favorite things, pt. 2

The cafe culture is probably one of my most favorite things about New Zealand. It is almost impossible to find a cafe that serves filtered coffee. They all serve espresso drinks. At first I wasn't so sure about this because I actually like my filtered coffee. I must confess though, I have been won over. The Flat White is my favorite coffee drink now and I'm not sure how I'm going to cope when we get back to the States and I can't find a Flat White anywhere. One strange thing about New Zealand is that whenever you go out for coffee it's really good espresso coffee but most Kiwis just have nasty instant coffee in their homes. The only thing I can figure is that they're torturing themselves at home so that they will appreciate what they're getting at the cafe so much more

Roundabouts aren't native to New Zealand but they are all over the place. There are a few of these in the States but we need more! Roundabouts work so much better than four-way stops. I hate pulling up to four-way stops. People go when they are not supposed to and don't go when they are supposed to. Roundabouts keep traffic flowing much more smoothly and you only need to yield (give way) at a roundabout so if no one is to your right you don't even need to stop. Another nice feature is that if you're unsure of the direction you need to go you can just go around the circle a few more times until you figure it out.


Okay you may be wondering why I have a picture of a toilet here but the fact is I really like the toilets here. It's not that they are more comfortable, or self-cleaning, or anything like that. The thing I like about the toilets here is that they are so sensible. Our American toilets waste huge amounts of water which is pretty unexcusable. We waste tons of water with our toilets while many people in the world don't even have safe water to drink or cook with. The toilets in New Zealand only have a bit of water in the bottom. It's enough to make sure everything goes down alright but not a wasteful amount. But wait, there's more...


There are two different buttons; one for a flush and one for a half-flush. You can probably figure out for yourself when you need to use which button. This makes so much sense and allows you to use less water when... ya know... you don't need to get much to go down.


From the bathroom to the great blue yonder. Another thing I love about New Zealand is how big the sky seems almost everywhere you go. The Maori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa which means, "Land of the Long White Cloud." This is a very appropriate name since the huge sky is almost always filled with spectacular clouds. If you've been paying to attention to the pictures in my blog posts you may have figured out that I'm a big fan of clouds. Anyway, that's enough rambling for now. I'll do one more favorites post in a few days.

favorite things

I have been meaning to post for quite awhile on the subject of things I like about New Zealand. This will be the first of several posts on this topic. Hopefully you won't be too bored by me telling you what I appreciate about the New Zealand culture. If so you can complain about it in the comments. I'll still do these posts even if you complain because, you know, it's my blog and I can do what I want. But if complaining makes you feel better go for it.

Anyway, to start of this series of posts I thought I'd give you a few video clips. One of my abosolute favorite things about New Zealanders is their sense of humour (that's the Kiwi spelling of humor). This first video is a few years old but it's classic.



This next video is a recent commercial for L&P. Despite my recent disappointment with those who sell L&P products (see the post below this one) their advertisements are stinkin hilarious. The one below is their best one in my opinion. Enjoy.



More favorites coming soon.

a lesson in disappointment

Yesterday was a day that I had been looking forward to for quite some time. It was the day we were going to visit Paeroa. What's so exciting about that you ask. Well Paeroa is the birthplace of L&P (Lemon & Paeroa). L&P is a soft drink that is world famous in New Zealand and is a mixture of... well a lot of stuff but also lemon juice and mineral water from Paeroa. I wasn't so sure about it the first time I tried it but now I absolutely love the stuff. Just for the record, L&P also has some of the funniest commercials out there.

Anyway, about a month and a half back Brooke and I got the brilliant idea to go visit Paeroa and take pictures of the giant L&P bottle in the town. I also really wanted to get an L&P T-shirt. I haven't been able to find any L&P merchandise online but I read that there was a gift shop at the L&P Cafe. So I figured there must be a T-shirt there. I had imagined the perfect L&P T-shirt in my mind. It would be brown like the bottle and have the L&P logo on the front. This meant that I would be able to back to the States and wear a shirt that says "World famous in New Zealand."

So yesterday, after much anticipation, we drove to the little town of Paeroa. Paeroa itself is a little scary. There are L&P logos on everything. We originally thought there were tons of L&P gift shops because of all the signs with the logo on them. In reality though there is only one place in town to buy L&P merchandise. The other stores, restaurants and shops have the logo up because... well just because. At any rate, we arrived at the L&P gift shop and cafe and took the obligatory picture with the bottle and then I hurried into the gift shop to claim my coveted T-shirt.

To my shock the shirts I found in the gift shop were complete crap. Corny, cheesy and cheaply made. I was very let down. I wandered over to the cafe in hopes of finding something at least a little bit better. I walked around the corner and into the cafe and to my absolute joy, there, before my eyes, was the perfect L&P T-shirt. It wasn't close to what I had imagined, it was exactly what I had imagined. I ran to the rack holding the shirts and embraced it. Okay, maybe I didn't embrace it but I was pretty excited that they had exactly what I wanted.

