking in the port hills, i found that i would be going alone, as he could not be convinced to leave his comfortable position on the couch. not a problem - i think a person is entitled to spend their saturday however they see fit, though i have been reminding him all week about the fantastic experience that he missed out on.

my hike was absolutely perfect, the kind of little day trip that i'd easily repeat with a friend (or husband!) who's up for a little activity on a nice day. i took the bus out to lyttleton, then walked up the popular and unexpectedly steep bridle path that the early settlers used to climb over the hills between the port and the plains where they would eventually build their homes. this path connected me with the crater rim walkway, part of which we explored back in march, which i followed out to godley head, where the remains of a WWII base can be seen. from there, i took a coastal track down to taylor's mistake, a quiet little beach where lifeguards were training, and ultimately along to sumner, a long and popular beach with a boardwalk that we've visited with friends quite a lot in last few months. i finished my walk around 4 pm, purchasing an ice cream for the remaining barefoot stretch down to the bus stop at the far end of the beach. it's as if i'm just now discovering that i live on the coast, having spend last summer exploring the city itself and not bothering to venture out too far in the cold of winter, and i am embracing this discovery wholeheartedly.

on tuesday i was fortunate enough to join the teenage girls from the church youth group on a mini-retreat to the french settlement of akaroa, about an hour and a half from christchurch along very windy roads, where they had rented a beautiful house that overlooked the harbor. i arrived halfway through the 3-day retreat, so we checked out of the house the morning after i arrived, and then drove to the north side of the peninsula to spend the day soaking up the sun in okains bay. it was the middle of the two-week school holidays, so i was surprised to find that the only other people at the beach were so far away that i had to squint to see them clearly. i got a lot of reading done, received my first sunburn of the season, and even managed to get in the frigid water up to my waist. good, good times.

next (mini) adventure: biking the 40-km christchurch to little river rail trail, which should be gorgeous, though i've heard rumors that it's still blocked by a landslide because of the earthquake. speaking of earthquakes, we're still getting aftershocks from the quake 5 weeks ago, generally at the rate of one a day that's large enough to feel. what a strange experience.

-rachel

national conference

Last night we returned home from a 4-day conference up in Auckland that we attended with the rest of our church staff and most of the interns. I believe I've hinted at the fact that we're moving into a new role at the church, but I don't know that I've ever actually explained it. Since March/April we've been heading up what we've termed Family Ministries, a program that runs in conjunction with our kids ministry by providing one event for families with young kids each month. Ideally this would have been run under the leadership of the kids ministry staff, but the volunteer kids pastors have five kids of their own and just didn't have the time to do it. The more recent development is that, having served in this role for five years, they've decided that it's time for a change and will be stepping down from kids ministry at the end of November, and Bryan and I have agreed to take on this role in their stead. Over the past few years, especially having been involved with fantastic kids ministry teams at our church at home (Oak Hills Church) in Minnesota, we've felt drawn to kids ministry, and so we feel like this is a very natural (though still very challenging!) step for us.

So we flew up to Auckland on Monday for the annual National Conference for our church movement, staying with the family of a friend that we met here in Christchurch at their home on Auckland's lovely North Shore, just a 10-minute drive from the conference in the beachside suburb of Takapuna. We'd been there before, having stayed at a campground a block away from the conference center on the last night of our 34-day Cape Reinga-Auckland hike last September, and were struck by how different our circumstances were. We miss our backpacking lifestyle, but also embrace the good friends that we've found over the last year and the strong sense of local identity that we've cultivated in Christchurch. 

The Saturday before we left for the conference, while saying goodbye to our good friend Ann-Kristin at the airport, Bryan and I discovered that we weren't actually registered for the conference, each of us having thought that the other person had taken care of this crucial step. We shared a good nervous laugh but boarded our flights anyway, having no opportunity to contact anyone about the problem but knowing enough about the workings of our small (and often disorganized) movement to have a fair amount of confidence in our ability to attend anyway. To our relief, this was the case, though it was painful to see the money we could have saved had we qualified for the early-bird rate. I think my mom would say "you live and you learn" here.

