Home Thoughts From Abroad

Driving is one of life’s great pleasures. For me it is right up there with sex. Which is why I am always astounded when people say they don’t drive, or that they used to drive, but that don’t any longer. Me: “You don’t have sex!!” Them: “Well I used to but it got too expensive. Now I just take public transit.” Me: “Public sex!! Eeyewgh!” Okay, my analogy breaks down around there.

I learned my love of driving from my Dad, who was a fabulous driver. Long before there were computers he could tell you how many miles per gallon he was getting, how many revs his engine was doing and how far from optimum his tire pressure was for the road conditions on that particular day. He could tell you the specs for every car we passed and its history from the day it rolled off the assembly line. Sitting in the passenger seat with him was like reading a living encyclopedia of the automobile. His peripherals were like Gretsky’s; he could see everything on the road for miles around and track and predict its movement for minutes ahead. He never had even close shave, let alone an accident, and he drove every mining road in Ontario in the fifties when he was carving out a sales career in diesel engines. He sits on my shoulder every mile I drive; I enjoy his company and his advice.

He would have loved New Zealand. We have been driving her for the past four days, and every road has been an absolute delight. I think I might have been on an expressway for about a minute and a half coming out of Auckland, and again for about three minutes coming into Wellington. But that was it. All the rest has been rolling green hills and breathtaking coastal roads looking out over majestic oceans or mountain valleys. Straight stretches of road could be numbered on the fingers of one hand. And all along the road have been stately cypress and towering pine trees; russet-red flowing bottlebrushes and shrubs so silvery green they are almost grey. And of course the sheep, like breadcrumbs sprinkled on a rumpled green tablecloth.

I rarely listen to the radio when I drive; it takes away the enjoyment of the road. I prefer to listen to the wind and the birds; to chatter with Pam about other places we have seen, or just take in the view. The views today have been worth taking in, as have been the views on the last three days as well. The South Island promises to be even more spectacular, but that is for another day. Today we are just happy to be in Wellington. We surrendered the car and the GPS at the rental place, picking up an agent as we drove by on our way to the hotel; a local fellow who was good enough to help us with the luggage as well as give us some friendly advice about places to eat.

We are staying at the Comfort and Quality Hotel on Cuba Street, which thanks to Pam’s good planning happens to be the liveliest street in town. After supper at the friendly Southern Cross with its hearty comfort food, our first walk was down to Courtenay Place at the end of Dixon Street, to the Embassy Theatre where the world premiere of The Hobbit took place. We booked two seats at the front of the balcony, middle of the screen, for tonight’s nine o’clock showing. We then came back to our room to cop a wee nap before the show. Yes, I’m hopeless; don’t even bother.

We spent the night beside the thermal springs at Rotorua, lured by the thought of heated campsites. Although days here are a pleasant 22 degrees, nights can be downright chilly. We watched the mud bubbling up beside our campsite and even stepped on some patches of hot sand in the lake nearby; but the thermal heat is a patchy thing apparently and our campsite was once again too cold to be comfortable. We have bought a little space heater for the remainder of our travels and plan on putting it to use tonight.

We swam in the lake at Rotorua, and it was lovely, but not warm. The hot tubs on the campsites were another matter; they were toasty. Putting Ginger to work once again we found our way out of town and on the road to Lake Taupo in no time, arriving there at noon in time for lunch. We would have been there sooner but we stopped along the way to watch the thermal geyser at Waiotapu. Neither of us had ever seen a geyser and we thought it might be worth it. It wasn’t. We paid $16 each to listen to a five minute spiel from a park ranger who when he was done talking poured some chemicals into a hot spring causing it to erupt. Totally cheesy and contrived. Don’t waste your money.

Lake Taupo was well worth the drive, however, and there is really no other way to get to Napier. We stopped at a curry restaurant called Indian Delights. It promised the best view of the lake in town, and indeed it was. They forget to mention that its curry was authentic and tasty, which it certainly was as well. And at $10 bucks for curry, rice and naan it was also one of the cheapest meals we’ve had since we got here. Sitting with good company looking out over this pristine lake with the volcanic peaks in the background and the little sailboats skimming over the water is one of those times when you are just happy to be alive and wonder why on earth anyone wants anymore than this. Really people! What is all this money-grubbing going to get you? It cost us $20 for an hour of unadulterated joy!

