The Amazing Race
Sometimes it feels a bit like we are in ‘The Amazing Race’, an old TV show we used to watch. We face constant challenges (good and bad); change and travel is always on the cards, often these things are beyond our control. Yet we do all this while meeting some awesome people and seeing and experiencing some priceless things.
Pitstop Pirongia
We started this leg of the race with a ‘Pitstop’ in Pirongia. Pirongia feels like a ‘Pitstop’ as this is where life slows down to our speed a little more. We have our own space, all of our ‘stuff’ (which we are still constantly and slowly getting rid of in a plan to one day emigrate to Fiji), and our own timetable. It is nice to have our own routine, some downtime and a chance to rest here. We live in an intense world, where information and needs are constantly thrown at us. It is nice to intentionally slow down and breathe a little.
Soul
On our way home from Tairua in September we stopped in at Soul. This is a church in Matamata that Roy and I went to when we worked at Totara Springs Christian Centre years ago (it is even held on Friday nights!). We hadn’t been to this church in about 11 years and it was the 8th church that we had attended since lockdown. Going to different churches each week was getting tough for both us and the kids, who never want to go to a kids programme without us in the first week.
It was so good to step back into a church where we really knew people, even if we hadn’t connected with them for a long time. It really did feel like going home. We have decided that since we aren’t in Pirongia that regularly it is worth the 1 hour drive over to Matamata to go to a church where we already feel a sense of belonging.
We love how they do their Kids programme on a Friday after school, catering so well to a wide range of kids from the community. Gabrielle in particular loves it and cried one week at the thought of not going. One day she said, “The problem with moving around everywhere is that I make friends everywhere and now I miss all my friends around the country.” She already has a few good friends at ‘Soul Kids’ that she looks forward to connecting with each week.
Unplanned Surgery
After a week in Pirongia we got an unexpected ‘Road Block’, in ‘The Amazing Race’ terms we had a challenge that only one team member could complete before we could carry on - I, Rachael, had unplanned surgery. After being in pain for a couple of days I managed to get into a Te Awamutu GP (as we are still enrolled in Waikanae) who was super lovely. He took one look at me and said I had a hernia and needed to go to Waikato Hospital. He knew of MMM, saying they had done work at his church and encouraged me in what our family was doing. He then paused before writing an email to the Emergency Department so they were expecting me, then printed his letter off for me to take a copy. When I arrived at ED someone stood up and apologised that there would be up to a 4.5 hour wait, and they were doing their best.
I managed to completely bypass ED and the massive wait. Within half an hour of arriving someone had collected me in a wheelchair and taken me to the Surgical ward. Within 4.5 hours I was prepped and ready for surgery. Within 24 hours of the GP appointment I was leaving the hospital after having an operation! I am very grateful for all those who were aware of this at the time and were praying, the timing was all quite incredible. I am very grateful that we live in a country that has decent medical facilities available when needed. An unplanned operation would’ve been a much bigger drama in Tairua or Levin (or Fiji!). In fact one night in Tairua I was in a lot of pain, so much so that I couldn’t think very clearly. I messaged a couple of friends to pray and literally felt the pain leave me. It was quite a crazy feeling. But also super lucky that it did, as the job in Tairua would have had big setbacks without Roy there.
But I am pretty good now, I still can’t lift more than 10kg for a bit longer yet, but otherwise I seemed to have bounced back relatively quickly.
Work Permit Applications and Closed Borders
The benefit of having unplanned surgery while in Pirongia meant that it gave Roy the chance to stay closer to home and dig a little deeper into volunteer work permits for Fiji (while also helping out with the kids) and what the reality is of us getting to Fiji anytime soon.
Summed up, there is a pile of forms to fill in and boxes to tick to apply to go to Fiji. We can apply at any time to get the permit, but if it is granted and the borders are still closed, the permit will start ticking away.