I think all of us from City Church enjoyed the conference, though as a first-time attendee, I had some expectations that did not match up with the actual event. For the first time in my life, probably because I'm recognizing how much I have to learn as a new kids pastor, I was looking forward to networking with other people in similar roles, and was disappointed to find that this conference made no attempt to assist with this process - no workshops, no discussion groups, no special lunches, just eight long general sessions. Yikes! The keynote speaker was an American, Pastor Glen Berteau from Calvary Temple Worship Center in Modesto, CA. He had plenty of great things to say, though his proud declaration that he doesn't read books, just the Bible, made me squirm more than just a little. I'm not sure if he was serious about this or just emphasizing a point (that we need to know the Bible itself, not just what other people have to say about it), but it didn't exactly make me want to put him on my favorite people list.

The highlights for me were a short message preached by Jordan Smith, the movement's youth ministry guy, who spoke inspiringly about our ability to make an impact no matter how large the size of our team, which is especially relevant for us as most of the kids ministry work is done by the two of us and our fabulous (and hilariously innocent) intern, Hannah. I was also able to connect meaningfully with Sarah Thompson, who's been the kids pastor at South Life Church in Dunedin (we were at this church a few months ago for the Branded Conference) for 6 or 8 years and who is making valiant efforts to build a kidmin community nationwide. I'd stumbled upon her blog last week through a kids ministry website and had been hoping to meet her while up north. We went out for coffee and talked about check-in systems, teambuilding, and her desire to create meaningful experiences for kids throughout their Sunday morning kids program. Good stuff, and hopefully just the beginning of a fruitful relationship that someday I may actually have something to contribute to.

So that was my first experience with the ACTS Churches National Conference. I'm glad we went...and thanks to Joel and Karen for helping make that possible for us.

-Rachel

winter tramping

This is the tale of a hike that did not go according to plan - but then again, I've started many a blog with this same formula: the plan was X, but because of Y, we ended up doing Z. In this particular case, plan X was to drive up into the mountains with our friends Ann-Kristin and Josh on Wednesday afternoon and hike the Lake Man route, a loop that would take us up the Doubtful River (top of the image below), across the Doubtful Range, and down the Hope River as it swings east to arrive back at our entrance point by Saturday evening. It was going to be a strong jolt back into the backpacking lifestyle after 9 sedentary months in the city, but we were keen for a little adventure as Ann flies back home to Berlin this week to start her university studies and we'd been talking about doing a good tramp together for months.

Within the first half hour we knew that our plans would have to change, as the car that we were planning to take suddenly lost its power steering and the car that we did take got a flat tire before we even got out of Christchurch. So instead of beginning our hike on Day 1, we camped at a free site by the side of the highway and cooked our dinner outside in the rain on our small stove. While Bryan and I believe in travelling as light as possible, Josh's mentality is to bring as much as can possibly be carried, which was to our benefit when he pulled out a block of butter in which to fry two massive rump steaks, accompanied by peas and mashed potatoes.

The new plan was to leave early on Day 2 and make up the two lost hours from Day 1...but of course that was not to be. The beginning of our hike involved a crossing of the Boyle River where there is no bridge, which may have been a simple task were it late summer, but with all the snowmelt of early spring as well as days of heavy rain in the region, there was no way a sane human could be convinced to attempt that feat. So instead we drove down to the carpark at what was supposed to be the end of our trip, an hour's walk downriver, to the only swingbridge in the area. Our topo maps indicated a rough track that would lead us back up to the Doubtful Valley, but we soon lost the path and found ourselves enclosed by fences that were most definitely not on the maps. Two hours into our wandering we gave up and decided to start hiking the loop backwards, hoping to reach the 20-bunk Hope Kiwi Hut (#1 on the map) by sunset. The going was much easier once this decision was made, though the sun never emerged from the drizzling clouds and the mud often reached over the tops of our gaiters, and we made decent time making our way up to the head of the valley. We were rewarded at the end of our 9-hour day with the sight that we most wanted to see: a spacious, clean, and (most of all) empty hut with a stack of firewood resting by the stove. We hung up our wet gear, unrolled our sleeping bags in one of the two spacious bunkrooms, and heated up a pot of water for the first round of hot chocolate. I think most of us had already given up on the Lake Man route by this time, secretly planning a short day hike down to Lake Sumner or thereabouts for Day 3, but none of us wanted to vocalize this complete deterioration of The Plan quite yet.

