Hannah and Andy

Hannah's wedding day!

Saturday was a crisp blue sky day! Rather more like a Nelson winters day than an English one! As I sat in the train on my 70 minute journey from Clapham Junction to Reading there wasn't a cloud in the sky. At Reading I changed trains and went on to Pangbourne. Here i followed Hannah's great directions and found the church a short walk from the small station. I was really in the country now! I was plenty early but a few others were there already so I sat and waited as I knew no one other than Hannah! I introduced myself to Andy--her fiance as he was greeting guests as they arrived. At about 1pm the minister began the service and shortly after Hannah entered the church. She had 3 bridesmaids each of them accompanied by a flower girl. The service had the traditional Church of England bits but also was unique to Hannah and Andy and had some great songs with a band from the Putleys church. It was a really nice old country church and a great setting for a great wedding! After the ceremony I met Hannah's parents and her Dad arranged some of their friends to look after me for the afternoon and give me a ride to the dance reception. They had a family reception in the afternoon and then we all arrived at around 7:30. The people that took me introduced me to a few others and then I met Hannah's sister and some of Andy family. His family are from Newcastle and have brilliant accents! We had a great time dancing and eating and drinking. Met some really nice people and had a great time. Most of all was so good to be celebrating Hannah and Andy's commitment to each other--Andy is a really nice guy and I'm sure they will be a great couple! Getting home was a challenge as I missed the last direct train from Reading to Clapham so took a train into Paddington but by the time I got there(12:40am) the tube was closed so had to take the bus to Trafalger Square and then another bus to Clapham Junction and then walk 30 mins home! Even tho its December 29 it wasn't freezing outside at 2am!

Lost?

Ok so I've had the week off and after Christmas not much to do so I got the Lost Series 3 DVD's out and have just finished watching all 23 episodes! Finally we have got some answers and much developments but it is still wide open in season 4 for where they may take us! There was a glimpse tho that they will be rescued from the island. Another brilliant season tho and can't wait for more!

Merry Christmas!!

Ok so its been a while since I wrote on here! A lot has happened in that time! I am now living in south London and working for All Souls Church in central London. All Souls Church is a well known church of which John Stott was rector for many years. Christianity Explored has also come from All Souls. I am the church coordinator meaning I handle all the day to day management of the church--bookings, events and heaps of other things that crop up! It is very interesting and varied with lots of challenges along the way. I have a great flat in London with 3 Christian flatmates. Its a big warm house with large rooms which is kinda unusual for London!

I play touch rugby every Saturday and have been running a bit too. Hoping to join a soccer club in the new year. If anyone is over this way you are welcome to come and stay!!

It's been amazing to see God lead me this year from NZ to Indiana and now to London. Thank you to all of those praying for me and writing emails to me. I will try to write more on this blog next year! God bless you all over Christmas.

Me with my beautiful friend, Molly.

July 4th Fireworks

Awesome fireworks!!

Looking across Lake Tippecanoe. You can see the 5 pontoons loaded with fireworks in position!

The lake house and the guest house!!

the boys

Josh, Josh, Heath, Me, Alex, and Theo

Fireworks!!

Saturday means up early (7:30am) and out to cart luggage from the cabins up to the tennis court for parents to pickup. Then I supervise the whole of the camp cleanup. Make sure everthing gets cleaned and picked up etc etc. This is all done by 11:30am hopefully and then we have a short staff meeting and lunch and are off for 24 hours! Normally I work on looking after the few campers that stay over Saturday nights but last weekend I had Saturday off. Home to shower and sleep and watch TV (Wimbledon). Around 7:30 most of the staff meet and car pool 5 mins down the road to the Schwartz house. (Rachel is on staff) She lives on Tippecanoe lake and they have a great house with a big lush front lawn going down to the lake. They have a big party every year for July 4th with all 130 of their employees and family members there. We got some great food and hung out, then we watched as police boats escorted 5 large barge pontoons into position in the lake. Another boat further away played music which could be heard clearly right across the lake. Hundreds of boats swamped the lake their lights making the lake look like a sea of stars! It was incredible!! All around the lake shore on all sides their are houses with fireworks going off. At 10:30pm the show started and it went for 30 minutes! It was the biggest and most awesome fireworks I have ever seen! I was right out on the dock in a deck chair and the booms were huge and the fireworks massive and impressive! The finale was huge with so many going off all together! We ate a lot of really nice pie-apple pie, blackberry pie, pecan pie, and strawberry pie. OOoo it was good! It was such a cool nite and they were great hosts!! Thanks Rachel and your family!

Thursday & Friday

Thursday

Sleep in! Yay! Woken mid morning by my friend Molly texting me. Laxed all morning. After lunch and a quick catch up in the office, I finished putting tents away from the campouts earlier in the week. They were finally all dry. Then I started writing mid summer evaluations. I like doing them but don't like the time it takes thinking them through! I have to write evaluations for the counselors that work with me in the teen program (Challengers). Thursday evening I spike my hair up and emcee Mock Rock. Each cabin sing/dances/performs a song and we have judges and select the best boy and girls cabins. We alternate weeks with the Mock Rock and a skit night. They can be a lot of fun with some hilarious acts. I am kept on my toes doing all the music and announcing each act. Praise God for Ipods! I am also MOD on Thursday nite so its another late night.

