Matthew's Musings

Today we spent most of the day letterboxing, as the weather was cold and windy. Fortunately, northern winds are supposed to come and bring us warm air tomorrow. I just felt like Leeper giving you the weather report there. One thing is really neat about the climate down here. The mountain is so tall and stands out so much against the hills around it, that cloud systems actually back up against one side of it, and you can sort of see the weather as it spills over the mountain toward Taranaki.

Nothing much interesting happened today. We letterboxed quite a bit and got several more responses back in the mail. Our total of free book offers is somewhere above 15,000 distributed. We’ve sent out 4,000ish Gospel Minutes and door knocked more than 1,500 doors. So, I’m tired.

Today was yet another day of door knocking and letterboxing. Here’s some more from Monday:

Talked with an athiest fellow for about 20 minutes who had four children. His main reason for athiesm was suffering of mankind. To his credit, he sends his kids to Sunday School because He wants them to grow up and have a choice when it comes to spirituality.

Was yelled at through a window by a person screaming “Go away! God is dead!”

Talked to an 18 year-old mother who wants to know for sure if there is a God so she can raise her daughter.

Today, we talked to a guy for about an hour who describes himself as still having a small spark of spiritual interest, believing that there is probably a God. He feels distant from him; as he put it, when he prays, it is like talking to Santa Claus. He likes a lot of Christianity’s ideals, but knows how hard they are to implement in life as we know it. He also doesn’t understand how Christians can eat meat, because of the cruelty of how animals are slaughtered. He knows that scripture teaches it, but said, “I just can’t see Jesus eating meat.”

Another fellow wasn’t very interested in Bible study because his family was into translating Bibles. In the mid 1800s, that is.

Well, I think that’s all the fun for now. Tomorrow’s Wednesday–Kevin Moore and family are coming, and we’ve got class to teach.

On Monday we door-knocked a new area of town–a part with some government subsidized housing. It was our best success so far. Some Bible studies have been ongoing and are having good results. Rachel and I have a study planned tonight, and Angie and I set one for Thursday and one for Friday. Things are going very well!

Off to another full day of door knocking!

Well, it is Sunday evening, about 10:30 pm local time. We got back from camp in Wanganui this afternoon. It was really neat to see the other two teams and see how they were doing. We all had lots of similar stories to tell about rejections at the door and strange people had met…the success stories were fun, too, of course… just not as interesting :)

It is quite different to be at a camp with a very significant portion of the Christians in an entire nation, and still not even come close to the size of Camp Kalos. Friday night we enjoyed getting to know each other and a devotional. Saturday morning was letterboxing Wanganui, which didn’t take too long since we had probably 70 people working. The afternoon was filled with injury-prone rugby games, hikes at the beach with waterfalls running into the ocean, and a trip to town to souveneir shop. We had worship and Bible study together at camp this morning, as well.

This week is five full days of door knocking, our last full week in New Zealand. Rachel and I have a Bible study with a family we met set up for Tuesday evening, and there are two more planned from other teams on Monday. We’ve had a great response to the book offer we’ve been distributing, and things really are going well. We just have to survive the rest of the door slams, now! :) We’ve managed so far…it will be a good and productive week, I’m sure.

Have a great Sunday!

Today we talked to two people that were enjoying hangovers, a woman who assumed that we made an assumption, and was very unhappy about that, someone who knows that the world is about to end, and a variety of less entertaining door slams.

We leave tomorrow for camp in Whanganui (sp?). It’s a youth camp for all the churches of Christ in New Zealand, basically. We’ll be there until Sunday. The weekend will be filled with food & fun, of course, but will also have several hours of outreach in the town there, since no teams are stationed there for this trip.

So, this is my last post until Sunday evening, our time. Have a great one!

Today was our first full day of door knocking, and it was quite an experience. Paavo’s Bible study fell through, because the man said his mother didn’t want him to. I talked to a man who worships Ra (sp?) the sun god. He told me in great detail about his search for truth, and how he understands and has complete evidence for evolution and that apes could talk if they’d learn to hold their breath.

Yeah.

Our group set two more Bible studies today and a correspondence course, with several other follow up opportunities generated and quite a few people interested in the book offer. It was a good day.

Today was a day full of letterboxing. We had a very full day, beginning with devotional, personal work training, and going straight on to letterboxing until about 4:45, with only time for lunch at a park. We covered a lot of ground today. Paavo set up a Bible study with a fellow he met on the street. The weather was beautiful, probably in the low 60s at the warmest (a nice contrast to the low 40s/high 30s of last night and this morning), hardly any rain.

Tomorrow begins the doorknocking. I’ll let you know how that goes. In the meantime, I need sleep.