On Day 3, having been awoken many times in the night by the rain pounding down on the roof and windows, none of us displayed any eagerness to leave the hut. We officially postponed a decision until lunchtime (clearly already much too late if we were going to do any hiking), at which point we unanimously voted to drag our sleeping bags next to the fire and spend the day reading and playing card games. Bryan and I pulled on our hiking boots in the late afternoon for a five-minute walk along the grassy flat just outside the hut, more to be able to say that we went outside than from an actual desire to do so. During those short minutes the rain turned into sleet, and by the time we were seated comfortably next to the fire again a layer of snow was visibly settling on the fenceposts just outside the window. Living next to the sea at an elevation of about 30m, we've had to adjust to the disappointment of a snowless winter and were therefore so excited by this weather development that we all headed outside to build a snowman and have a snowball fight as the last glow of daylight faded away.

On the last day, then, there was nothing left to do but to head back out the way we came: across the short field of grassy hillocks, along the long river flat crisscrossed with cow and rabbit tracks, and up and down through the muddy forest roughly following the river's curves. It's difficult to get excited about a hike that you've already done, so we made excellent time in our haste to get back home to change into dry clothes and crank up the heatpump. Roughly halfway back to the car we stopped at the Hope Halfway Hut, a basic 6-bunk hut where some freeze-dried food had been left by hikers before us. On the way in, two days earlier, Bryan had taken one of the two packages of Cocoa Rice Balls with Fruit Salad, which subsequently proved terrible enough to warrant being dumped into the long-drop toilet, and despite much prodding from the rest of the group he was not tempted to take the second package with him on the way out.

Looking back, I'm not at all disappointed that plan X turned into plan Z. It's as if we took a retreat together (at a very remote retreat center), and I wonder if that wasn't what I needed more than just an active adventure. Through months of tramping and months of fruitless job searching, I'm getting used to my plan not working out. Sometimes the alternative is better and sometimes it's worse, but I'm trying to learn to take it as it is and emerge intact on the other end.

-Rachel

moving church

While Bryan and I have still not been affected by Saturday's earthquake in regards to our own home, our church is a different story. We met in the auditorium as usual on Sunday, but as chunks of plaster began falling off the walls we grew concerned about safety and decided to move this weekend's service to our smaller (and much rattier) youth hall. The wisdom of this decision was confirmed by a structural engineer who issued us with one of the yellow certificates that we've seen around the city, meaning that the building is to be entered with caution and only by those people who have legitimate business being there. We were thankful that the damage extended only to the auditorium, which is technically a separate building from our office area though they have a long wall in common. This morning, after a series of particularly strong aftershocks, as Bryan was in the office particularly early on a phone call to the U.S., he heard the familiar sound of a collapsing building and rushed to the door in time to see the ceiling open over our senior pastor's office and a load of bricks and debris landing solidly on his (very expensive) desk. So much for the office area being safer.

And so this is why, on our cherished and much-too-rare days off, we will be moving everything from both the auditorium and the offices over to the youth hall. This complicates everything, but as it could be months before we have a usable auditorium and office area again, we have to plan for it being a fairly long-term solution. We've already spent the morning cleaning out the youth hall, moving furniture, trying to spruce up the grungy upstairs area that was just recently vacated by a Korean church, and brainstorming to identify the most efficient and effective solutions to our new problems. It's an irritating job, but it's all necessary and there's a sense of community about it as well. Hopefully at the end of this process we'll emerge with more creativity, commitment, and momentum than ever before - if not, I don't know how we'll handle the next few months. More later.

-Rachel

earthquake!

On Saturday morning we woke up just before 5 am to the undulations of our first earthquake - always glad to add something new to our list of New Zealand experiences! We knew about the major fault line that bisects the entire country, so while we hadn't found ourselves in an earthquake here before, it wasn't surprising to us that it was occurring. As there was no damage to our home, save for a few items that fell off of shelves and out of the cupboards, we considered it to be a quite minor quake, and only realized its extent hours later. There wasn't a word about the earthquake on TV (too early for the news) so, not being able to sleep, we walked downtown for an early breakfast and encountered firsthand the piles of rubble where the entrance to the bagel shop used to be. The central city area has the most dramatic damage, as it contains the oldest and therefore most fragile buildings, and about 25 square blocks of the city were roped off later in the day and have been patrolled by city police ever since.