So the plan for now is to get the paperwork sorted and ready. When borders open we will submit them and try to use our free flights to Fiji (that we won last year) on a visitors visa while we wait for the work permits to be granted. Our original plan wasn’t to go to Fiji long term until about March next year. However, we were meant to go about August/September for a month and with me ending up in hospital at that time, we are ok that it didn’t happen.
We know Visa processes and borders can all change very quickly at the moment too and are prepared for whatever happens.
But for now… we are still kind of on track.
Levin
Roy has just spent three weeks leading a team at ‘Hope Centre Levin,’ an amazing community hub that comprises two properties side-by-side, with three different churches using the facilities for their services each Sunday. There was also a lot of action during the weekdays from the different churches there, where they did things like give away free food three days a week, or have a free community meal for any and all on Tuesday nights.
The project itself was to repair and repaint the timber windows on the old church building (built as a Methodist church in 1936 and bought a few years ago by Hope Centre), but as the project went on it expanded to doing the same for all the exterior doors also. They were the original doors and one of them had about 10 coats of paint on it which got stripped back, we gave them all the full make over. Thanks to the brilliant efforts of many volunteers, they came up great. Workwise, a satisfying highlight would be the finished product of the doors with their decorative hinges on and a challenging point was dismantling the large stained fibreglass window (once the star of a NZ postage stamp) at the rear of the church to restore the frame.
Junior Kids Camp, Totara Springs
In the middle week of the Hope Centre Project the kids and I headed back up to Waikato for a Junior Kids Camp (school year 2-4’s) at Totara Springs Christian Centre, where I was ‘Camp Mum’. The kids and I all loved being at Totara Springs together, it was great to catch up with so many friends and for the kids to have an amazing camp experience. Gabrielle even stayed in a cabin and made lots of new friends (that she now misses).
Other thoughts and happenings...
It is kind of surreal that we can just drive from one life to another and when back in Kapiti, it feels like no time has passed at all. Kelepi even spent a couple of days at kindy and I am told it was like he had never left. Now he keeps reminding me of kindy rules. We were able to do another block course of swimming lessons; it’s so good to see the kids constantly improving. We also managed to fit in several optometrist appointments for Gabrielle after she had been complaining of blurry eyes. She is now enjoying being able to read and write more clearly!
We loved catching up with so many friends and family and having the opportunity for a bit of normality with going to our home church for a few weeks. We are not sure when we will be back down that way, most probably January. But for now we are enjoying another pitstop in Pirongia where Roy is helping out around the MMM Centre before our next adventures away at Moirs Point, a Christian Camp in Mangawhai for the first three weeks of November.
Some quotes from the kids...
Sometimes the kids sum up our lives better than I could...
When Gabrielle was asked by a friend what we had been doing lately: “Just travelling.”
Josh: “Remember when we used to not drive everywhere?”
Gabrielle: “I learn more when I am not at school; I learn it by accident.”
Kelepi: “Will there be more Fijian language weeks? Because I want to know all the Fijian.”
As we pulled into the MMM Centre after being at Junior Kids Camp, I said, “We’re home, or are we, I don’t know where is home?” Josh responded, “New Zealand is home, and one day it will be Fiji.”
A few words from Gabrielle:
“I went to a Kids Camp at Totara Springs and slept in a cabin. I went on a waterslide, went in a hot pool and on a pretend train! There was a bouncy pillow that was next to the hot pool. I wrote the draft copy of this with a pen I got from the camp, it has a unicorn head that you can take off it. I got it from spending camp money at an auction. You get camp money by your whole cabin being good. You can get $50, $100 and $500 notes. My favourite thing there was the flying fox which I didn’t say earlier but it went over a river!
Daddy even made the steps down to the flying fox and the flying fox platform before I was born.
I started with only two friends at camp and at the end I had lots more.