Friday

Write some more evaluations and then find there is a volleyball class today so rush out to teach that. Kinda hard with 8 kids of varying ages and abilities and Fridays are really a recreational class rather than a teaching class. We have a pretty decent beach volleyball court and I got new outlines, a new net and proper beach volleyballs so that all helps! Back to the evaluations. There are always plenty of interruptions along the way to doing anything. Someone to help or get something for. 4PM I load the station wagon with the food etc for a banquet at the North Village. This is a pretty cool event. The teen boys arrive there early and clean the pavilion up and set the picnic tables putting candles on them etc. We have a big new grill there and so we grill Italian chicken breasts putting pineapple and cheese on them as they finish cooking. We serve bread sticks, corn on the cob and raw baby carrots. Followed by watermelon. The teen girls dress up for dinner not knowing what they are going to or where. Their counselors take them to the dock where they get on the pontoon boat and are transported to the North Village. At the dock there waiting are some of the boys and a counselor playing guitar. The girls are escorted to the pavilion and given drinks. Once all the ladies are there 2 of the older boys say grace and explain to the girls that they want to be gentlemen to them tonight. The boys wait on the ladies tables and there is live music and a fire in the fire pit. I am kept busy helping cook on the grill and overseeing everything else as well. The ladies have a great time and the boys hopefully learn something! I clean up after it all and take stuff back to the main kitchen and clean some more! Read over some of the camper survey forms just filled out and then catch the end of the closing ceremony. Help clean up after that and after talking to 2 boys who have been fighting with each other head home for a shower and some icecream and to write this and watch the Letterman show!

Wednesday-Independance Day

There was a bit of rain overnite so the girls camping out got a little damp! Lots of wet tents for me to hang up to dry. Having obtained a soldering iron I also worked on the radio antenna. Got it all put together and after a bit of brain scratching managed to get all the equipment set up and working. Was cool to hear myself on radio when I tested it! 107.9 fm- sorry you probably are not close enough to tune in! Late afternoon and back to the campout site to roll up tents and sleeping bags now they were dry. Then dinner time! Dinner tonite was good! Chicken breasts and spaghetti and garlic bread and corn. After dinner I set up for Party at the Point. I do this every Wednesday night for the teenage campers. The point is a really nice piece of land that juts out into the lake. I set up tiki torches and had Adam build a huge fire right on the end of the point. We have some picnic tables under a willow tree on the point with giant checkers and cards on them. Have hillbilly golf and bocce ball (petanque), hoola hoops and beach volleyball. I set up the portable sound system and lights (red white and blue lights tonite being July 4th). Around 9pm the kids arrive and my volunteers start serving drinks. We had made fruit punch which they served with sherbet icecream and little umbrellas for decoration! After the sunset there were a lot of fireworks going off all around the lake making it a very pretty evening! By the time its all cleaned up and I come home its almost midnite but I can sleep in tomorrow. A good day today!

Tuesday-Honesty Day

One of my jobs at camp is Director of land sports. I oversee all the land sport classes and make sure they have the equipment they need etc. Being Wimbledon week today we got some new tennis balls out! My morning was mostly checking those classes. We have 3 activity periods a day--2 in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. After a leadership meeting, I began setting up the radio studio. Our plan is to run our own station so we have basic equipment to send out a signal around camp. This evening the teen girls went on campout so I made sure they had what they needed and helped start 1 of the fires. After dinner I did some office work but had a headache and didnt feel so good--maybe I didn't drink enough water today. Not the most exciting day but still a good day!

Sunday and Monday

Sunday--Up at 8:30 to serve breakfast for the stay over campers. Clean up and tidy up loose ends before my time off starts around 11am. Home to shower, eat and fall asleep on the couch watching sports on tv. Around 6pm I walk over to the Scotts place just around the lake a little bit. (they manage another camp—smaller than Crosley) Eat dinner with them and their staff. They have a small summer staff of 8 and I find it so relaxing going over there and just hanging out. Rebecca Scott is like my Mom over here and always makes me feel like it’s my home. Go to Wallmart, don’t buy anything but going to Wallmart is just something you do when you have nothing to do! Back to the Scotts to watch a movie. Overall a relaxing day! I miss getting to church tho but we are starting week 5 of summer camp so are halfway thru now.

Monday--Aaahhhh sleep in day! I love to sleep in! Up around 10:30am and off to the office at midday. (the end of my 24 hours off for the week) Office work and bits and pieces today and then preparing for the boys campout and taking them over to set up camp. Back for dinner--meat pies!! Wow unheard of in America but our cook made awesome meat pies and they tasted kinda like my Gran used to make them! Tonite I was MOD-Manager on Duty, so that means visiting every cabin around bed time and checking on them, talking to a counselor from each cabin etc. Then locking up the dining hall, staff lounge and office before leaving around 11pm. Some nites it can be a lot later--luckily tonite is a quiet nite so ill be home on time!

A week in my life during summer camp-Saturday

Up at 6am to watch the All Black beat Australia. But the idiots went and handed it to the aussies. How did we lose that? 7:45 and I'm in the truck loading luggage from cabins and taking it to the tennis courts. I organize the crew to move it all and direct traffic and start cleaning camp. 220 campers checked out this morning in about a 90 minute period so kinda crazy! Check camp is getting cleaned and direct the ants to where they need to go. 11:30am staff meeting to close the week off. Lunch, a leadership meeting and then I sort out lost and found and trash and help the 8 counsellors who are looking after the 20 campers who are staying over tonite. These kids are at camp for at least another week yet! Do a general cleanup all around camp putting things away. Take laundry to the laundrymat for campers and then pick up pizza and pop and icecream for the 30 of us for dinner. More odd ends in the evening and some prep for next week/office work. Its a quiet day at camp and kinda nice really!! 11pm now and time to do bed time medications and sign off for the day!

Pics from my bikeride

Stark comparison. All around the lake and in fact most of Indiana looks like this! Corn fields!