We had planned to go on a nice long day-hike with friends to a forest park an hour or so south of here, but unfortunately had to give up that plan because local authorities were encouraging people to stay off of the roads. Later it became clear that the roads we would have taken were clear after all, but a part of us probably wanted an excuse to be rubberneckers, to remember this one dramatic moment in history before it would be cleaned up for the upcoming tourist season. So the four of us got together for lunch (and afternoon tea, and dinner, and dessert) and wandered around in the warm sunshine of early spring, appreciating the curious little mud mountains that bubbled up in parks and lawns, which I understand to be silt from the nearby Avon that forced itself up through the soil. Though it was a beautiful Saturday morning, almost no shops or restaurants were open, so the few places that did manage to serve customers were busy non-stop. A friend of mine manages a KFC which was, to her dismay, open. She did not have a pleasant day. After a long afternoon of walking I attempted to drag the boys into some sort of intensely girly shop (I believe it's called Truly Scrumptious) that advertised cold drinks, but in desperation they found a coffee shop secretly open down the street. 

I'm amused by the news reports that are coming out about the quake, some of which are just blatantly wrong. We all laughed about someone's dramatic statement on TV this morning that "20% of residences are uninhabitable". While there certainly are some homes that fall into this category, the vast majority of them are either completely fine or report something minor, like the common loss of a chimney. We had lunch this afternoon with a friend's family on the south side of the city and would never have known there was an earthquake there had we not experienced it. I think the big surprise was that the magnitude was as large as it was (a 7.1, downgraded from the 7.4 originally reported) and that it originated so close to the city (40ish kms west, coming down from the low hills and plains to our lovely coastal city). It was hard not to chuckle at a woman who appeared on TV in the morning, having obviously been interviewed before anything was known about the earthquake's originating point, who declared with wide, panicked eyes that she was heading for the hills to avoid the tsunami.

More later - the camera's acting up, so unfortunately I can't upload any of my pictures yet. The picture above is from stuff.co.nz and was taken at the school that I worked at the week before last.

-Rachel

urban tramping

This week I've been picking up some hours working at an after-school program with Outaskool, the organization that I worked for during the school holidays a few months ago. I'm glad for the 15 or so hours of employment, but in order to avoid spending a large chunk of my miniscule paycheck on transportation, I've been walking to and from the school each day, which is just over 2 miles from the church or 3 miles if I'm leaving from our home. On Friday I decided to try jogging home, but quickly found that the 30ish miles of walking during the week had rendered my muscles completely uncapable of any extraordinary feats, a category to which running clearly belonged. During this attempted jog I also incorrectly judged the curvature of the river that I had been following to my next turn-off and was surprised to pop out east of The Palms Mall when I had planned to remain on its southwest side for my entire home journey.

I gave up and took the bus home instead, having been taken under the wing of a British man who had emigrated here 20 years prior and assumed from my accent (and the backpack I was jogging with) that I would be in need of assistance on the public transportation system. This wasn't quite the case, but I'm realizing that I will be pegged as a tourist no matter how long I'm here, and am trying to reconcile myself to this truth.

-Rachel

the one thing every church should excel in

When choosing a church to attend, and more importantly, to commit to serving in, I believe it's important to know the heart of the leadership team and assess whether it lines up with your own values and passions. Over the past months it's been confirmed that we have chosen well at City Church, because our pastor values food. This afternoon we attended a brilliantly (and brilliantly simple) event, a potluck lunch hosted jointly by the seniors group and the young adults, who historically haven't had much to do with each other but both desired to change that pattern. From my conversations with May and Claire I gleaned recipes for lamb shanks with mint sauce and bread and butter pudding and heard the most romantic wartime love stories involving dashing young men on motorbikes. It was a great event, and maybe the shortest one in the history of the young adults group, as half of the group soon headed home for an afternoon nap :)

-Rachel

things i love: turkey sandwiches and graphic design

I've just spent a wonderful morning designing the advertisements for our next Family Ministries event, which is going to be an early Thanksgiving dinner. We had been planning to do this event in November, but we were in need of an event that would create opportunities for our new families to connect, and this seemed better suited to that purpose than the father/son, mother/daughter event that we'd pencilled in for September. It's not going to be fall in November here anyway, so it didn't seem like a big deal to move it up a few months. That also frees up the two of us to do an even more authentic Thanksgiving celebration for our close friends in November like we'd been planning. We're pretty stoked about our marketing - the one on the left is the one that will be printed in the bulletin this Sunday, and the one below is the full, postcard-sized version that we'll print out (hopefully) on some cool paper that will give us the worn antique map look and send to our families. Cool, eh?