The road to Napier started out rather boring, but it didn’t stay that way. Pretty soon it started to twist and turn through the hills and around the bends. Kiwis are pretty impatient drivers (as the daily death toll on the roads testifies) so I had to ease on to the shoulder many times to let others go by. I don’t have a reputation for dawdling, so that will tell you something. As the terrain approaches Napier the forests give way to vineyards rolling gently to the sea. Hawke’s Bay, where Napier is located, is gaining an international reputation for its wines, and fuels much of the local industry in this town, along with tourism. But despite the holiday season, tourists seem to be a little thin on the ground at the moment, so we have had no trouble finding good spots to camp.

We are not wealthy travelers. We scrimp and save for much of the year to be able to do this and even then have to go as low budget as possible. We can’t afford hotels and camper vans are much too expensive in New Zealand. Hence the tent for which we had to buy a little space heater; it got a good workout last night. The heater was ten bucks and didn’t come with a thermostat. That left me waking every half-hour throughout the night to turn it on for five minutes to beat back the cold and damp rising from the ground. One of our regular readers thinks this trip puts me in the one percent. I beg to differ.

However, it does put us out among the stars, which were spectacular when I made my way to the facilities in the dead of night. There was the Milky Way spread out across the sky like a silken scarf. I counted 31 stars with the naked eye in Orion, the most I have ever seen in that constellation; it was that clear. Bet you can’t see that from your penthouse in Manhattan!

I first read The Hobbit when I was 18. I loved it. I especially loved the depth and reach of Tolkien’s world; a world he would later expand and explore in The Lord of the Rings. Perhaps you are a fan of the novels, but in my day it went far beyond fandom. Those of us truly devoted to Middle Earth learned its languages – there are enough passages with translations to make that possible – and in the tunnels at Carleton, where I attended for my pre-university year, we decorated those concrete walls with images and messages in Elvin runes that we added to daily. It was kind of like our student newspaper of another world. That’s the kind of fan I was.

I loved what Peter Jackson did in bringing Middle Earth to life in Lord of the Rings, especially Rivendell, and thought his battle scene in The Return of the King captured the cataclysmic scope as well as could be realized in film. But I must confess that as much as I was captured by Tolkein’s epic trilogy and growth in character of its protagonist Frodo and especially his faithful friend Samwise Gamgee, it is the gentler, wiser Bilbo that remains my hero and friend. I love his Christian humility and his resilient humanity. I loved the camaraderie and the innocent adventure of it all.

New Zealand has been on my radar since Nevil Shute’s On the Beach and Samuel Butler’s Erewhon. When Jackson chose these islands for filming Tolkien’s work, the country rose even higher on the bucket list. Yesterday we touched down; today we went to Hobbiton. That silly grin may well take a year to wipe off my face. We started the day by driving to Matamata. Ginger, with whom I have made my piece, got us there with little to bicker about. Pam has been more than happy to surrender her navigational duties to a female voice I can’t undermine with the invariable, “Are you sure?” Ginger is always sure, even when she is (occasionally) wrong.

In Matamata we drove to the Information office and lined up to book the Hobbiton tour. I warn you that it is not cheap; $75 Kiwi bucks when we took the tour. And worth every cent! The bus takes you over dale and through fens that the most fearless driver (I am one) would quake at. At the gate we loaded into another, smaller bus to get into the farm itself. There is no point in driving there, as you cannot get into this private farm without taking the tour, and the price is the same at the gate as in town. Do, or do not, as another legendary figure would say. We did. Gosh, we are glad we did!

The first Hobbiton, constructed for The Lord of the Rings was made of styrofoam and completely dismantled. This time, the New Zealand government was smarter, and insisted on a permanent site. Jackson and Co. complied, and the result is the most charming place you have seen. Everything – I mean the doors, benches, tools, even the trees! – have been sized down to Hobbit proportions. Bag End, where Bilbo lived, is so dear and sweet it would charm the scales off a dragon! The flowers have been chosen for their delicate size and line every flower box and garden. The views, the scope and the attention to detail are staggering. Our tour guide was pleasant and most informative: “This is the tree used in the fireworks scene using pulleys to hoist the kites used for the fiery dragon. It took thirteen hours for the four second of film you see in The Fellowship of the Ring.” We ended our two hour tour at the Green Dragon Inn.

