Argh! I'm a thief!!

Yip...it's true. I went into NZ Post this afternoon and was flipping through their address books.

As I left the store, I posted my mail and when I was outside the mall and went to move my wallet so to get my car keys, I realised I had an address book in my hand I hadn't paid for! I hastily went back into NZ Post and put it back on the shelf and took off out of there fast as!

Always made the better by the fact I was in Salvation Army uniform.

Denheath Custard Squares

So one of the first things Janine said to me before I left for Timaru was that there was a place nearby that had the best custard squares she had ever eaten in NZ. I mentioned it when I first arrived here and everyone knew straight away what I meant. (I had no idea where it was!)

So now, two weeks out from leaving, a group of the girls (or should I say 'ladies') finally took me out to Pleasant Point, a little town not far out of Timaru, to try a Denheath custard square. Apparently they courier over NZ.

They now make all sorts of desserts... coffee and chocolate custard squares, plus these eclair-type things, and numerous others ...

I stuck it out just for a plain ole original, and I might add they were mighty delish.

I also took a photo for Janine...

Search and Rescue Peel Forest Styles

So the basic gist of it is that about a decade ago a plane crashed in Peel Forest. The plane and the body were never recovered. It is fairly dense forest with a lot of shrubs etc.

Some mathematical genius type man from up north (who incidentally was not as old as I expected) has gone over all sorts of maps, charts etc and thinks he has sussed out the area in which it crashed. Apparently he has done this sort of thing before and been successful. The police etc also were due for a search and rescue exercise and it all kind of tied in together, amalgamating in a huge search and rescue exercise in Peel Forest. (For more info, click here to go to a news site). Haven't heard yet if they have found anything, but it definitely would be cool to have an outcome like that at the end of the exercise.

So then the Salvation Army Emergency Services in Timaru got the catering job, which is where I got involved. I am pretty knackered ... getting up well before dawn to get breakfast on tables by 6am, and then I came home late last night because I was leading the meeting and preaching this morning. (Which I think went pretty well by all accounts.)

Above: It took a little while to get used to the large number of cops around.
Above: When the Iroquois was having a break, the kids got to have a little sit in it. They were so stoked and I can pretty confidently say it made their day.

My Iroquois Adventure

Yeah sure the Air Force are about to replace them with lots of new aircraft but it didn't stop my excitement at being able to go up in the Iroquois when the boys of RNZAF Squadron 3 (hehe...don't I sound all official!) had to go drop off a search and rescue team in Peel Forest. It was absolutely fabulous.

Sure, I'm scared of heights and there are no doors on the side of the helicopter, but the nice cop beside me made sure I was well buckled in and the views were incredible. I would so jump at the chance to do this again!

Above: The Iroquois just landed.

Below: The view out of the side of the helicopter. You can see what I think is the Canterbury Plains. The view is incredible. Isn't it awesome! I just kept thinking how great a job God did in creating the landscape of New Zealand. Above: Looking forward into the cockpit. (Are they still called that in a helicopter?) The pilots were only about my age, which seemed a little crazy ... they are far too young to be old enough!

Below: One of the teams that we dropped off at the top of a hill. P.S. So I did make myself laugh a couple of times whilst in the Iroquois. (Sadly!) The only one I will share is when I was looking at the crewmen in their helmets (I really didn't like not being able to see their faces) and thought to myself how they had so much gear on it was like they belonged in the Air Force or something. Then the d'uh hit. They are in the Air Force!

And they say God doesn't have a sense of humour!

So this morning, Glenis (the Corps officer here at Timaru) came to the Corps and asked me to help her clean the emergency caravan in preparation for the Search and Rescue exercise this weekend at Peel Forest. Well, if you had seen it prior to our cleaning, you will know how excited I got at the prospect, but I nonetheless agreed. Nothing like dirt, dust, grime and mouse poo to make you love Monday mornings!

Several hours later, I found myself at the kitchen sink scrubbing and scrubbing the oven racks from inside the caravan. No small feat.