Camp Crosley Dining hall from across the lake

Lake Tippecanoe--someones lakehouse

Music and mountainbiking

It’s been a busy 2 weeks! Have had outdoor education groups each Thursday and Friday and cub scouts and princesses on the weekends. 6 days work and 1 day off (Tuesday)! So yesterday it was nice to finish work around 2pm and then Richard took me to Wabash for a Michael W Smith concert. It was the Stand Tour which is a church tour but we were in a large theatre which is very modern and was really impressive. We had great seats by the sound desk and the acoustics were awesome. Started with some worship songs and led into some songs from the Stand album. Christa Black played violin while singing a solo and Michael Olson played 2 songs for us as well. It was an acoustic set with Smitty on piano, Christa on violin and guitar, Michael Olson on guitar and another guy on keyboard and the computer with percussion etc. They played Carolina from the Freedom album and This is Your Time (the tribute to Cassie Bernall from Columbine) After an intermission Michael W played a melody of his classics from the 1st decade and then the band came out and they just kept playing! Played us a new song from his next album (will be a Christmas album) played the music video of the song he wrote for Whitney his daughter leaving home to go to college. Finished on Healing Rain which was so cool and that led into everyone standing and singing How Great thou Art. Then there was an encore which of course was Friends! All up nearly 3 hours and a brilliant concert. Michael challenged everyone to sponsor children thru Compassion but also challenged the church to be active outside the 4 walls and change this world. Today was my day off so I slept in and then watched super 14 rugby, cooked bacon and this afternoon went for a big bike ride. I biked all the way around James Lake and Tippecanoe Lake and saw a lot of really nice expensive lake houses. Was a good couple of hours riding and then rode around the Wetlands that camp owns across the other side of the lake. We will do some campouts over there during the summer-it’s a huge area (couple hundred acres) with a few tracks thru the bush but needs a lot of maintenance done and then ongoing management. It was a beautiful day here today and so nice to be out biking by the lake and exploring this area.

Sunset from my cottage

Deck outside dining hall

Jumping Pillow

Just installed last week-it is tiring!

History Makers, Rebecca & Angels!

Wow! Thursday 5 April was an incredible day! Only 2 days earlier I had pretty much given up hope of gettting to Illinois for the Worship Revolution Tour concert. Then God provided an angel (named Amanda) who is also a big Delirious fan to pick me up from camp and drive the 8 hours with me to Quincy, Illinois! 8 hours proved to be 9 hours when deep in conversation we missed a turn and went the wrong way for a quite a while before realising we were heading north towards Chicago-whoops! It was snowing when we left camp which I guess is crazy for this time of year and the outside temp was below freezing! We finally got to Quincy at 7pm and ran into the concert at about 7:05-Rebecca St James had just started. She sang some of her songs (including Wait for Me!) and some other worship songs-she led the worshippers brilliantly and challenged us to worship God through purity in our relationships. After an intermission, Delirious played-their performance was incredible! Sang mostly songs off their latest album, Mission Bell, but of course threw in History Maker and Over the Mountains. They challenged us to be Jesus in the community and that our worship through music can change lives out there. They got us to face the outside walls of the theatre and shout to the north, south, east and west like there was no roof on the building so the community could hear us. Man what a noise! It was so freeing to worship God in that environment-the music inspires such a response! I am pretty sure its the best worhsip service/concert I have been to-Third Day at Parachute Festival would be right up there too tho, back when it was at Totara Springs. Then Amanda and I drove 8 hours back to camp-I was falling asleep, I dunno how she stayed awake to drive all that way. An incredible 20 hours with stimulating car conversation and the most awesome, inspiring concert. Thanks so much to Amanda for taking me and thank God for History Makers, Rebecca and Angels!

Sports and travel.

I am not enjoying the fact that I am not currently playing any sports. I havent done any physical exercise since I left NZ. Not good!! But I last week I got satellite TV and bought the Satenta Sports channel which has rugby and soccer 24/7! All the Super 14, Tri Nations, World Cup, Air NZ cup, 6 Nations, and all the english, irish, and south african rugby. It also has aussie rules and rugby league! And on the soccer front it has English premiership and all European championship games and all internationals! So its pretty sweet! I still hope to find some soccer or volleyball even if I am coaching!

Last week I spent 2 days in Muncie which is where our YMCA head office is. Its 2 hours south of here east of Indianapolis. I was making a movie with my director for an important meeting. I also managed to get the technology to all come together for the meeting and it went flawlessly! It was a bit of a challenge as had to change laptops at the last minute and incorporate another slideshow of financial graphs and charts etc! but I like that challenge and pressure!

This last weekend Mark and I left at 6am Saturday morning and drove to Chicago again. This time we were at another big convention centre beside a hotel on the south side of Chicago. This expo we took a mini motorbike and a horse saddle and a wakeboard with a short piece of pvc pipe to put under the wakeboard so it was like a low see saw thing. We got kids to stand on the board and try to balance the board on the pvc pipe. We had a ski rope they could hold onto to help themselves. Well we had no idea it would be a hit! We had kids lined up from 9am till 4pm! The show closed at 5pm. At times I counted 16-20 kids crowded round our little booth with their parents! Their was a camp across from us with no one at their stall—they had 1 guy who looked disinterested and they had nothing really much as a display. We have a big colourful display board we put on the table at the back of our booth. Sat night we stayed in the hotel next door to the centre which was real nice. I spent ages in the indoor heated pool after dinner in the restaurant. I have been in hotels a lot lately! Sunday was just as crazy. We had lines again all day. We gave out about 800 brochures in the 2 days!

Yesterday I spent most of the day working on computers! We have a new one so I had to set that up and then for the summer I will be working with the multimedia stuff which includes making movies of each camp and getting photos on the internet each week and getting kids to write journalistic stories of camp.

Little things and a BIG wedding!

Sometimes its the little things that make the difference. Both positively and negatively! This week I've noticed a few. This week I met the cook (Renae) and her husband (Mike) who is head of maintenance. Renae is a Settlers of Katan player so on Wednesday nite I found myself invited to Richards house to play settlers and I got fed some great dessert! I lost Settlers to Renae by one turn but now I know how she plays a little and I can't wait for many more games! Other little things were finding I can buy an extra sports channel for only $15 a month which has all rugby competitions in all countries including the World Cup live and all English and European soccer--awesome!! But on the flip side the Cricket world cup is $200 for all games live--i just want to see NZs games and cant afford that! But again on the flip side of that I found Radio Sport streaming online and I live in the same time zone as the West Indies! So I can listen to Brian Waddle! Thursday nite all the staff went to Steves house for dinner and had a great feed and then played this cool game called Apples to Apples. (I think Renae is a big game lover so I'm happy about that!) Then there is the "little" issue of waiting for my first pay cheque--I understood it would be this week but now have been told April 2! And as already mentioned lack of internet and phone line and lack of my own transport are more little things. So some positive and some negative, the little things make the difference. You notice these things more when you are trying to live over the other side of the world. I am conscious that this trip is different to past trips in that I am planning to be here a lot longer and want to be able to function without always feeling like the alien! In my country I know how everything works but over here I know nothing!