-Rachel

conference season

I'm restless. Each evening after dinner, the TV rumbling away in the background, I pore over our New Zealand atlas looking for towns that I have yet to visit and searching for the familiar dotted lines that signify a hiking route. I wish I could be spending this barely-employed season out on the trail having active adventures, but for now I have to be satisfied with adventures of a different sort, and so we've signed ourselves up for a couple of conferences in the next month. This weekend, on the anniversary of our arrival in New Zealand (it feels like so long ago!), we're heading down to Dunedin with the youth group for their annual Branded conference, which is held at the church that I visited a few weeks ago with Ann-Kristin. We're excited to hear from some good speakers and do some networking, but mainly it's a chance to get out of Christchurch for a bit.

But what we're looking forward to most is next month's trip up to Auckland's North Shore for the ACTS National Conference. We're flying up, which turns an otherwise minor trip into a grand travel experience, and will spend four weekdays with staff and leaders from churches in our movement around New Zealand. This will be especially beneficial because in a couple of months (and keep this on the down low while it's finalized) we're going to be adding the children's ministry to our portfolio at the church, a huge addition that will require a large portion of our time and wisdom far beyond what we currently hold, but exactly what we wanted to be doing. It will be wonderful to kick off that new season with a hefty dose of vision and inspiration at the National Conference, and it will also be wonderful to spend the early days of spring up north where the warm weather arrives first.

Loving New Zealand even more every day,

-Rachel

big south trip: day 6

Day 6

Omarama to Christchurch

I think I'm mostly going to let the pictures speak for themselves for this final day of the trip and attempt to keep the narration brief. This is the morning view from our bedroom window in Omarama:

While Ann was packing her bag before breakfast, I chatted with the owner of the hostel and discovered that Mt. Cook National Park (the only one of the nine South Island National Parks that I hadn't yet hiked in) was only an hour out of our way, and that the road was not in fact layered in ice and snow as had been my assumption. We didn't have much on the agenda for today anyway, being our "return home" day, and planned to find a short hike (1-2 hours) in the park. We lingered much too long at the visitor center (it was like a free museum) flipping through biographies of the 200+ people who have lost their lives on the mountain, most of whom had extensive mountaineering backgrounds. Mt Cook is New Zealand's highest mountain and was the training ground of Sir Edmund Hillary before he became the first to summit Everest.

So we completed this one-hour hike up to Kea Point, which gave us a view of Mt. Cook (left) up the Hooker Valley, only to decide that what we really wanted was to get beyond the wall of glacial debris across the lake and get a view of the mountain from the much closer Hooker Lake, which would add three hours to our hiking. It wasn't a difficult decision, as we had no desire to leave this gorgeous mountain setting before we absolutely had to.

Our wandering at Mt. Cook took the place of some short hikes that we'd planned at Lake Tekapo, two hours up the road, but we clearly made the better choice. We arrived in Tekapo just in time to snap a couple of sunset pictures at the famed little lakeside church, then drove the final hours home in the exhausted silence that signals the end of a long trip.

I have got to find a way to travel for a living.

-Rachel

big south trip: day 5

Day 5
Arrowtown to Omarama

Woke up to a thick layer of frost on our windshield and no heater with which to warm up the car. Having been unable to find a scraper in Christchurch before we left, Ann had to settle for the tool that scrapes off window decals, which was much smaller but eventually created a hole big enough to see through. We drove the car down the street to the old-time shopping area where it could soak up the sunshine while we tasted fudge and looked in longingly at the creperie, then headed back into Queenstown (for a place that I hate, I sure do find myself there often) with the intention of sampling a Fergburger, renowned all over NZ but available only in Queenstown. I must admit that my Bombay Chicken burger was both delicious and massive, a steal at NZ$12 consiering that I saw fish and chips selling for $19 a block away.