Then my lesson in disappointment began. As I was caressing the shirt that was soon to be mine Brooke pointed out the price tag. It was $55 freakin dollars!!! What the? Are you kidding me? $55 dollars for a simple cotton T-shirt? I turned to the lady behind the counter and with a look of disbelief asked, "Are these really $55?" She looked a bit shocked at being asked this question so directly and responded, "Oh, we sell heaps of those." I sarcastically said something like, "That's nice" and began walking towards the door. While I was walking away she called out after me and informed me that she wouldn't have paid that much either. I mean really, even if I was rich I don't think I could bring myself to pay that much money for one stinkin T-shirt.

In disgust we drove over to the town information centre to see if there was any other place in town where we might find one of these T-shirts. She looked very disappointed in her town as she told us that unfortunately that was the only place in town which sold L&P gear. We spent the rest of the day hiking and I managed to walk off most of my anger and indignation. On the way back through town I decided to stop back at the gift shop and pick up the $5 key chain. Unfortunately we then found out that the gift shop closed at 3:00. So, yeah, I think I hate Paeroa.

piha sabbath

This week was a busy one. The biggest contributor to the busyness was the youth ministry training conference we were leading this weekend. In my opinion the conference went well. We had a good turnout of youth workers and parents who were interested in learning more about how to serve and lead the young people in their lives. While things went well, the conference and all the preparations leading up to it were exhausting.


















That's why today was so refreshing. On our way to church this morning I realized that there was nothing I had to do today. This was the first Sunday in quite awhile that I haven't had to preach or teach. I don't mind preaching or teaching but having a Sunday off was sublime. After church we came back to the house we're staying in and just relaxed.


In the late afternoon we took a drive out to Piha beach. Piha (pee-haa) is a world famous surfing location. It's also an incredibly deadly surf site. Each year the rips at Piha claim several lives. The whole place encapsulates the rugged beauty of New Zealand's West coast. Lion Rock stands as a sentinel in the center of the beach and is the site of an ancient Maori pa (fortified village). The other dominant feature of Piha is the black ironsand of the beach itself.

We hiked as far up Lion Rock as we could then sat for awhile just watching and listening to the waves far below. After hiking back down we wandered about on the beach and then drove back to Auckland where we enjoyed some soup and chili, watched some television, and now I'm about to go to bed. It's been a good day of rest.

steriogram

Steriogram is a local Auckland band. The video above is for the first single off their new album. I think it's pretty good. The style of the song itself reminds me of Switchfoot. Anyhow, some of you are probably familiar with these guys due to their relationship with Apple. A few years back Apple used their song "Walkie Talkie Man" in one of the ipod commercials (the clip below is of the actual music video for the song, not the commercial).

I know some of you are music buffs as well so I thought I'd post these vids in an attempt to introduce to one of the better New Zealand bands I've heard. Hope you enjoy.

the verdict is in

After several months of wondering if there was going to be a future for us in New Zealand we finally have a definite direction to move towards. On Saturday we were officially offered a call to come back to Auckland. I had submitted a proposal to the Northern Presbytery (a presbytery is the local governing body in the denomination we're working with) that laid out my thoughts on what a new church in central Auckland would look like. The presbytery accepted my proposal and invited us to come back and try to make it happen.

This decision is encouraging and exciting. However, there are still a lot of daunting realities to face before we end up back here. The most terrifying thing about all this for me is thought of being a pastor. I have long wrestled with God over this issue. In fact, when I started seminary I went into it praying that God would NOT make me be a pastor. I don't think this is a feeling that's going to go away overnight but I find comfort in the fact that throughout the history of the Church there have been many folks who felt inadequate to do the task God was calling them to and he used them anyway. Many have told me that a sense of inadequacy and unworthiness is in many ways a prerequisite for the role. I'm not exactly sure how encouraging this is but an old guy named Paul once taught that God's strength is best seen when he works through our weakness. In my case he has a lot of opportunity to show how strong he is.

Of course the good news in all of this is that I won't need to change my blog title any time soon

south island photos: the final installment

I've realized that I could spend the next week and a half putting up more of the photos we took while on the South Island. I don't really want to do that so this will be the last batch of pictures from down south that I'm going to put up. If you want to see more check Brooke's blog since she might be putting up some more. This first picture contains a political position I can support. The rest are random shots from the rest of our journey.

south island photos, pt. 2

south island photos, pt. 1.2

back in auckland

After almost two weeks of traveling we are finally back home, or at least back at our "home-base." We left Dunedin at 8:30am on Monday morning and, after about 24 hours on the road, made it back to Auckland around 11:30pm Tuesday night. The final stretch was the worst since it rained pretty much non-stop but we're back and glad to be so.


I'll post a few pictures now with more to follow over the next few days. Brooke will probably include more commentary about our trip on her blog. I'm planning on just posting photos. Enjoy.