Well Bekis wedding was a huge highlight for me. I had always planned to be over here for it and today was the day. Being St Patricks Day and as Beki lives in Dublin, Ohio you will see in the pics below she wore green on her dress and the bridesmaids dresses were also green. The ceremony was simple and elegant--flowed nicely and had live string instruments. Beki looked stunning of course and had her 3 sisters as bridesmaids. I hadnt met Kevin before but Beki tells me I'll like him and he seems nice! I met Beki back in 1999 when her college roommate Heather picked me up from Columbus, Ohio to take me to Kamp Kanakuk in Missouri. We stayed at Beki's house in Indianapolis on the was thru and Beki and I have been great friends ever since. Really like a sister to me, Beki has always been there for me and I for her over the past 8 years. There have been many emails and phone calls and 4 visits by me. We have and still do encourage and challenge and pray for the other one in our life journeys. Thank you Beki for your friendship--its unparalleled! God bless you and Kevin! Was great to see Charity again and also Heather and the Shepler family.

Bekis wedding

Cutting the cake

Kevin and Beki (centre) with Charity and me

Camp Crosley on Little Tippecanoe Lake!

What a huge change in seasons! Today was a beautiful warm sunny day! Daylight Savings began on Sunday meaning a longer evening and I’m sitting here in my lounge with the windows open—the air is warm! I’ve been at camp for 10 days now and all of last week was cold with snow everywhere. I finally left LA after waiting around in the airport for ages cause of delays at Chicago. Landed at Chicago in snow and my onward flight to Southbend was cancelled. So i had to get a hotel for the night-it was snowing and cold! The next morning I went back to the airport and got a bus to Southbend. It was a 2 hour trip and the further we went the heavier the snow got. At Southbend my camp director met me and I went to ask about my bags. Of course they were still in Chicago so they delivered them to me 24 hours later. At Camp Crosley I have a little cabin/house about 40 metres from the lake edge and fairly close to the main camp buildings. It has 2 bedrooms and a lounge/kitchen area and bathroom. It has heating and air con and washer/dryer so I have pretty much everything I need. I managed to get satellite TV as my director has it in his house so I can get it for $5 /month! 250 channels! I don’t have a phone line or internet tho which is a pain. Cell phone plans are expensive and pre paid hardly exists and they make you pay for incoming calls so don’t think I will be getting a phone. I have internet at the office and hope to get mobile internet on my laptop. So far work has been in the office on the computer. I have my own office space and desk and computer/phone etc. I have been going through all the files stored on the network server and sorting them into logical folders. Quite a big task!

Early morning at Camp Crosley

I disturbed the birds--this is the only part of the lake not frozen over so the birds are all here!

my cabin/house

pics at Camp Crosley

View from my house to the frozen lake!

Stuck in Chicago

View from my hotel window in Chicago!

Huntington Beach

Tracy & Katie Lindquist training. I had a game with Dave Lindquist (Tracy's Dad) and some other guys)

Los Angeles

Yep I'm in LA--Huntington Beach to be exact. 11pm March 1st I left Auckland on a new Boeing 777-200. I had a bunch of trouble with my hand luggage weighing 14kgs and only allowed 7kgs. My check in bags were 4kgs underweight so I had to go back to check in and take 4kgs of stuff out of my hand luggage bag and put in a big plastic bag to be checked in. The empty hand luggage bag weighed 4kg!! Then all the way upstairs to the viewing deck to find Mum and Dad who had said goodbye and were waiting to see me go thru to the gates. Gave them a bunch of books to cut my weight down more and then my bag weighed 8.5kgs and they were happy with that. Also had my laptop bag which weighed 6.5kgs. So I got to LA about 1:40pm local time after a rather bumpy ride at times. One bump got a considerable reaction from the passengers as we dropped a bit of altitude! Customs was pretty quick and easy with no questions asked whatsoever. Homeland security is sure secure! But then I guess I have a visa from a recognised government agency so that probably helps me. Jessica met me and took me straight to Huntington Beach where I found Tracy Lindquist playing beach with her sister. Her Dad was playing with some other guys so I joined in with them for a game. It was sunny but only about 15 deg and a cold wind. Home to Jess's place for a shower and relax until dinner. We went to Taco Surf--a cool mexican restaurant by the beach. Of course I had Dr Pepper! Then a drive to Signal Hill which is a bump near Long Beach and from the lookout up top you get awesome views of LA city in all directions. So many lights! (And so much smog!) Got some icecream on the way home and now it's bed time as tomorrow I fly off to Chicago and then South Bend Indiana where it is cold and snowing. Tomorrows high will be about 3 degrees I think! Will post some pics soon.

February is hot in Nelson

Been back in Nelson for just over 2 weeks and its been hot and sunny and this week even hotter! Waitangi day we had the Tasman Open Beach Volleyball tournament which I played with Hamish Ballagh. We finished 4th after having 3 match points to finish 3rd and stupidly losing it! Anna and Bella also finished 3rd. It was the best beach tournament we have had here since the pro tour used to come to Nelson. Check my Tasman Volleyball website for more details and pics. My temp agency couldn't find me any work so I have done some volleyball coaching and administration etc, built the Hope Church website and had 3 days working for a guy from church preparing his driveway for sealing. Last Friday night was touch finals. We won our semi 4-2 against Waimea College and then played Nelson College in the finals. It was 2-1 to us when Tim's knee gave way, letting a try in to make 2-2. I then made a run down the side line almost full length of the pitch before a diving defender touched me and then he dislocated his shoulder as he landed! Second half and we were missing Tim and let 3 quick tries in. We couldnt come back from that and final score was 7-4. A great game tho!