Good morning, America! It’s 11:10 PM here in NZ on Monday evening. Today was a national holiday, the observance of Queen’s Birthday. So, by some miracle, we had another day off. It makes me feel like a slacker!

Sunday we had our worship services. Chris did a great job preaching. Paavo and I survived teaching 6-10 yeard olds. The fellowship meal had all sorts of interesting and good food. We played 9ish holes of golf in the afternoon and then had a men’s meeting in the evening.

On Monday morning, we went ocean kayaking in the winter. I think we must all be getting dumber–but it was a lot of fun. The water wasn’t that cold… it was great! After that, we went to a free zoo and park and enjoyed some good hiking, while Paavo performed some acrobatics for us. Back to Rod’s house for a pick-up game of touch Rugby, supper, and then fireworks downtown for the day.

Tomorrow will be chock full of letterboxing and doorknocking–as will the rest of the week, even on the way to the youth camp on Friday. It’ll be great. Talk to you later!

Well, it’s almost 10 pm local on Saturday evening. We had a wonderful day!

Our group met together at Rod’s house for fish and chips for lunch. Probably am going to die a day or two younger now, but that’s okay. Then we left to go to a local rugby game. I think I am a little more understanding of Roman Gladiator battles now…but it sure was an interesting game. At the end of the first lower-level local game, Paavo ran out onto the field and got at the end of the “good game” line. He managed to get handshakes, slaps, and hugs from most of the opposition! He thinks most of them thought he was a trainer or something.

We went on to the next game, a more important game…and watched most of it. It really was an interesting game, and only one person got pulled off on a stretcher. There was a local couple that was rather…amorous…during the game, sitting on the sidelines on a hill. The girl was facing the man, a bit distracted, when she was hit square in the backside by an out of bounds kick. Now that was funny.

After the games, we drove down to the beach. [Come to find out, the house I’m staying in is only a few hundred yards away from a beach! Who knows what that is in metric…] We took pictures on a gorgeous scenic overlook, and then hiked down towards the black sand beach. A few of the guys braved running/skidding/sliding down the sand dune to the ocean. The rest of us took the stairs…

The beach was gorgeous, waves breaking against the rocks and cliffs. There was a tiny waterfall and neat inlets in the rock sea wall. You could see parts of large mountains all around and there were a few little islands in the water that were gorgeous. Of course, we all had fun daring the sea to see how close we could get to it without getting wet. You already know how that game turned out.

The climb back up the steps was something else-even Paavo and Leslie slowed down on the way up them. Something [unholy] inspired the “men” of the group to go climb the little hill/mountain Paratutu. It was a very steep climb with a steel cable as a hand hold for parts of it. Some parts were an easy walk, some were stairs, and some were near-vertical rock climbs. The climb left me feeling like my heart was going to explode-but the view was worth it. We could see Mt. Teranaki (i think), a huge snow-capped mountain on the horizon, as the clouds had lifted. I think that it is an 8,000 foot mountain. It was gorgeous. You could see most of New Plymouth from there as well as the ocean to the horizon. Absolutely breathtaking.

The climb back down was harrowing. Didn’t know whether to climb it backwards like a ladder, or slide down on my rear and pray for some sort of traction and hand-eye coordination. Somehow, we all survived. My legs still hurt.

After the climb, we enjoyed supper [“tea”] at the Jensen’s house, where Chris and Todd are staying. Fish and chips again. I’m going to die very soon, but it was worth it. Paavo and I got our first taste of New Zealand’s wonderful ice cream. It might be the death of us, but we’re okay with that…

After dinner we gathered at another home for watching Rugby on TV. I guess we’re hooked now. We watched the national British Lions barely edge out a divisonal NZ team. Quite entertaining. Only one got taken out on the golf cart, that time!

All in all, it was a great day, and our group had a great time getting some relaxation and taking in the sights. Rod said it was good for us to have our day off at this time during the trip, because today and tomorrow are when jet lag begins to nail us. We’ve all been waking up very early in the morning and getting tired pretty early, too. He described a lot of the work that is still ahead of us as “soul destroying” because of the response we will get. Even in letterboxing, we’ve begin to get a taste of it. I walked past a fellow on the street, we exchanged greetings, and I asked him if he’d like a flyer that I was handing out. His response was, “It better not be Jesus Christ!”

We’re certainly not in the Bible belt anymore. The friendly wave is met with a stare a lot of the time…and you can tell people want to know what’s wrong with these crazy Americans. All in all, people have been good to us, and there’s great work ahead. Tomorrow, Chris is preaching and we’re teaching the classes before we enjoy a fellowship meal with the entire congregation.

All for now–have a great night!

By the way, here’s the site of the church in New Plymouth, New Zealand.