By this stage, the fun had fully gone out of the exercise and I was counting down the minutes until lunch. “Blimey, God,” I said. “There is so many other ways that would be a better use of my time. For example, I could be writing my sermon for Sunday!”

I then remembered what our preaching tutor told us: Think about the sermon all the time, meditate on the Scripture and see what God shows you, etc.

“Fine, then, Lord,” I told Him. “I’m going to spend these minutes scrubbing these awful racks thinking of my sermon. Now let’s see … it’s on Christ … being the servant.”

The irony was not lost on me. I could hear God chuckling. And I kept scrubbing. It was still a horrible job, but my mood was most definitely lightened.

Janine Pranks - An update

PRANK ONE

So...about Easter time last year, my cousins Emma and Hannah came and spent a few days of their holidays with me at College. And, together with Simon, we snuck into Janine's (the assistant training principal) office at night, rearranging all the furniture and sticking throughout her office these ghastly plastic flowers that we knew she hated.

I thought it was strange that she never mentioned anything but recently, when Janine and Robert came to Timaru for my assessment, I finally heard the truth.

It appears Robert and Garth (the dean of education) saw us coming out of her office and thought they'd put it back on us, sneaking into Janine's office and putting everything back to normal so that we would be waiting to hear of her reaction, but never hearing because she never knew anything had happened.

Well done, G and R. You got us there. I always thought it was weird she never said anything about it, and now I know why!

PRANK TWO

Well, I think it was more creativity than anything else. The aforementioned plastic flowers that Janine hated got chucked out, and a nameless member of my session (not me!!) fished them out after coming up with a grand idea.

At the end of last year, a present was placed under the Donaldson's Christmas tree for Janine from God's Fellow Workers (my session). I hear this greatly excited Janine.

Imagine her excitement when she was finally allowed to open it on Christmas morning. Imagine her reaction to open the much anticipated present to find some plastic flowers she thought she had put in the rubbish! Apparently the moment was pure classic!

The Avon Ditch

So, especially for all my old friends and family up in Hamilton, I just remembered I meant to let you know of a conversation I had with Blair.

Blair is my 18 year old cousin who has recently moved way down south to Christchurch to attend university. When I was up in Chch about a month ago, I caught up with him and we went for a drive alongside the Avon River after lunch. (Blair, being a rower, wanted to see where the rowing club was.)

He cracked me up by constantly asking if this seriously was the Avon River. Though the best line, however, came a little later.

"This isn't a river, it's a stream. Not even that. Up north, this is what we would call a ditch!"

Oh we were spoilt growing up with the Waikato River!

Stevens Visit the Ru

Yesiree, as the title states, the Stevens whanau finally ventured to the land of the Ru (Timaru, not kangaroo, just to clarify.) Though, on a side note, did you know, there is this little hick town in between Timaru and Oamaru called Waimate, which is the home to wallabies. At first I thought it was a joke, cos I thought they were native to Australia, but no....it's true! Just in that particular area (which is quite small!) there lives wallabies. Crazy this South Island!

Anywhos back to the real blog... Last night Si, Sue, Kendal and Monique arrived and after I forcefed rather quickly dinner down their throats, we went off to Kidsclub because I knew they had special guests ... firemen!! Whooohoo! Oops. I was corrected: firepersons. (Though, incidentally, they were all men. PC madness!) So the girls had a play with the other kids all over the brand new firetruck

This morning we headed down to Caroline Bay and the girls had a play in the water, clothes and all, as you can tell by the photos below. My funniest moment was watching Monique running from a wave, tripping and face planting. Don't worry, she was alright, though soaking wet. After that incident, she purposely bent down to put her head in the water. Kids, aye!

On the way back up to the house, the girls met two sausage dogs (Pixie and Luke, if I heard correctly) who were out for their morning waddle. The action never ends!
Above: Sue and Si keeping a parently eye on the girls in the water.

We also booked our ferries home to Wellington, which is only three short weeks away now, but seems rather weird. It feels like such a lifetime ago since we were there, and I am going to miss the people here, but I'm looking forward to catching up with my session mates and my old friends in the new session, who will I suppose by this stage feel quite settled now at College.