My cousin Danella and her husband Rick have been living here as they have just had their first child-Thomas. So I have seen plenty of the baby and been learning plenty about having them!! Only 3 days left in sunny Nelson before I head to Auckland for the Volleyball NZ Beach Champs on the weekend and then 4 days at Mum and Dads before flying to the USA.

Americans at Stanley St Beach Volleyball

My best softball pic!

Young Life sports camp team

Sports Camp & Parachute

Friday I drove down to Totara Springs and joined in with the Young Life team for Sports Camp. Camp staff put me in this team as I knew no one that was going. But it was the perfect team for me. First most of the teams were island teams and I'm just a skinny white boy from the south island but the Young Life team had no islanders in it. Second Ed Roper was one of the team leaders. I worked with Ed at Kamp Kanakuk back in 2000! So that was pretty crazy! God put me in that team for sure! Was a pretty cool weekend, despite losing soccer semi in a shootout and getting hammered in volleyball! I came 6th in the 3.3km cross country so was pretty happy about that. Our girls came 2nd, 3rd, and 4th! Our soccer team was pretty awesome but our semi was against the other good team in camp. Nil all at full time meant a shootout. Our first penalty was a miss and then everyone on both teams put the rest in. I took our last shot and put it in in my usual spot! The keeper didnt even move for my kick--had no chance!! We realised at the end of the camp when we saw the total points that by winning the soccer and then one other final such as the mens hockey (where we felt the referree robbed us by disallowing a goal) we could have got enough points to win the whole camp overall! We finished 4th out of 11 teams and runner up in the sportsmanship award. Our girls won hockey and indoor soccer and us boys won indoor hockey. We also won lawn bowls and one hole golf. We came runner up in mens hockey, softball, girls indoor hockey, cross country, and kayaking. Ken Youngson, founder of Quantum Sports was the speaker and challenged us to guard our hearts. Our hearts are so important as athletes. If our hearts are in the right place our sporting performance will be better. Also met Eroni Clarke--he gave his testimony.

Saturday night I drove over to Mystery Creek to attend Parachute for the evening. Met up with some Nelson mates and saw a bit of the Lads with Kristian playing with them. Hung out with Chevy (Kristian and Chevy got married last weekend in Nelson and I missed the wedding). Then watched Rebecca St James in her first ever Parachute performance. She played a mixture of her older and new songs and even included "Wait For Me"!! Thousand Foot Krutch followed her on Mainstage but were a little dissappointing with the lead singer seemingly without much voice--could hardly hear him. He also had nothing much to say between songs. They used a kiwi guitarist for the first time also--dunno where their guitarist was. The song "Absolute" sounded good tho.

Was a cool weekend and made some good mates from the Young Life team. Nelson sports camp is just as good--less sports and less people but the food is way better at Teapot Valley!

Crazy month

The Pro Beach Tour for 2007 is over! Boxing Day we left Nelson in the Biopaints WRX and drove to Auckland. 2 days there and picked up Sara and her Mom from Vanuatu and then Tiffany from USA. Drove to Tauranga for beach tournament. Check out the new website for Anna & Bella for more details on the trip. We drove 4000kms in just over 3 weeks, in Wellington my car window got smashed and a couple of small things got stolen. I played at the Matarangi tournament with average results--can't expext much better with a new partner who was a young guy fairly new to the beach. I really want to play the whole tour next year and if can get paid to referee I may quit being a sandy and just play and ref next year. In Auckland last week we finally got better weather after a lot of wind and overcast days and even some rain. Had a great finish to the tour. I now have my new laptop and it is soo good! Tomorrow I am off to sports camp at Totara Springs for my first time which should be great. And Saturday night I will go to Parachute to see Rebecca St James and Thousand Foot Krutch play. Should be a great weekend. Also this week I was approved for my visa to the USA so the plan is to head over there the first or second of March. I am already doing work for my camp by recruiting staff for the summer. I can't wait to head over but first I will have about 3 more weeks in Nelson. Sarah and Tiffany flew back out this week and so did Anna and Bella so its just me left here now! I can't handle the mosquitos at my parents place when I'm trying to sleep so tonite I'm at my sisters house!! Lol this blog is jumping all over the place. Just brought 230 bales of hay in tonite for Dad. It's so hot! Off to shower and bed.

What a day!! God is good!

Today started like usual with me at the computer checking emails and working out my plan of action for the day. I was looking at my list of businesses I had asked for sponsorship and was thinking I would not do any more work this week on that. I just had to pick up 2 profiles from companies I hadn't yet heard back from. I was waiting for a lady to come and look at my TV and she had sounded like she was pretty keen so I was happy about that. Well then God seemed to kick a whole series of events into action! My phone rang and a guy said I had emailed him yesterday asking for sponsorship. He asked if I had got any yet. When I said no he said "I'll do it"!!! I was taken aback and then he said "I'll do the whole lot!" I wanted to jump up and down and then I heard a voice at the front door and knew the lady was here to see the TV. I was chatting to Bella on MSN and trying to type to tell her we had sponsorship all at the same time! I walked to the front door so they could see I was on the phone. Anyway then the lady bought my TV, then I rang Bella and Anna to tell them all about it. Anna was crying on the phone!! So we began a hectic day of talking to the printshop, visiting the sponsor company-Biopaints, buying clothing, getting the logo from the design company and taking it all to the print shop- Imagegear, and praying they will get it printed this week! At one stage I had parked my car in Trafalger St and completely forgot about paying for parking. I got back to my car to find someone had put their unused ticket under my window wipers and I still had 20 minutes left! In the Warehouse I needed 10 cents to not have to break a $20 note and a lady in the next que just pulled out 10 cents and said "Merry Christmas!"

