30.6.06

Helen Clark and Ecoman

So. I just met the Prime Minister. Yep, true thing. Shook hands and everything. She was here for the Manukau opening- Salvation Army integrated Social Services, which the Social Policy Unit is a part of.
It is the last day of term today and Tim went off to school to dressed as ECOMAN! When the other teachers ask him why he is dressed like that he is gonna say "Uh. Its Superhero Friday...Didn't you guys get the memo?" Hehe. I just spoke to one of the other teachers on the phone who seemed a bit baffled by the whole thing. Rad ay. Craaaazy. Tim is my superhero for sure. Wah. Will post a pic next time.
Last night went to a cool youth thing the young Army is doing on the North Shore- Mobilise. Run by Jakes and the crew. Sang a song with these beautiful words:

"This is what Im glad to do,
its time to give a life of love that pleases you
and I will give my all to you
surrender all I have to follow you....
May the deeds of my day and the truth in my ways speak of you, Jesus"

Amen.

29.6.06

cool happenings in CA

Check out The Freeway site and their blog. My dad just told me about them on the phone- they are an arm of the Army doing an emergent thing. A community coffee house. Wowza, Canada has a few good things going on ay.

Mum and dad have just got back from the Finland Roots conference, where they ate reindeer steak. Yes folks, its true. To register your horror/disappointment with my parents you can email them: we_ate_Rudolf@regenthall.co.uk

Big day wednesday

Had a big day yesterday, in the morning spoke on Fairtrade at a local Christian College which went well- they were keen as. But what was amazing was that it was sent up by this one women who heard about Fairtrade at church and decided to do something about it. What a cool thing! Another lady who heard about it at church went to her employers at a massive NZ chain store, Farmers, and asked them to become a Fairtrade workplace- it has now gone to the Farmer Head Office! Ordinary people doing ordinary things bringing about extraordinary change! Its beautiful!

In the afternoon went to Wellington for a Make Poverty History meeting which was kind of good. But when I went to fly home my ticket had been booked for the 28th of JULY! So I am now in Wellington for a whole extra month. Nah. Just kiddin. I changed it, but what a drama!

Went straight from the airport to Refugee Resettlement class and stopped at the kebab shop to get some tea. Drove to the class with my food and then sat down on the kerb to tuck into it- yumness. As I was enjoying my chips I became progressively aware of a stinky stinky humdinging poo smell and I thought HA! Imagine if I have just sat down in some dog poo! It became less and less funny as I realised that in fact, that was exactly what I had done. So despite giving my trousers a good rub down with soap I was stinky dog poo pants all night.

27.6.06

whats with the dandelion?


I have changed my profile pic for three primary reasons:
1- A dandelion is a good rep. for abandoment as it is utterley surrendered to the wind.
2- It is a weed. But it is beautiful.
3- It's very name evokes questions: Is it a crossbreed like a liger? Or does it stem from the Latin Dandelionia meaning cool big cat?

26.6.06

toe knee noes

From Tony Campolo's Ideas for Social Action:
“Perhaps young people are not attracted so much by a church that tries to entertain them as they are by a church that challenges them to do things for others. If your church provided concrete ways to minister to the needs of others and to effect change in the world they would find your church very attractive. Young people want a church that calls them to be agents of Gods revolution and to be a Part of his movement to bring healing and justice to the world”

Mini merits

Behold, Here is Tim in the midget up on One Tree Hill:
It is well cute our little road runner. A friendly old thing. When we are driving along unfamiliar pedestrians wave at us. And when we pull up at lights the driver in the car next to us will share a smile and a chuckle. Strangers in car parks and petrol stations grasp the opportunity to impart some information about a similar car they once had or to ask how much petrol it consumes (which we wouldn’t know as the petrol gauge fails to gauge) or to extol the speed of these little nippers (which we wouldn’t know either as our speedometer kicked the bucket on the weekend).

And, by golly, this is only the friendly factor, I haven’t even touched on the other virtues. Therefore when people ask: The answer can only and undoubtedly be a resounding “Mini Leyland”

23.6.06

hmmm

I have resorted to the Hmmm title. The default when feeling rather uncreative or when the post is too much of a muddle. (As opposed to feeling spectacuarly thought provoked- that would obviously be in Italics. Hmmmm.)
There are a couple of great reet articles on the rubicon, one by Gordon (whose blog is linked on the right there- urban army) and one by a Grant fellow- kind of about our need to move on from dreaming about the Golden age of early Salvationism. You can see it here. A fab read. The comments are VERY interesting (some are slightly scary too)
It is a showdown between the neo-primitive salvationists (the Opus Dei of the Salvation Army?) and those who aren't (the post-modern/emergent types i think). No, ha, its not quite that dramatic.
But the comments are quite revealing about the increasing prominence of this idea "sin in the camp" that the Salvation Army has become quite overtaken with in months of late. I just hope it doesn't become crippling....