Pitstop Pirongia
We started this leg of the race with a ‘Pitstop’ in Pirongia. Pirongia feels like a ‘Pitstop’ as this is where life slows down to our speed a little more. We have our own space, all of our ‘stuff’ (which we are still constantly and slowly getting rid of in a plan to one day emigrate to Fiji), and our own timetable. It is nice to have our own routine, some downtime and a chance to rest here. We live in an intense world, where information and needs are constantly thrown at us. It is nice to intentionally slow down and breathe a little.
The bouncy pillow at Totara Springs
On our way home from Tairua in September we stopped in at Soul. This is a church in Matamata that Roy and I went to when we worked at Totara Springs Christian Centre years ago (it is even held on Friday nights!). We hadn’t been to this church in about 11 years and it was the 8th church that we had attended since lockdown. Going to different churches each week was getting tough for both us and the kids, who never want to go to a kids programme without us in the first week.
It was so good to step back into a church where we really knew people, even if we hadn’t connected with them for a long time. It really did feel like going home. We have decided that since we aren’t in Pirongia that regularly it is worth the 1 hour drive over to Matamata to go to a church where we already feel a sense of belonging.
We love how they do their Kids programme on a Friday after school, catering so well to a wide range of kids from the community. Gabrielle in particular loves it and cried one week at the thought of not going. One day she said, “The problem with moving around everywhere is that I make friends everywhere and now I miss all my friends around the country.” She already has a few good friends at ‘Soul Kids’ that she looks forward to connecting with each week.
Unplanned Surgery
After a week in Pirongia we got an unexpected ‘Road Block’, in ‘The Amazing Race’ terms we had a challenge that only one team member could complete before we could carry on - I, Rachael, had unplanned surgery. After being in pain for a couple of days I managed to get into a Te Awamutu GP (as we are still enrolled in Waikanae) who was super lovely. He took one look at me and said I had a hernia and needed to go to Waikato Hospital. He knew of MMM, saying they had done work at his church and encouraged me in what our family was doing. He then paused before writing an email to the Emergency Department so they were expecting me, then printed his letter off for me to take a copy. When I arrived at ED someone stood up and apologised that there would be up to a 4.5 hour wait, and they were doing their best.
I managed to completely bypass ED and the massive wait. Within half an hour of arriving someone had collected me in a wheelchair and taken me to the Surgical ward. Within 4.5 hours I was prepped and ready for surgery. Within 24 hours of the GP appointment I was leaving the hospital after having an operation! I am very grateful for all those who were aware of this at the time and were praying, the timing was all quite incredible. I am very grateful that we live in a country that has decent medical facilities available when needed. An unplanned operation would’ve been a much bigger drama in Tairua or Levin (or Fiji!). In fact one night in Tairua I was in a lot of pain, so much so that I couldn’t think very clearly. I messaged a couple of friends to pray and literally felt the pain leave me. It was quite a crazy feeling. But also super lucky that it did, as the job in Tairua would have had big setbacks without Roy there.
But I am pretty good now, I still can’t lift more than 10kg for a bit longer yet, but otherwise I seemed to have bounced back relatively quickly.
A day trip from Levin to spend time with good friends in Whanganui
The benefit of having unplanned surgery while in Pirongia meant that it gave Roy the chance to stay closer to home and dig a little deeper into volunteer work permits for Fiji (while also helping out with the kids) and what the reality is of us getting to Fiji anytime soon.
Summed up, there is a pile of forms to fill in and boxes to tick to apply to go to Fiji. We can apply at any time to get the permit, but if it is granted and the borders are still closed, the permit will start ticking away.
So the plan for now is to get the paperwork sorted and ready. When borders open we will submit them and try to use our free flights to Fiji (that we won last year) on a visitors visa while we wait for the work permits to be granted. Our original plan wasn’t to go to Fiji long term until about March next year. However, we were meant to go about August/September for a month and with me ending up in hospital at that time, we are ok that it didn’t happen.
We know Visa processes and borders can all change very quickly at the moment too and are prepared for whatever happens.
But for now… we are still kind of on track.