Back home Bella and Anna started on my extreme makeover. We had already bought me jandals (I lost my last pair in April and hadn't replaced them) so they started by dying my hair dark blonde. Then they waxed and plucked my eyebrows. Next was lighter streaks for my hair and then hair removal cream on my chest! After I washed all that out in the shower I was disturbed to find my hair had gone orange! In the middle of all this drama my phone rang and it was my brother Tim in Brisbane phoning to say that HP were going to replace my laptop with a brand new one and he should be posting it tomorrow!! I told him I was having a great day and said we had got sponsorship. He said he had been thinking about sponsoring and offered to build the girls a free website! So it's not online yet but it will be www.annabellanz.com. We were all again excited and exclaimed that God was indeed good and wow has He had a party with us today! Bring on tomorrow!! We are so excited as now we can focus on playing beach and not worry about the other stuff. Anna and Bella are now in the top 20 women in NZ and I am excited to see what they can do on the tour! Last Sunday we had the Brightwater Classic, the girls won and I came second in the mens with Cory Schroder. I think I am playing my best beach volleyball ever right now.

I leave Nelson on boxing day for the tour and don't plan to come back before heading to the USA beginning of Feb depending on the visa. So its a busy pack up week for me. I finished work last week and its so nice not to be working this last week here.

Vanuatu--Nov 2006

Saturday 25th

Flew to Auckland arriving 6pm. Jennie Tiers met us and took us to our hotel and then out for dinner. Not a lot of sleep as up at 4:30am to go to airport.

Sunday 26th

Flew to Port Vila-3 hours. Hot and humid! Debbie and Troy met us and Troy took us to Mele Village. This is the largest village in the whole of Vanuatu--3000 people. Here we stay in the chiefs area in a huge house which is very clean and has electricity. Much flasher than the rest of the houses in the village. We are treated like royalty! Awesome meals are prepared for us.

Troy is an ex MLB player from Texas (played for Oakland Raiders) and now owns Erakor Island Resort. After settling in for an hour another American-Doug-picks us up in his big Chevy Suburban and drives us to a resort called Club Ippique. We spend the afternoon here having a beach vball fundraiser. So we play beach and east a BBQ and swim in the lagoon. It rained real heavy tropical showers too. Meet a lot of ex-pats. Then back to Mele for a cold shower (no hot water at all) and dinner. Met Sara from USA is working with the Peace Corp on the island fo Pentecost. She's really cool and can speak the local gibberish-Bislama (a mixture of bad English and French!) so makes a great guide! It gets dark at like 7pm and light at 5am so we go to bed at like 9am.

Monday 27th

Awaken by roosters at 5:20am. I doze off some until Anna and Bella wake me again at about 7am. Its hot and sunny already so up for a cold shower and off to breakfast. French toast and bread and jam and sweet ripe bananas. After breakfast we catch the bus into town. Buses are just Toyota Hiace vans that work kinda like taxis but with set fares. Danny is our driver-he plays soccer for Mele and knows Batram, Clifford and Mike Fifi! Sara shows us around Port Vila, its much hotter and sunnier and stickier today! After lunch at a cafe (where Anna and Bella find grubs crawling in their muesli!) we go on a ferry across to an island about 400 metres of the mainland. Its Irariki Island Resort. Here we get fruit punch and swim in the pool and live it up for the afternoon. 4pm and Danny picks us up again and takes us back to the village. We meet other athletes arriving and then have an official welcoming ceremony. We are given lays to wear and the chief makes a speech, we drink Kava (yuk!) and have a huge meal. The hut we eat in is all decorated and again we are treated like royalty. 9pm-another cold shower and off to bed with the fan on full. I can see 2 geckos on my ceiling tonite!

Tuesday 28

Woken at 2:30 am by roosters crowing again! They crow all day and night--weird! Today me and the girls went to Breakers resort and swam and lay out again. It has a really nice pool and and a white sandy beach. I walk further down the beach to where they are diggin out sand for the new beach vball courts in town. They had got the loader stuck so I had a go but got it stuck too! The beach had plenty of rubbish on it--cans right down by the waters edge! Everywhere we went there was rubbish--no one seemed to care about rubbish bins. Back to town for lunch and Anna threw up in a garden on the main street! Anna and Bella went home to rest and I hung out with Sara.

Wednesday 29

Tournament sposed to start today! But the sand is still not spread on the new courts. The loader driver has no idea what we want so finally they let me in the loader and I spread the sand, we get the nets up and the Minister of Sports officially opens it. Got an interesting picture of Vanuatu time and how things work or don't work today. Sara decides to come over to NZ for our pro tour and Ory (my Israeli partner) is thinking about it too. Had a decent earthquake tonite! Also met McKenzie today-real name Mehlon?

Thursday 30

Girls played today-lost 1 won 1. Anna struggled with no energy from being sick. Real hot today but got more rain too. Weather changes real quickly. Spent $71 NZ on juice, powerade, muesli bars, chocolate and giant snakes-prob about $30 worth back in NZ! Ory took us out to dinner at the Waterfront--I had real nice BBQ ribs! Mehlon and Kelion hang out with us more--they are twins-12 years old and really good at volleyball. Real cute cool kids and really bright and fun.

Friday 1 December

Left the village today. I played 2 games with Ory winning both to advance straight to the semis. Went to Mele Cascades-- a nice waterfalls. Then moved to our new accommodation Erakor Island Resort. This is a really nice resort--just take a short ferry ride across to it. We stay in a dorm style room block. Sara comes over for dinner at the restaurant which overlooks the lagoon and is very nice. Early to bed but I'm starting to get the runs and so is Bella!