My Visit South

So I headed off on Thursday morning for my first trip to Dunedin ... via the service station. I had filled up the day before in preparation but I discovered I needed oil. I had no idea how to put it in my car (Dad taught me how to check, but not what to do if it needed some), so I had to ask the service station attendant. A pride breaker for a girl like me who likes to think she is independent!!

However, I made it in the end. I loved the trip. The country gets green again below the Canterbury plains, much to my delight. Then the hills! Blimey. I would have hated to drive over them in my previous little grey car - I doubt I would have made it up!

It was fab to see Sue and her daughter Teri-Anne again. They look like they have settled in to life in the deep south and Teri-Anne has picked up the strong Southern accent, much to my delight. I think she got sick of having to say "girl", "tiger" and any other word I could think of that made her say "errrrrrr". Oh the laughs!

We went to the Poo Palace (Water Treatment Plant) for youth group to see how it all got cleaned up (with the point of showing how Jesus cleans our sin). Oh the pong. Eyeck. But highly amusing to see Sue in a hardhat.

I had a look around the Community Ministries in Dunedin, as well as the Corps complex where eventually all the work of the Army in Dunners (as I discovered it is called) will be based: Employment Plus, Bridge, Oasis, Food Bank, Budgeting, Corps and Community Ministries. It would be quite interesting to go back in a years time to see how it looks and is working.

Sue and I went to the Courts and after getting Teri-Anne went all over town looking at the sites. (see below). Anywhos, it was educational but also a very nice break and left me refreshed to take on the final four weeks of Out-Training.

Above: Sue.

Below: me and Teri-Anne.

Some of the sites of Dunedin

Below: 'The Wedding Cake" ... except this is the real one, and I couldn't take the top off it, unlike the replica at College! This is the spot where the Salvation Army started in NZ, as the plaque above shows. It was cool to see a place I have heard about since I was a little girl.

Baldwin St ... the world's steepest street. The gradient at the steepest part is 1:286. It is a lot steeper than what it looks in the photo.
I know this sounds a little morbid, but we went for a drive through one of Dunedin's oldest cemeteries .... people buried around the 1880s. Didn't recognise any names (even the ones Sue said were famous!) but were amazed and the size of the headstones and the details on them.
In the Highland capital of NZ, we even managed to catch a bagpipe parade. These are some of the guys from Taupo, so I cheered loudly ... they nearly came from as far away as me! (If you count me coming from Hamilton.)
The No1 Corps. I'm not too sure exactly what that means, if it is the first Corps in NZ or what, but I know for a long time, this was the big kahuna of Salvation Army citadels. It's pretty cool to look at, and we cracked up when someone peeked out the window after the camera went. (Turns out it is rented out as a flat or something now!)

Dunedin Architecture

I loved the architecture in Dunedin. Absolutely stunning and soooo much history. I felt like I was in another country. Definitely nothing like this scale of old buildings up north.

St Pauls Anglican Church (including the two photos below)

We had our own personal tour of the campus of Otago Uni. Here's a shot of the clock tower. Very cool.
The First Church of Dunedin (Presbyterian). We think it was the first church in Dunedin but not entirely sure.
The Town Hall, off the Octagon.

Life in the Ru!

So I thought I would just do a little update since we are now into March - can you believe it!?!

Life is speeding along pretty quickly. My Out-Training in Timaru has been brought back a week so now I am coming home straight after Easter Camp. Thus, the countdown is on ... only four and a half weeks.

Robert and Janine (the training principals) came down for a visit last week. It was very cool to see someone from 'my other life' again and to debrief, to take another look at everything that has gone on the past nearly two months. They also stayed for the morning meeting, which included an absolutely brilliant triangle solo with the music team by moi. (Ah yes ... another talent!)

On Thursday, I am heading down to see Sue McG in Dunedin, which I am very looking forward to. I miss our chats and our big laughs and her godly wisdom. Not to mention our trips to the Drive Thru! I've never been that far south so I'll be sure to post photos the following week.

That's just about it ... so to conclude in the words of my triangle ... TING!