Levin
Roy has just spent three weeks leading a team at ‘Hope Centre Levin,’ an amazing community hub that comprises two properties side-by-side, with three different churches using the facilities for their services each Sunday. There was also a lot of action during the weekdays from the different churches there, where they did things like give away free food three days a week, or have a free community meal for any and all on Tuesday nights.
The project itself was to repair and repaint the timber windows on the old church building (built as a Methodist church in 1936 and bought a few years ago by Hope Centre), but as the project went on it expanded to doing the same for all the exterior doors also. They were the original doors and one of them had about 10 coats of paint on it which got stripped back, we gave them all the full make over. Thanks to the brilliant efforts of many volunteers, they came up great. Workwise, a satisfying highlight would be the finished product of the doors with their decorative hinges on and a challenging point was dismantling the large stained fibreglass window (once the star of a NZ postage stamp) at the rear of the church to restore the frame.
A finished door ~ The window that made it onto a stamp ~ A work in progress
In the middle week of the Hope Centre Project the kids and I headed back up to Waikato for a Junior Kids Camp (school year 2-4’s) at Totara Springs Christian Centre, where I was ‘Camp Mum’. The kids and I all loved being at Totara Springs together, it was great to catch up with so many friends and for the kids to have an amazing camp experience. Gabrielle even stayed in a cabin and made lots of new friends (that she now misses).
The flying fox, hydroslide and go-karts at Totara Springs
It is kind of surreal that we can just drive from one life to another and when back in Kapiti, it feels like no time has passed at all. Kelepi even spent a couple of days at kindy and I am told it was like he had never left. Now he keeps reminding me of kindy rules. We were able to do another block course of swimming lessons; it’s so good to see the kids constantly improving. We also managed to fit in several optometrist appointments for Gabrielle after she had been complaining of blurry eyes. She is now enjoying being able to read and write more clearly!
We loved catching up with so many friends and family and having the opportunity for a bit of normality with going to our home church for a few weeks. We are not sure when we will be back down that way, most probably January. But for now we are enjoying another pitstop in Pirongia where Roy is helping out around the MMM Centre before our next adventures away at Moirs Point, a Christian Camp in Mangawhai for the first three weeks of November.
Some quotes from the kids...
Sometimes the kids sum up our lives better than I could...
When Gabrielle was asked by a friend what we had been doing lately: “Just travelling.”
Josh: “Remember when we used to not drive everywhere?”
Gabrielle: “I learn more when I am not at school; I learn it by accident.”
Kelepi: “Will there be more Fijian language weeks? Because I want to know all the Fijian.”
As we pulled into the MMM Centre after being at Junior Kids Camp, I said, “We’re home, or are we, I don’t know where is home?” Josh responded, “New Zealand is home, and one day it will be Fiji.”
 |
| Taking time to bake cookies while at a pitstop in Pirongia |
A few words from Gabrielle:
“I went to a Kids Camp at Totara Springs and slept in a cabin. I went on a waterslide, went in a hot pool and on a pretend train! There was a bouncy pillow that was next to the hot pool. I wrote the draft copy of this with a pen I got from the camp, it has a unicorn head that you can take off it. I got it from spending camp money at an auction. You get camp money by your whole cabin being good. You can get $50, $100 and $500 notes. My favourite thing there was the flying fox which I didn’t say earlier but it went over a river!
Daddy even made the steps down to the flying fox and the flying fox platform before I was born.
I started with only two friends at camp and at the end I had lots more.
At the end of the day they do devotions and story time. The stories were teaching us things. When they did devotions it was all based on Saul from the Bible who changed his name to Paul.”
If you haven’t yet visited our blog to hear the story that brought us this far and sign up for future updates, you can find it here.
Have an awesome week,
Rachael, Roy, Josh, Gabrielle and Kelepi
If you haven’t yet visited our blog to hear the story that brought us this far and sign up for future updates, you can find it here.
Have an awesome week,
Rachael, Roy, Josh, Gabrielle and Kelepi
Awesome reading x
ReplyDelete