Saturday 2

Still got runs but feel OK so eat a good breakfast. Girls feel much better too. Semis and the girls play first but I need a toilet so I miss most of their first set. They don't play so well and lose. Then I play and win first set before my stomach begins to feel really bad. I end up hardly being able to move and lose the game. Then I collapse on the ground with pain and finally make my way to a disgusting toilet at the soccer stadium where I stay for about 30 minutes! I feel very weak and sick but after drinking water and resting begin to feel ok again. Watch all the finals--there are some very good men's teams here. Back to Erakor for showers before the awards presentation at the Wild Pig Bar. I win best male setter and Bella wins best female setter. Then we go to Shooters on back of Ory's Hilux. Everyone just climbs on the back of trucks day or night and drive like crazy around the city. Ory can be a maniac driver! There is no speed limits posted anywhere and road rules are look out for yourself! We only saw 1 police vehicle our whole time there and that was us passing it in an 11 seater Hiace with 14 people in it not wearing any seatbelts! Shooters was no good so took Anna, Bella and Darryn (Aussie ref) back to Erakor ferry and then Ory, me, Sara and her friend Melissa went to a house party. Mostly frenchies there and Troy and some others. Then we all decided to go to Yellow Submarine bar in town. Walked up the hill to Ory's truck where we saw a young guy lurking about. Looked suspicious so as he walked off I yelled out "Oy". He ran off and then we realized Ory's truck window was smashed and they had tried to remove the stereo. I chased but he had disappeared already. Went to town and danced in this club. Again most there were French and a lot of the guys either were gay or appeared gay. I wasn't that comfortable in there!! One guy in particular was quite disturbing--about mid 40's and wearing tight as jeans pulled right up with t-shirt tucked in and his dance moves just made us laugh and then feel sick!! He only seemed to want to dance with other men too. Freaky. Got back to Erakor Island about 4am-lucky the ferry runs 24 hours.

Sunday 3rd.

7am and Bella wakes me--I've had about 3 hours sleep. Pack up and off to the airport to fly home. It's been an incredible week and I really hope to return next year for some more "island time". I would love to go to some outer islands and see more of this country.

Beach vball story in the Nelson Mail

Check out the main sports story in todays Nelson Mail! Click on the title above.

My 3rd cousin Daisy from England came to visit for 3 days on her round the world trip. She brought 2 of her friends with her, from left is Rose, Sam, Daisy and me. It was great to find another cousin!

 

The winning team!

 

Champions!!!

WE WON!! We are promoted to Mainland League for 2007! We were so pumped yesterday as we beat Avon 3-1 in the home leg of our promotion/relegation series. Last Friday we travelled down to Christchurch again for the first game against Avon on Saturday which we lost 0-1. Their ground was bumpy and very small and there was a very strong wind. Really hard to play on. We had a lot of chances early that hit the post or got cleared off the line. I only played about 4 mins at the end. Yesterday was another tight, close game. Battram scored an absolute stunner against the run of play about 30 mins into the game so it was 1-0 at half time. Batty scored again not long into the second half so we led 2-0 which was enough for us to win as last weeks goal counted for them. Then they scored off a corner--the same way they scored their goal in Christchurch. 2-1 and looking like extra time. I got subbed on for Batty with about 20 mins to go and was really hopin to score the winner!! I put in a good cross to Mike Fifi that went just over his head in front of goal. Then in the 90th min, Fifi chased a ball and managed to cross it back from right on the line across the keeper and Jimmy Lattimore somehow deflected it in as he was diving across the goal! We were ecstatic and after a long 2 mins of injury time we all screamed and jumped and hugged and went crazy! Their was a big crowd their and they were all yelling for us too. The ground looked awesome, the grass was perfect and smooth and it was a perfect Nelson day! I will post a pic later. We then had a pig on a spit and our prizegiving and kept celebrating into the nite! Its been a huge year in our club and we have made history by challenging for this and winning the promotion. There is now 2 teams from Nelson in this league and 6 from Christchurch. I have loved playing in this team and although havent got much game time lately its still been an incredible journey and yesterday felt so good to get out there to play firstly and then to win!

So its been a pretty busy month!! Last Sunday I also moved out of Teapot Valley Camp and am now living with my uncle and aunty again. Its nice to be in a house again and have meals cooked! I plan to live here for the next 3 months.

The week in review

Last Monday at 6:15 I got picked up for work and we drove to Golden Bay (90 mins) to work on a house at Pohara Beach. The owner has a bach (cottage) there so we stayed over. It was a fun job to work on. I cooked up dinner for everyone on Monday nite and also cooked panckaes for breakfast Tuesday. I came back home for soccer training Tues nite and went back to Golden Bay Wednesday morning. Did 2 more long days coming back for training again Thursday night.6:20 friday morning Clint and Alice picked me and took me to the airport. All the computers were down so check in was done manually meaning delays but my friend Anna made me a free chai latte at the cafe and I managed to get a direct flight to Auckland rather than stopping in Wellington. Had a nice flight up. Got a shuttle into Auckland City where we had a hotel booked. Met Kate and Mark there. The lady in reception told us it was 1.5 - 2 stars!!! It was really disgusting. Anyway we got changed and then a 10 minute walk up the street got us to St Pauls church. Cam and Chloe were married in a simple ceremony at 1:30pm and then we celebrated with champagne and wedding cake. A few hours break and then at 5:30 we went to Mantells- a cool venue in Mt Eden where we had the most sumptuous meal! The salmon and beef were so nice. Some great speeches were made-Gapesy as best man told some hilarious stories and read an email that Cam had written which was priceless!! "We are soo cool"!! Back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Saturday 9:15am arise and try out the shower. Got face scalded as cold water came and went.

9:45am Mum and Dad picked me up and we went to Parnell for breakfast to celebrate mums birthday. Happy Birthday Mum!! My sister and her husband and my niece and nephew joined us too.

11:30am Mum and Dad took me to the airport.

1pm Flight to Christhchurch. Fell asleep.

2:30pm Stew met me at the airport and took me the team motel.

4pm Light training run at St Bedes School. freezing cold--about 10 deg Celsius.

8pm Dinner at a local restaurant. Buffet all you can eat!