A chilly start to the day in Arrowtown

We've been taking our time meandering back home (you can drive between Christchurch and Invercargill in a day, easily, but where's the fun in that?), so today's 4 hours of driving was one of our longer days on the road. I'm rapidly gaining confidence behind the wheel, as New Zealand contains virtually no roads that are both straight and flat (or, really, either one of these), which is part of its charm if anxiety-inducing at times. The drive is always one of the best parts about travelling in this country. Today we drove through high mountain passes, along deep gorgeous with vibrant blue water, and past mile after mile of vineyards. Lovely. 

Our sweet as breakfast/lunch at Fergburger

Our drive was broken up with a stop in Wanaka, another town on the edge of a gorgeous mountain lake, but much less glitzy and busy than Queenstown. The main attraction for us there was a place that I'd visited in 1998 with my family and considered one of the highlights of our trip: Stuart Landsborough's Puzzling World, where we had a blast finding our way around the giant maze and through the optical illusion rooms. I was pleased to have remembered parts of it from ten years ago, and glad that it was still as much fun :) 

A very enticing toilet seat at the Puzzling World

Just as the sun was setting, we pulled up at the Buscot Station backpackers, a homely little hostel on a farm 9 kms from Omarama (o-MARE-a-ma...we've been corrected), a very small town that didn't quite warrant a stop, as we were anxious to arrive before it was completely dark. As it is, we almost drove through an open gate into a field trying to find the hostel, which isn't very well signed from the turn-off. We're surrounded on all sides by mountains, so the sunrise in the morning should be incredible if we're up early enough to see it (which isn't likely). Having been dependent on bus routes in my earlier travels, I've never really stayed in such a remote hostel, but I'm really liking being so rural at the moment. We're staying in a room with two girls from Switzerland, whose accent even Ann took to be German, and there are two guys in a room down the hall, but otherwise the place is empty. It's just too bad that tomorrow we have to return home to the city :(

-Rachel

big south trip: day 4

Day 4
Invercargill to Arrowtown

15008 kms from New York

Ann-Kristin's car, bought for $450 at a backpacker car market last year, has served us well in all but one respect: it lacks a working heater. This hasn't been an issue for her in Christchurch, where the temperature rarely dips below freezing even at night, but as we've headed into higher altitudes and more southerly latitudes, this has defect has become more noticeable. Our travels today took us down to the southernmost town in the South Island, Bluff, where the ferries depart to cross the Foveaux Strait to Stewart Island, NZ's third (and by far the smallest) island. We would have loved to include Stewart Island in our itinerary, but the cost of the ferry crossing wasn't nearly in the budget, and we really didn't have time for it either. What we did have time for was some delicious blue cod at a fish and chips shop, eaten with the standard massive portion of fries. One of the measurements used here is a pottle, the exact volume of which I have yet to quantify (I think it's really just synonymous with a portion) but it seems horrifyingly generous. We took the obligatory picture at the signpost to match the one that Bryan and I took in front of the signpost at Cape Reinga in the far north last August, when we thought there was a remote chance that we'd hike all the way down here. Though that didn't even come close to happening, it feels like I've completed something by coming here.

Driving into Queenstown at dusk. Lovely.

We spent a couple of hours bumming around Phil's favorite spots in Invercargill (plus a stop in the southernmost Starbucks in the world, which I would consider a must-see attraction) before heading up Hwy 6 towards Queenstown, a town that I hate in the summer for its throngs of partying tourists and, I've now discovered, despise in the winter when even more of the offensive aforementioned tourists flock there with ski and snowboard gear hanging over their shoulders. I acknowledge that I'm also a tourist, but that doesn't make me like overcrowded, overpriced commercial areas that are ruining the most beautifully set town in the country. It's really awful. We only passed through there because we wanted to take the inland route back home and it was on the way. Thankfully, in a moment of wisdom, we made the excellent decision to stay in the charming historic town of Arrowtown, 20 minutes from Queenstown itself. It's quiet, the hostel is small and warm, and we still benefit from a dazzling location in the midst of mountains that look like they've been topped with powdered sugar. We'll drive back into Queenstown tomorrow for the ritual Fergburger and then get the h-e-double hockey sticks out of there.

-Rachel

and the verdict is...

We received an e-mail this morning from INZ, a day after submitting another pile of letters and signatures and our certificate of marriage. Here's what it said:

Hi Bryan,

Thanks for your letter. I am pleased to let you know that we have approved you and your wife's work permits and your passports are now ready to collect from our office.