The Inn is full size, as befits an inn for men. The beams are local wood, a cross between cypress and teak, and most impressive in size. A truck axle was used to turn the beams and a sharpened crowbar used for a chisel. Again the attention to detail – in the leaden windows and the stress marks on the beams – was most impressive.

Like all good thing this tour had to come to an end. But we left sated and most satisfied. I have never seen the like so carefully preserved and executed. If you have a chance to see it, don’t carp at the price. If that is what it takes to preserve a piece of Middle Earth, it is well worth it!

We caught the midnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Sydney. For reasons that must have been abundantly clear to us at the time we chose to fly Air Asia. That meant we had to disembark in Sydney, pick up our luggage, exit through customs and enter in again through security. That took three hours. Jetstar from Singapore would have cost the same and we could have gone through the transit lounge. Lesson learned.

Air New Zealand has to have the best entertainment system for Economy in the skies. The screen was as big as our TV at home (in joke, folks!) and the choice of movies was amazing. I choose the The Return of the King to kind of get oriented to New Zealand. Love that battle scene and really enjoyed the short hop to Auckland. Here we parted company with my colleague, Shelley, who was staying with family. We got the shuttle to Jet Park Hotel, your standard business traveller’s hotel; nice room at a reasonable rate. Except for breakfast: $25 Kiwi bucks for powdered eggs and hash browns. Each!

About New Zealand, the car rental company with the best rate on the island, picked me up with their shuttle bus and twenty minutes later I was fixed up with an old Nissan stationwagon that will double as our bed if the weather turns nasty. It was nasty for the first part of the day; hurricane Evan terrorizing the island of Fiji to the north and bringing some cloud and drizzle our way. But it brightened up as we drove, and so did we as we made our way south past the airport and took the exit by the Botanical Gardens that promised to be a scenic coastal road.

We had rented a GPS navigator and – don’t laugh! – because we had never used one before had a dickens of a time convincing this thing that we did not want to take the expressway to where we wanted to go. The further we got away from the highway, the seemingly more frantic the calls from the GPS saying ‘please do a U-turn at the first available opportunity.’ I finally just shut the poor thing off before it blew a gasket and followed my instinct. Once we were some distance down the road to the coast (from the Botanical Gardens just keep tracking south and east), we plugged in directions to the coastal town of Thames, and Ginger – that’s what Pam took to calling our GPS – got herself straightened out and began to become useful.

Maps are wonderful things out on the roads, but in the city you have to rely on roadsigns, which are notoriously absent in cities. Ginger paid for herself in the towns and cities we went through, invariably choosing the quickest route and saving us both time and headache. Of course she earned herself another ‘time out’ when we hit Papamoa, as I was determined to see the funky little mountain at the end of the strip and take the coast road all the way back to the campsite. Bad Ginger; shut up!

The Top Ten campsite at Papamoa ranks as one of the three best we have ever stayed at (the one at Albany overlooking the Southern Ocean in Australia being number one, the campsite in Interlaken in Switzerland being number two. The vast Pacific Ocean is rolling in barely fifty metres from our tent; the kitchen is forty square metres of stainless steel heaven; the showers are Swiss-clean and gushing with hot water. The early morning sum coming up over the beach was amazing. A great start to what promises to be an epic road trip!

When we were in Germany I would often ask, if the occasion arose, what my German friends thought were the aftereffects of the war on Germans themselves. Invariably I would get a very mournful response. The Germans I spoke to were horrified by what their countrymen had unleashed on the world. They wondered what was wrong with them as a nation and as a people that could have allowed such things to happen. They vowed that after such devastation and collective agony of self-recrimination that they would never be the authors of such atrocities again. The history of post war Germany seems to bear that out.

Japan went through a similar period of self-examination, leading to an avowal never to possess atomic weapons, although they clearly have the brains and the technology to do so. So where is America’s conscience? How can suffer their nation to be so systemically violent and not see the ramifications of their thinking?

What happened in Newtown is not an isolated incident; it is simply one more tragedy in a history of violence. The nation was born in war and their history is one of conquest of territory and the acquisition of what once belonged to others. Movies, television shows and video games extoll violence as the solution to every problem. There are 300 million guns in America, almost enough for every man woman and child in the country. The United States is the world’s leading exporter of arms to the rest of the world, selling $8.6 billion worth in 2010. Last year the industry topped $30 billion and in a time of economic recession grew by 30% from 2008 to 2011. This year is not yet over and already the FBI have conducted 16.8 million background checks for weapons purchases, some of which will be for multiple guns.