11pm lights out

Sunday sleep in and then rise and relax

11am check out of motel and drive to English Park. Watch some of the curtainraiser.

1pm our game kicked off and Mike fiff scored inside 1 minute!! 2 goals in the first 10 mins and 3 by halftime. I only got to play the last 8 mins but almost scored when I got the ball past the keeper only to have a defender clear it off the line. We won 3-1 meaning we sang in the showers and were very happy! After food and speeches we had a long slow ride home in the vans arriving home about 11:30pm very tired but after a fun successful weekend. But before bed I managed to watch a replay of Maria Sharapova win the US Open.

2 more sleeps to get my licence back and looking forward to our next soccer game--back in Christchurch again on Saturday.

Springtime

Well I haven't written much on here lately--maybe thats a change I should make! Today was hot! Even got the aircon on in our smoko room on the building site at lunchtime. Our building is going pretty slow due to an engineer interfering but it should be speeding up next week. We are building a pretty big warehouse which will be divided up into many storage units of varying sizes. It will be known as Storageworld! Next week we will spend 2 days in Golden Bay working on a real nice beach house that the company is also building. I don't love my job but thankfully I don't hate it either! It is a means to an end. I am still looking into camping options in the USA. Tomorrow is the first playoff game against Burnside from Christchurch. I have been on the bench the last few games and it looks like that will continue. I have way more speed and fitness than our 2 starting wingers but my ball control is not always as good. Our coach has put a big emphasis this year on speed and getting into the corners and this is not happening. But hopefully I'll get some decent gametime and maybe an injury or something will give me an opening to get my spot back. Only 12 days till i get my licence back!!

changes

Yep you might notice this page has changed its format. I like change--that is one thing I don't have in commmon with my beautiful region, Nelson. Maybe that is one reason I want to move away again. Here's a few changes taking place.

• I'm employed!-I have been building now for 3 weeks
• 3 more weeks and I will get my licence back and move out of Teapot Valley
• I have applied for some camping jobs in the USA but if nothing opens up there then I will stay around at least until early next year
  
• We have 1 soccer game left before our playoff games so trainings have intensified and we are aiming to win the playoffs
  
• It feels like winter has been and gone and spring is here as it is pretty warm most days
• Getting my licence back will assist in my life being not so boring!
  
• Summer will soon be starting and along with it beach volleyball and touch rugby
  
• The Bucknam family is leaving our church and moving back to the USA
• Cam and Chloe will be getting married in 3 weeks time so I will be flying to Auckland for the wedding. Will also be able to say Happy Birthday to Mum!

I can't wait for some more changes to come along!

Innocent Civilians?

Just what is an innocent civilian? I remember asking myself that question after 9/11. Were the citizens in New York innocent? Or does one lose innocence by merely living in a country and thereby aligning oneself with that countries government and policies and also that countries culture. This week I have asked myself that again as I have watched Lebanese people displaced from their homes and listen to them talk to foreign journalists saying they are innocent and the Israelis are taking innocent lives. This was especially noticeable to me in a valley just north of the Israeli border. This valley has been a Hizbollah stronghold for 20 years with training camps held here etc. Now I suggest that any citizen who lives there has either learnt to tolerate the terrroists who live and train there or they don't really care about them or they might even like what they are doing to annoy their neighbours, the Israelis. The Lebanese have not just allowed Hizbollah to live and operate in their neighbourhood but have also allowed them to be involved in their government where they now hold about 10% of the seats and their influence is much greater than that. Would we in New Zealand stand by if the Mongrel Mob decided to turn from crime to terrroism and then attempted to get seats in our parliament? Interesting to see 60 minutes tonight where I see good kiwi citizens influencing the mongrel mob to give up crime and focus on their families and getting jobs and becoming good citizens themselves. And its working!! I believe the people make the country and whether you have a choice of government or its forced on you, people throughout the centuries have found ways to influence and change their society when needed. I think to do nothing for 20 years does not really allow you to be called an innocent civilian.

1st Division Soccer Championship Winners!

Yes Saturday our 4-2 win over Marlborough sewed the title up for us. With 3 games to go we can't be beaten on points. My part in Saturdays win became very small. Thursday night at training something went crazy in my neck--Dads phone diagnosis was torticollis or wry neck which is a muscle spasm. Man it was painful! I had to stop training and could hardly move my head. 4am the next morning I awoke with huge pain--every few seconds another spasm would kick in with massive pain and then fade away. Next day it was much better and by Saturday it was all but gone. But that combined with Batram Suri joining our team put me in the reserves instead of starting. Batram had a great game and scored 3 goals! So I only got about 5 mins at the end of the game during which I came close to scoring! So the boys are all very happy but we still have 3 more games that we want to win. Then we have playoff games to attempt to get into the Mainland League for 2007. So plenty to play for yet!

Back to work

Yep today was first real paid day of work since I finished camp end of May. I have about 2 weeks work at Fields berry farm planting berries. Last week was still a real busy one tho. We had another win in soccer where I came on at halftime as a striker and played an awesome thru ball to my fellow striker who went 1 on 1 with the keeper and scored. We won 3-1. Then Sunday nite I barely slept as I watched the mens final of Wimbledon followed by the World Cup Final. Unfortunately Henry didn't score any more goals so I didnt win anything in our sweepstake. Monday evening kids camp began. Tuesday to Friday I coached soccer at my clubs holiday Soccer Academy in the mornings and ran around camp in the afternoons as the white wolf from Narnia! Saturday just gone we played Nelson College. I finally got back into the starting lineup playing up front as stiker. We had a great game and I played out of my skin! We only won 2-1 but we dominated most of the game and had many close chances. We are now 9 points clear on the top of the table and if we win next weekend against Marlborough then we can't be caught!! (3pm Jubilee Park-come and watch us win the league!) 4 regular season games left and then we will go into playoffs to attempt to get into the Mainland League for the 2007 season.

Mt Arthur looks stunning under a coat of snow

 

Nelson as I have never seen it before

can even see the curvature of the earth!