21.6.06

Turtles etc

There is a nice bit in Lee Strobels "Case for Faith" where he quotes Peter Kreeft,

“On my door there’s a cartoon of two turtles. One says, ‘Sometimes I’d like to ask why God allows poverty, famine, and injustice when He could do something about it.’ The other turtle says, ‘I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.’ "

Rad ay.
(Admittedly I dont think this was the picture on the poster, or even that he was refferring to the Ninjas. But they are the only vocal turtles I know and perhaps this is a poignant opportunity to honour and conjur up fond memories of these heroes in a half shell. Turtle Power.)

20.6.06

World Refugee Day

It is world refugee day today. The theme is "Keeping the flame of hope alive"

Do you know that there are 9.3 million refugees in the world at any one time? And that’s the people that make it to the refugee camps. Only three per cent of these ever get resettled somewhere safe. The rest are sent back to the place they fled, or die in the camp.

We (the Fuel team) have started this Refugee Resettlement course, we do an evening class a week and after 7 weeks of this training we get a family (one of the 750 NZ receives under the UN quota) and then have to just befriend and support them; help them get a house, schools, furniture, understand kiwi daily life etc. It is wicked so far, totally excited about meeting our family, but a fair way to go yet.

madness and jubilations

Life has been pretty mad lately. I did a workshop on Mission and Social Action at this excellent event in Tokoroa that the DY from Midland Division put on, but that was a loooong drive down and back on Saturday. Then Tim and I went to Wagamamas (yumness) and we got all spontaneous and extravagant and went to see STOMP at the theatre to celebrate our 6 monthversary of marital bliss WAHOO! Stomp was ammmmaaaaazzzing, even though we were a billion miles away in the sky looking down at dots on the stage (I didn’t have my glasses and Tim had to keep leaning over and saying “It’s a newspaper… it’s a stop sign… it’s a tin” … I remember the days of the old binoculars on the back of the seats for a pound).

We also have my pal from Wellington staying with us at the moment, it is joyous.

Oh well hope all ye are doing fantabulously. Wicked to see my brilliant bro in law, Steve, is charging with his Blog at the mo- although I think my Mum needs to set up a blog so she can put up a post that defends her non-dragonlikeness and so she can describe her fave term for son in laws.

13.6.06

2 hard basket

Last night at Fuel (Mission/Discipleship training) we had the "2 hard basket". Basically everyone bought along their struggles/doubts/faith questions and lay them out warts and all. We covered the war, speaking in tongues and holiness amongst a billion other things and we didn't conclude too much either. It was a beautiful and vulnerable thing!

The night prior to this I had a dream where I was one of the last remaining at the end of the world. "They" (I dont know who "they" were) put a gun to my head and gave me a last confession. I looked around and implored people to "do justice and live right relationships because then you will end up in..." at that point Tim woke me up. But when I get woken up in an important dream I always try and go back and finish it off. So I went back to the end of the world and completed my sentence ".... hell!" Hell?!! Then my seat fell from under me and i went dooowwwnnnnn. It was kind of funny, but of course totally not.
So anyway that was an extreme way of leading to my own struggle which is the fact that i should have, in my last words on earth convinced people about how "Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life!!!" but I didn't... and how this is a bit of a danger for me sometimes- to forget that my motivation and aspiration must always and only be Jesus, Jesus and Jesus, however that outworks itself.

For anyone wondering: the Mini has undergone a miraculous motortransformation! It is indeed the greatest midget car in all the world. Apparently the problem is just a solenoid, and come on- they are always dodgy in these antique wagons! So no sweat there. It charges along, like a hero and has this wicked PARP for a horn. We are currently in the naming process. We think something like Gangsta H-Core would be appropriate?

12.6.06

hehe

8.6.06

Young Offenders Bill close date

Submissions close for the Young Offenders Bill 2006 Select committee on 7th July. So you have a month to let them know you think this Bill is sucky/unjust/gratuitous/outragously wrong.
We have just finished the Social Policy Units Submission so if you want a copy for pointers let me know. Read Bill here. Get guidelines for how to do submission here.

