First week in New Zealand September 2012

Andy and debbie's Home at Woodend near Rangiora

Britti Herschell (L) and friend in the snow.

Jesse Herschell and Friend

Andrew and Debbie are in a lovely area 24 min from Christchurch at Woodend. They have a comfortable home just five minutes from Rangiora North Canterbury. Britti attend the New Life School Rangiora and is in her second last year there. She is also working a Maccas where she is learning to be a training manager.

Jesse is at the Meat Works packing 30kilo packs of meat onto pallets and putting them into the cold store. Feliss is the main person in his life and he is smitten. She studies singing and music and works as a waitress to get some cash. When Jesse has matured a bit more I think they will get married. Emily likes NZ. She says it does her skin good. Not so much humid heat as Brisbane in the summer.

Andy and Debbie are just flourishing and they are being looked after well by the church and also the living. The church is doing well too.

We visited the Pegasus new Housing development and seen the new suburb with something like 850 new homes. I think that it did not take off as much as they had hoped. It is 30 min. out of Christchurch.
Andy and I went for a free demonstration drive in a New Honda Accord. It has a 3.6 l. V6 engine but 2 or 3 cylinders shut down when just cruising giving it a better fuel economy than the smaller engine.

BAD BOY!!!!!

Emily at Noosa

Britti works at Maccas

Grandma 

The Botanical gardens were just magnificent in their prime.

Andy took me out towards Redcliffs where the earthquake really caused a lot of damage. It is near to the port of Littleton. This is where Willy Burton came as a young cabin boy with his father, a Ship's sea Captain. A Christian Sheep Farmer placed his hand on his head and said that God had called him to Africa. What an amazing thing. This was confirmed by the old Black gardener at home in England who said that one day he would minister to his people in Africa.

Our first Sunday at the  Rangiora Baptist Church was great. I was asked to speak at the Men's Breakfast. I spoke on "God is always on Time". Speaking of Kiwi Missionary Elton Knauf and his death in Africa and my call from the Lord at 15.

Andy preached on Sunday morning from Acts 11. What the real New Testament Church looks like.
There is a great feel in the Church and A & D are very busy with all the comings and goings. Jesse is moving out to flat with three others from the church. It will help him to grow up a lot.

Yesterday we went the RNZ Air Force Museam near Wigram Airport. They have some very weel restored aircraft there. Sea Hawks, Dakotas, Devons, Harvards, Canberra Bomber, Vampire etc. We enjoyed a great morning and eventually ended up at Maccas near the Christchurch airport for lunch. We had old Mr. Ewart Lewis Fliss's Grandfather along with us at 84. He used to be the youth leader at the Rangiora Baptist church many years ago.

Today we are going for a picnic lunch with Emmie and Grandma. We'll probably end up near the beach somewhere.
A man in the church has offered to fly me over the Alps in a Cessna. Now that will be a treat.

Post Number One - Travel to South Island from Oz

We left Gympie 143km North of Brisbane Airport, at 4:38am on the 20th of September 2012. We had a fairly clear run and arrived at Alpha Airport Parking at 6:45 just a half an hour earlier than expected. No problem with booking the car in. Just AUD 220 for the 28 days we will be away.

Off to Christchurch NZ

The shuttle took us to the Brisbane International and we were glad that we arrived early for our Virgin Australia flight DJ 81 to Christchurch leaving at 9:45 am. Their check in was very fussy. One carry on was 9.7kilos and the other was 8.4 kilos. They were supposed to be 7kilos. The checked in bag was 19. something and could have been twenty three kilos. so she made us take 1.4kilos out of Esther's and two kilos out of mine and put them into the Checked-in bag. it was now bulging at the seams. She explained that the man down stairs would send us back up if they were not under 7. Well now one was 6. something and the other 8.6kilos. so she let us book-in.

The checking through security and passport control took ages. There were long zigzag lines which were very slow to say the least. Old bones seemed to be standing for hours in the lines. we finally got through and headed for the Coffee club before the flight. We took off on time but arrived 30 minutes early into Christchurch. The Pilot came on and said it is 8 degrees Celsius and blowing a steady southerly.

We expected Debbie and Emmie at the airport but we were through so quickly that we were out before they had parked the car. No Debbie? We asked where they have pass through and pickup. It was over under the carpark and the the Southerly was tunnelling through there at 20 knots. We tried to shelter from the blast but Esther got thoroughly chilled. We waited for about 25 minutes and no one came. Esther decided to go back into the terminal and look for them. It was quite a way back and she quickly found them. She eventually returned and collected me. Debbie must have arrived just after we had left the building and she had waited for nearly 30 minutes.

It was so good to find our family and arrive at Woodend a beautiful suburb 24 minutes to the north of Christchurch.