The real tragedy of what happened in Newtown is not that 20 little children died, but that their deaths simply go to fuel the arms and entertainment industries that are quite literally making a killing on the slaughter of innocents. In the first four days following the July mass shooting in Aurora, Colo., gun sales increased 41 percent. On Friday some pro-gun groups took to Twitter urging people to buy guns: Conservative pundit Ann Coulter tweeted “more guns, less mass shootings” in the wake of the event. Where does this insanity end? Are we witnessing the destruction of America at the hands of its own twisted gun laws?

In Scripture we read “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord; I will repay.” Why? Because only God can administer that kind of justice without destroying Himself in the process. The same passage (Rom. 12:21) goes on to advise: “Do not be overcome evil with evil, but overcome evil with good.” This is not just good spiritual advice, but it is actually the way out of this dilemma. Ann Coulter and the NRA would have Americans believe that if the young woman who confronted the shooter in this tragedy had been carrying a weapon, the outcome would have been different. Really?

Suppose young Victoria Soto had a weapon. Would she have known what to do with it? Chances are the shooter, having just killed two dozen people, would have been a little quicker on the trigger and she would be dead. Not only that, he would have been enraged and emboldened to keep going. After all, there is nothing like a little competition to sharpen the killer instinct. But instead she met him unarmed. She had just hidden all her kids in her classroom and then simply told him they were elsewhere. He shot her, and moments later shot himself. Why? The school wasn’t surrounded by the police. There was nothing between him and several dozen more killings. Was it her innocence that finally overcame his rage; her patent good in the face of his evil? Surely this is how Scripture teaches us to act. Surely this is the way to overcome the violence gripping America. Not more guns.

(For an insight into the psychopathology involved, see: http://thebluereview.org/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother/)

When I graduated with an R.N. from the Atkinson School of Nursing at Toronto Western Hospital in 1973, it was about as far as a young woman without any money could go in their education. I was grateful for the opportunity to get out of Lucan, even if my education wasn’t everything I desired. Over the years as I was promoted to managerial positions I took numerous courses – over forty in fact – to keep up with the demands of my increased responsibilities.  Unfortunately, as the courses I took were purpose-driven to meet the challenges of my job, they never translated into a degree, closing the door to further education.

Nonetheless, my career in Nursing Administration and the networking and communication skills I developed turned out to be ideally suited for ministry in Southeast Asia as I was called upon to develop an evangelical outreach through health care in Cambodia. The last five years have been an amazing adventure with God and I have used everything that I have learned over the course of my career to meet the challenges of ministry. However, with every accomplishment, with every open door, there has been a new challenge and a new responsibility. Often I have found myself scrambling to learn the things I need just in order to do my job, which just keeps growing.

My responsibilities have now grown to the place that I recognize the need to document and systematize the process that I have initiated in order that this project may receive the recognition in university and college settings that would allow it to be of practical use in other mission fields.  When Steve and I returned to Asia in July we began investigating the possibility of furthering our education. We were delighted to find a Masters program at Fuller Theological Seminary that would give us an opportunity to put to good use the lessons and hard won successes that God has lead us through in the last five years. This program would also help me to develop the educational foundation I need to take my work in this region to the next level.

The Master of Arts in Intercultural Studies (MAICS) is designed to prepare students for various types of cross-cultural ministry and provides a foundational set of integrated courses from the schools of theology, intercultural studies, and psychology as well as a second set of missiological courses such as anthropology, globalization, mission history, spirituality, and a theology of mission.  Elective classes are available in the areas of mission history, international development, children at risk, and urban ministry.

A month ago, so quickly that we barely had time to take it in, Steve was accepted into the program and just yesterday completed his registration for two courses that he will begin online in January. My enthusiasm for my husband’s acceptance was tempered by the knowledge that despite all my efforts to obtain transcripts and provide documentational support, it looked as if I wasn’t going to be accepted. Greatly disheartened I began looking at other options, but there really wasn’t anything else out there that would meet my needs in ministry. Steve continued to encourage me to believe that God would grant me the desire of my heart, but I must confess that my own hopes were dimming.