Sent Free

From Emilio Castro
"The kingdom of God is an eternal reality in God: it is the historical manifestation of Gods trinitarian love. God is in command; he speaks; he preserves; he purifies; he judges; he completes. He will gather up our tentative, parital, ambiguous expressions of obediance. Because we trust in God and believe in Gods plan for us today and in eternity, and we pray "your kingdom come"; because we look to the future with expectation and eagerness; we can, in faith, offer a cup of water, a word of love, the open hand of communion, all in God's name. Preaching the word, interceding in prayer, living in solidarity with the poor- these are all ways to affirm and fulfill our vocation as church. As a preistly people fulfilling our vocation, we obey our calling by pointing to Jesus the King in whose life every life can find a new begining" Sent Free, 1985

7.6.06

celebrity props

So, Brad and Angelina are selling the first pics of their crunchy lil offspring for millions of dollars to go towards Africas plight…. Their joint media release goes: "While we celebrate the joy of the birth of our daughter, we recognise that 2 million babies born every year in the developing world die on the first day of their lives," the couple said. "These children can be saved, but only if governments around the world make it a priority."

keeping quiet

We watched "No Mans Land" the other night. A great and intense flick. There is this bit where a frustrated UN field worker is getting mad with the UN's inaction on the issue and he says

"Neutrality doesn't exist in the face of murder. Doing nothing is taking sides"

I think the word"murder" in that quote could easily be replaced with injustice/corruption/wrong legislation/bad politics/mistreatment of people. Often I think we keep our mouths shut for the sake of peace and ease and it is a bad and terrible phenomenom. Arundhati Roy (Indian acitivist and Author) puts it in a nutshell when he says

"To stay quiet is as political an act as speaking out".

It is a true thing.

6.6.06

Top 5 ways to waste $2200

5. Put it in the Bin.
4. Eat it.
3. Set it on fire.
2. Use as scratchy loo paper.
1. Buy a mini off the internet that you haven’t seen.


Yes. So on Saturday we picked up the (not so) mighty mini, about half way down the North Island. On Monday- after a fantastic wee holiday with some pals and family- we attempted to drive it back up to Auckland. After about 25 minutes it died. Completely. So we hung out on the side of the road for 45 minutes, banging the bonnet, rocking it backwards and forward, tapping anything that looked like a “solenoid” and lo and behold after 45 minutes it started again. We made it back to Auckland (after buying a tow rope) on the edge of our seats, the little red miniature coughing and spluttering all the way up. We truly bought a lemon/bomb/piece of poo/hunk of junk/insert own word here.

Haha. Oh well. Life goes on, that's rocks n roll, Cape Diem, you're only young once, Vive Las Vegas and all that sort of thing. And it is still very very cute, albeit crap.

2.6.06

The Maori Jesus

I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington Harbour.
He wore blue dungarees.
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelt of mussels and paroa.
When he smiled it looked like the dawn.
When he broke wind little fishes trembled.
When he frowned the ground shook.
When he laughed everybody got drunk.

The Maori Jesus came on shore
And picked out his twelve disciples.
One cleaned toilets in the Railway Station;
His hands were scrubbed red to get the shit out of the pores.
One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing.
One was a housewife who’d forgotten the Pill
And stuck her TV set in the rubbish can.
One was a little office clerk
Who’d tried to set fire to the government buildings.
Yes and there were several others;
One was a sad old queen;
One was an alcoholic priest
Going slowly mad in a respectable parish.

The Maori Jesus said ‘Man
From now on the sun will shine.’

He did no miracles;
He played the guitar sitting on the ground.

The first day he was arrested
For having no lawful means of support.
The second day he was beaten up by the cops
For telling a dee his house was not in order.
The third day he was charged with being a Maori
And given a month in Mt Crawford.
The fourth day he was sent to Porirua
For telling a screw the sun would stop rising.
The fifth day lasted seven years
While he worked in the asylum laundry
Never out of the steam.
The sixth day he told the head doctor,
“I am the light in the void;
I am who I am.’
The seventh day he was lobotomised;
The brain of God was cut in half.

On the eighth day the sun did not rise.
It didn’t rise the day after
God was neither alive nor dead.
The darkness of the void,
Mountainous, mile-deep, civilised darkness
Sat on the earth from then until now.

J.K Baxter 1966

1.6.06

a global sock reuniting service

Last night Tim bought the washing in from the line and set about the task of pairing the socks up. At the end of his task he had a bounty of nice manly pairs of socks to call his own, whilst I had 2 matching ones and a mountain of odd ones. 17 lonely socks in total.
So, family and friends, if you recognise some of these foot warmers because I have left one at your house (or, as is most probable, because they were yours in the first place and I pinched them) or even strangers, if you have little solitary socks that resemble any of these in some way, lets get organised and hook some of these beauties up.