We have not yet finalised your Variation of Conditions application as we have had to conduct a Labour Market Test to determine whether or not there are any New Zealanders or residents in the labour force able to undertake work offered to you by Subway. This is part of our policy.

Once we receive the results of the test, we will be in touch.

Great news, eh? We're guessing it's unlikely that Bryan will continue to be able to work at Subway (or in any part-time job outside of the church), but he's hardly heartbroken about that :) I now have a work permit that allows me to work in any job for any employer, so I can begin looking for jobs and hopefully become the breadwinner for a while.

The other good news is that since our permits and visas have been approved until 20 August 2011 (a period of two years from the date that we first entered the country), we are now eligible to receive healthcare in New Zealand. No more travel insurance! We'd have preferred permits for three years, but since our police checks have still not arrived, they can't grant us anything longer. Unfortunately, this means we'll likely be going through the same process again next year, though at least now we have the documents together.

So it's official - start planning your visits!

-Rachel

big south trip: day 3

Day 3
Dunedin to Invercargill

Our lovely lunch spot near Nugget Point

Instead of taking our tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory on a Sunday, when the factory would be closed and would offer only an abbreviated version of the tour, we opted to leave Dunedin slightly later than planned and scheduled our visit for 9 am this morning, a Monday. Neither of us had gotten much sleep the night before, having spent a good portion of the night trying to muffle the monstrous, reverberating snores emanating from the man in the corner bed. He was older than the typical hostel-dweller, perhaps mid-fifties, and had already been much more talkative than we had the energy for in the afternoon and evening. How distressing it was to find that we were allowed no moments of silence even at night! But we did not allow this to distract us from our chocolate mission, and soon perked up as our bags filled with free samples of chocolate fish (chocolate covered marshmallow fish - our British friend Simon assumed these to be actual fish when he first arrived in NZ), jaffas (like orange-flavored M&Ms), Pinkys (marshmallow, caramel, chocolate), and the like. I enjoyed the tour more this time than when I first took it in December with Bryan, when some of the rooms were devoid of all machinery, the company being in the process of a production transition that resulted in some Kiwi favorites now being made in one of the Australian factories, which (as you can imagine) was much lamented by the public.

Ann-Kristin on the short walk to Jack's Blowhole

So we left Dunners (local nickname for Dunedin - not sure if I can get away with saying it that way...) shortly before lunchtime and began following the Southern Scenic Route through the Catlins, a slightly longer but reportedly much more interesting route down to Invers (not sure if I can get away with that either). We stopped at many of the key sights, which meant lots of gravel roads and excruciatingly slow progress, but there were some lovely moments. The drive was nice enough, but I can't really say that I've seen anything in the Catlins that I hadn't already seen up in Northland last winter, and this time I felt a bit guilty because I didn't have to work for any of the pretty shots - I just rolled up in the parking lot and pulled out my camera. It was less satisfying than long days of hiking to reach some isolated, rarely-photographed spot.

Purakanui Falls

Our streak of beautiful, almost spring-like weather ended as we drove into the perpetual cloud of gloom that seems to hover over the southernmost city in NZ, Invercargill, so we drove the final hour on gravel roads in darkness and the rain. Fortunately, we had a cozy home and a hot dinner awaiting us, courtesy of the parents of our friend Dave. Our evening was spent spraying and sniffing dozens of French perfumes, samples from their pharmacy, from which they generously allowed us to select 2 or 3 favorites to bring home. Fell asleep with a hot water bottle at my feet and the rain pounding on the windows. Welcome to Invercargill.

-Rachel

big south trip: day 2

Day 2

Dunedin

Because we are amazingly awesome and very self-disciplined, we got up on the second day of our trip and headed down the hill to go to church. It probably helped that we were a little bit familiar with SouthLife Church already, it being one of the ACTS Churches associated with our church in Christchurch, and we'd planned to meet Phil there as well. Being located on the campus of the University of Otago, the oldest university in New Zealand, the church has an energetic student feel, and we were lucky to be there to hear a special speaker, the university pastor from Planetshakers Church in Melbourne (which we visited during our Australia trip in May). Both of us were glad to have gone to church, though the rest of our day quickly slipped away afterwards, along with the lazy winter sun.

