Furlough

The past few weeks have been quite chaotic for Morgan and I. From packing, to cleaning, to finalizing things for the year with the Ice Box, to flying in four airplanes to get back home.

Before coming back to the states our team had our November Parents Night Out. Once again we were filled near to capacity with hyper kids. This time we had a pajama movie party. As most of you know some kids can only handle a movie for so long before they are ready to play. We had board games for them to play but that just wasn't enough so most of the night was just chasing each other around. Next time we'll come prepared with more active/structured activities.

The night before we got on the plane we had our last Tuesday night with the Ice Box kids. At the request of some of the students we cooked out on the grill. We had chicken wings and a sausage sizzle. It took a little bit longer than expected to cook so everyone was starving when it came time to eat. So much so the house actually got quiet for a few minutes, more than once I might add. The night was a good night and I decided to end it by telling the students how much we appreciate them and are thankful that they trust us enough to let us be a part of their lives. After that I asked if they had anything I could pray about for them and then we prayed together. Before we prayed though, one of the students said how much he appreciates us doing this for them and that he considers our group a second family, which the rest of the guys agreed with. It was good to hear that and we are looking forward to getting back and meeting up with those guys during their summer break.

We'll as I stated earlier we are back home!!! We'll be spending a lot of our time with family and some of that time on the road. With that being said, we are going to take a break from our blogs and will be sure to write about everything once we get back. Thanks for taking interest in what God is doing through us. Grace and peace

Getting Residency

I've recently done some more in-depth research on applying for residency and discovered that rather than the $1100 we were expecting it to cost, it will actually be more like $3100. There are additional fees at each of the three phases of applying for and getting accepted for residency status.

We are also trying to iron out the points system that visas and residency work on here. Basically, you have to have so many points, based on everything from age to work experience, in order to apply. The more you have the more likely you are to be accepted. I'm trying to make sure I'm finding all the possible points we can have. It's a little like doing your own taxes - you have to read everything several times because you're just not sure you understood it all the way and you keep trying to find some kind of hidden deduction.

We still have about 5 months to get everything together, but that's not as long as it sounds when it comes to visas. Thankfully, we are a bit more prepared for the process after having done it two years ago in order to get our first work visas.

Please put this one in your prayers. Getting residency would be so much better long-term than applying for a one year extension on our work visas. Plus, once granted, it would simplify all our future dealings with Immigration. We are really hoping everything comes together in the next couple months.

'Parents Night Out. October 09'

What an awesome turn out at last nights Parent Night Out (PNO). We had a turnout of 27 children!!! What made it even more fun of an event was it being a costume party. I was a police man, keeping it safe you know, while Morgan was Medusa, she's scary enough if you ask me.

We had a bunch of festivities the kids could take part in. Painting pumpkins, a piñata, coloring, the wii, an egg race, painting faces, limbo and the list goes on. The numbers keep increasing and so does the appreciation from the parents. This is an awesome ministry into the families of West Auckland and it is our prayer that God continues to allow this to grow.

Awesome 2 Days

Around 1 p.m. today the youth from the Otumoetai Church of Christ left Auckland after an awesome two days of ministry. They arrived Monday around lunch time and shortly after getting all the housing arrangements sussed they were put to work.

Around the corner at the Massey Community House, where we host the Ice Box and Parents Night Out, Jane Livingston had a list of house cleaning chores we could help out with. We washed windows, cleaned cobb webs, cleaned toys, swept, vacuumed, scrubbed walls, and the list goes on. It was a great privilege to have the youth, led by Nick Laspina and Rebbeca Raine, come share in our efforts to show Christ's love in our community.

The following day, after some time spent in prayer over Massey, the group headed back to the Community House to help out with the School Holiday program. Nick and Becs had the 12 - 15 kids split into four groups to play heaps of fun games. There were lollies for prizes so the kids were definitely keen to participate. They did an awesome job and you could tell the kids appreciated it. Below are some pictures of the day. There are plenty more so let me know if you'd like to see them.

Once again, I'd like to say thanks to the Otumoetai youth for coming out and helping our work. May God bless you above and beyond how you've blessed us.

I'm a committee member.

At the last minute I was informed that the Massey Community House was having an Annual General Meeting. We use the Community House quite often, for things such as the Ice Box and Parents Night Out so I decided to attend.

I have to admit, at first I was completely lost. For example, one of the committee members was asked to do an intro and chose to do it in the Maori language, well I thought they were praying so the whole time they were saying thank you for coming I had my eyes closed and head bowed. It seemed like the "prayer" was coming to an end so I decided to lift my head, only to realize that everyone else was looking at the speaker with smiles of appreciation and interest. One of these days I'll get a clue. It took me a little while to catch on to what was being discussed throughout the meeting, simply because this was my first time, but in the end I felt fully informed.

One of the motions that were being discussed was who is going to be the new Chairperson (Don't worry I didn't suggest myself). I've met and talked with the lady who was voted in before and I really enjoyed her personality. She expressed that she is going to issue a lot of changes, and I fully believe her. I got to talk to her a little more after the meeting and I really felt good that I had come to this meeting and got to hear what she had to say. It was also really good to hear her sing our praise for the Parents Night Out event. She's going to bring it before the committee to see if the fee for hiring/renting out the building can be waived, which would be really awesome cause that would save us $50 a month.

All in all, I chose to become a committee member and am really excited that I get to be apart of some progressive changes that are going to take place in my community. My prayers are that God will be praised and His kingdom will expand through this opportunity. Please prayer that I could be a positive and effective influence in my new role.

Applying for Residency

Our current work visas expire in February of 2010 so we recently looked into what it would take to renew them. We found out that they are only renewable for up to one year, after which we would then have to apply for some other kind of visa. So instead we are looking at applying for residency.

New Zealand awards residency based on a points system. You get so many points based on your qualifications, age, work experience, etc. From what we've looked at, we have enough points to apply and be awarded residency. Getting residency will make our time here in NZ much easier and make it much more likely that we can have a long-term work ahead of us.

I've looked into the price of applying and including the necessary medicals, the total price for the both of us will be around $1100. So as soon as we can get the funds together, we will be lodging an app with the New Zealand Immigration Service.

Please pray for this, that we would have the available funds and that we would be approved. We are really looking forward to a long-term work here in New Zealand and this is the next step to achieving that.

Project K kids

You may remember us telling you about our Project K training before. We have finally been matched with our kids and were able to meet their families at a celebration hosted by Project K. I've even been able to hang out with the family of my match and him a couple of times. It is a really good match and I enjoy spending time with him. He may even be able to teach me a couple of things.

We were matched with teenagers from a local high school so they don't live that far away from us. We even see them around town. It makes it so convenient to hang out with them.

It is exciting to be starting this year of mentoring with these kids. It fits in so well with some of the things we are already doing. I was able to invite the guy I'm mentoring to our Tuesday night hangout with the Ice Box boys. He fit in so well and was able to seriously impress the other kids with his Guitar Hero skills (he plays on expert).