What a shock it was then this morning to wake up to an email message from Fuller congratulating me on my acceptance into the program! I am staggered by the grace of God speaking His words of hope and encouragement into my heart. We are so excited to be at this stage in our lives and still have the opportunity to be learning and studying courses that will apply directly to our work here.  We have ten years to complete the course work and even if it takes that long it will be well worth the journey. Surely God is faithful to those who seek to faithfully serve Him. I am now a candidate for a Master’s Degree!  How amazing is that!

I had SAT scores in the high nineties coming out of high school. With some proper support and encouragement I could well have had scholarships to the university of my choice. But life is what happens while you are looking for other things; and other things in the late sixties were not conducive to education. When the dust settled from my misspent youth I did finally get my B.A. and B.Ed., but always had a hankering to do more.

But marriage and kids came along, and the years we took on sabbatical were spent serving Another more important than myself. To cut a forty year long story short, here I am at what could be charitably described as the autumn of my years with no more education than what at the time was the bare essentials to secure a decent career.

Now that our kids’ education has been paid for, and two of the three are married and living in their own homes, and we have not only some disposable income for the first time in our marriage, but even some disposable time, would it be alright Lord if I got myself that long sought for higher education? Apparently so; for I merely had to apply for the doors to fly open in my favour. To cut a much briefer story short, I am as of today a candidate for my Master’s Degree; courses enrolled and paid for.

I am not sure whether I am an old fool or not. At my age I could be dead before I graduate. On the other hand I could, like my dear departed mother, live for another 30 years. That would be time for far more than a Master’s! At any rate, fool or no, I am registered for two online courses starting in early January, and I am looking forward to the challenge.

I am also looking forward to seeing New Zealand. We leave on Sunday, and hotel internets being what they are, blogs might be thin on the ground for the next couple of weeks. No matter, you have Christmas puddings to eat and Christmas nieces, nephews and kids to hug. We’ll post some pics if we can. If not, we wish all of our readers the Merriest Christmas ever and the Happiest New Year. May the God of Love and Comfort be your portion!

My mother had a flair for the dramatic, and carried herself in style. Even well into her old age, she was concerned enough about her appearance that she liked to know well in advance when people were going to visit so she could get herself ready. She had a real keen clothing sense and a good eye for what she could wear. A casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that Mom was all about show; what was easily seen and noticed by others.

But there you would be wrong. There was much about my mother that she kept to herself. For all her dramatic flair she was a very private person. The pictures on this page are evidence of that. Of course we knew for years that Mom liked to do needlework; many of her generation did. And of course that needle work had to be based on a picture of something. Needlework often comes with a printed pattern to follow. But what we didn’t know was that Mom actually drew her own sketches, and not all of them appeared in needle work.

These are just some of the artistic sketches that were found among her possessions when my sister collected them from Mom’s little flat in North Hykeham. None of us knew of their existence until this sketchbook came to light. It shows that no matter how well you think you know someone, there is always more to know. The naiveté and innocence reflected in choice of colour and theme in these sketches strikes me as remarkable for one so weathered in years and worn by physical limitations. Her body may have been old, but her spirit, as evidenced by these pictures, was as young and light as a child’s. What a remarkable find!

This week while Steve is in England with his brother and sister to celebrate the life of his mom, I am very grateful for the week at home to get caught up on the many tasks that just seem to pile up. Each year I bring back a decade of photographs to scan and organize and I always enjoy revisiting the memories and the impact these events have had on our lives.  One of the things that I was reminded of was just what a good team Steve and I make we take on a task together.  We began our relationship rebuilding an old MGB in my parents’ driveway and went on to many other more challenging projects.

In 2001 we bought our third fixer- upper, a nasty little house in London which we planned to renovate and resell , largely to pay for our kids post secondary education.  I really hated that house because it was so much work, everything had to be striped right back to the bare bones and rebuilt from scratch.  We were both working pretty demanding jobs and had plenty of other responsibilities.  However, it suited our needs as it was close to the university and had a separate apartment in the basement which Dave lived in most of the time we were there.  When we listed it for sale in 2006, it sold within hours above our asking price.

I came across the before and after photos of the kitchen today and was delighted to be reminded of what excellent work we can do when we work together.  We make a great team.