The highlight of our day was a beautiful drive along well-named Hilltop Road on the Otago Peninsula, which juts out into the sea from its western boundary in Dunedin, where we had hoped to see some yellow-eyed penguins on the march up from the sea in mid-afternoon. Or maybe they're marching down to the sea - I'm not really sure. Anyway, as you can guess, we didn't spot any, but we certainly put in some strenuous exercise time during the steep and sandy descent and, later, ascent. Though it's winter, there are still plenty of other tourists around, so our hopes for a quiet day in a more remote area were quickly dashed when we saw the half-dozen cars already parked when we pulled up in Sandfly Bay.

We returned to our hostel for a bit of a rest, as we had also squeezed a very interesting trip to the Otago Settlers Museum into our afternoon, before satisfying our dinnertime hunger at Velvet Burger at the recommendation of a friend. The cajun chicken burger was delicious, if a bit small, and it seemed like the kind of moody little place that it would be cool to be seen in :)

Thought I'd try a personal makeover when I spotted this cardboard cutout as part of a 60s exhibit at the Settlers Museum. Is it a good look for me?

-Rachel

Pictures:

1) Sandfly Bay

2) Our spacious, light-filled room at Hogwartz (with Ann in the foreground)

a short story of terrible irony

this is a short story of terrible irony, short because i'm typing with my left hand only.

spilled salad dressing in the church kitchen during a family pizza night. subsequently slipped on said dressing. injured right arm. not eligible (yet) for govt-sponsored healthcare (hopefully will be in a few weeks if our permits are approved). because of govt-sponsored healthcare, churches don't carry liability insurance for such accidents. no worries, that's why we bought travel insurance. oops - looks like it expired...yesterday. is that not terrible irony?

don't worry, because the arm's okay (just a small fracture near the elbow, no need for a cast or anything), and emergency care was unbelievably cheap (x-rays: US$24!). i just hope you'll laugh along with me :)

-rachel

big south trip: day 1

Day 1: Christchurch to Dunedin

How wonderful it feels to be travelling again! This experience is notably different from our nomadic lifestyle from Aug-Jan for a few reasons:
1) I'm travelling not with my boy, but with our German friend, Ann-Kristin, who's been in Chch and at City Church just about as long as we have. She's also here on a work-holiday visa, and this is a bit of a last hurrah for her before she returns to Berlin in September. We packed the car with lots of chocolate and enjoyed hours of boy talk, which was not standard when Bryan was my travelling buddy :)
2) We have a home to return to! It's a completely different mindset when you know that you have a place of your own and a community of friends at the end of your journey. This evening, when we were asked at the hostel where we were from, both of us immediately answered "Christchurch", though undoubtedly the person asking expected to hear "Germany" and "America".
3) We're travelling by car, not on foot or by bus, as with all but 5 days of our earlier wandering. Having a car (it's Ann's, and has no heating - this will figure centrally in later updates) means that we can take detours and stop in every small town and stay in hostels that aren't within walking distance of a bus stop. It's glorious.

We took our time heading south, as a friend of ours (who's not known to be a particularly early riser), Phil, happened to be travelling the same route, and we'd hoped to meet up with him for lunch if he could catch up with us. We stopped to buy cheap 1 kg bags of broken cookies from the CookieTime factory, paused again in Timaru to record in daylight our late-night trip of last week, and crossed the railroad tracks to sit high on the rocks overlooking the ocean in Oamaru before discovering that Phil had not received some of our texts and had already passed us by. In the end we just met up for dinner in Dunedin at a crappy (but within budget) Chinese restaurant, one of many Asian eateries squeezed in shoulder-to-shoulder in this university city.

One of the highlights of the day was our short walk along the beach and barefoot across a frigid stream (remember, it's the heart of winter here) to reach the photogenic Moeraki boulders, as round as bowling balls and clustered oddly along this 50m stretch of coast.

Our hostel, Hogwartz, is one of the nicer hostels we've stayed in to date, through (as with most everything in Dunedin) it's perched atop a steep hill, where our car is squeezed along the side of a skinny one-way street with the handbrake fully engaged.

-Rachel

Pictures:
1) the seashore at Caroline Bay, in Timaru
2) a building made of local Oamaru white stone
3) Moeraki boulders