The Amazing Race

The AMAZING RACE

 (around Whangarei)

Clue #3 - Construct a pyramid in front of the courthouse and have all members in it! :-)

The Amazing Race was a night of adventure around Whangarei. We sent teams of kids around in vans on a hunt to seek out their ‘final destination.’ We had youth familiarize themselves with where our Youth Zone office his, calling a stranger and asking for help, visiting the pharmacy, making human pyramids at the courthouse, singing children’s songs to a stranger, trekking through the town basin clock tower etc… The night was exhilarating. We had several new faces from the local intermediate school we target on a weekly basis, and some student’s return to club that haven’t been seen in several months. Students have found the club programs to be a safe and positive environment for them to go during the week – keeping them out of trouble and off the streets in the evening hours.
LeeAnn is presently working on starting up a girls group with the local girls high school, and helping students lead their own Christian club in the school during lunch and before school hours. The program is called “The Rock” and the point of this club is that Christian Students are able to run fun and crazy events at lunchtime with the purpose to share the life-changing message of Jesus with their friends and peers. The group is in the works and the ball has started to roll with it, so we will let you know how it all goes.

Prayer Needs: Please pray that our monthly support comes in, and that our supporters can fulfill their pledge. We seem to have been running short of our funding since we got here, but hope that we can catch back up through additional support, one time gifts, and monthly donors catching up on their pledge commitments.

Blessings you you all!

Summer Time Club Night

SURF'S UP! We are tired of the winter and trying to get a glimpse of summer! This past week we ran a Club Tropicana, with the intentions of bringing in the beach. We had blow heaters, beach scenes, ice cream, and bananas. (if bananas mean summer). As a staff, we ran around town to different surf shops and vacation booking places and borrowed heaps of posters, surf banners, sails, and decor to dress up the youth hall we 

'borrow' on tuesday night from St. Andrews church. 

With a great thanks to all those companies we had a fantastic summer scene

 for our club night. (It was LeeAnn's favorite club night - probably because the blow heaters made the room 85 degrees!) Please don't be fooled by these photos because it is still winter here. Spring is around the corner though and will hopefully kick in really soon. We awarded prizes for the best dressed, and looked for the best Beach Babe and Beach Dude. Ice Cream relay's did us in for massive cold headaches and brain freezes, but it was awesome. 

We introduced Coke floats to some of the kids 

and enjoyed 'surfing' on skateboards. It was a lot of work to pull off this night as it took a lot of setup and creativity, but we did it, and we all had a blast. 

The students are enjoying meeting new faces as we try and bring in more kids from the local schools nearby the church. 

This upcoming week we are trying a new thing; and that is picking kids up from their intermediate school (middle school). If the kids can walk to the school, then we can transport them from there. We are looking at this as another way of out reaching to those who don't have rides, parents home in the evening etc... In fact, just yesterday we went and visited a single mom fighting cancer who helps and attends Rock Solid with her daughter for a little surprise. Our team pulled some finances together to donate to this mom so that she could go and get her drivers license. We told the mom how we believed in her, and the effort she has with her daughter, and that we wanted to help them become mobile for themselves so they don't have to call people for a ride. 

The only thing stopping this mom from getting her license was the $40.00 fee. But with a simple reaching out and a heart full of love and support, we certainly blessed them. We gave the mom hope that she could pass her drivers test, and they were forever grateful. 

 

Here is a recent shot from our home life:

Pictured Above is Preston tenderizing our meat for dinner with a 2x4 from our firewood pile. This is what happens when you can afford cheap meat and don't have a meat tenderizer. 

Olympic Games - Rock Solid Club Night

O L Y M P I C S

Rock Solid Club Games Medal Ceremony

Here are some pictures from our Rock Solid "Olympic Games" club night. We had a great time making up our own Wacky Olympic Games.  We did blind obstacle courses, relay's, javelin with straws, shot put - shooting a ping pong ball out of your mouth etc...

The kids had a great time, and it was good to talk about and share what all is going on in China. At this club meeting we also shed some light on what is happening behind the scenes of the Olympic Festivities - talking about about torture and how individuals are treated in the Chinese culture. 

At the end of the evening we had our own Medal ceremony for the teams. Unfortunately Germany came in first with the Gold medals, USA grabbed the Silver, and New Zealand got bronze. If we had Michael Phelps on the USA team, we would have been sure to win!!

The Liter Bottle Challenge

The Extreme Puzzle Challenge

..... And Germany takes the Gold

New addition to the family!

We have a car!!

This past week we purchased a little economical car to run around town in so save some funding on gas. YFC in New Zealand had given us a 12 passenger Toyota Hiace to use, however, gas was averaging out to be around $400.00 a month. Think your gas is expensive? Count it as a blessing!! Gas prices here are $2.04 a liter, which would be around $8.00/gallon. With the exchange rate in our favor, that would equal to about $6.50 USD per gallon of gas. $4.00 is not so bad anymore ay?

This is a 1994 Toyota Carina (5 speed). It's been a task teaching LeeAnn how to drive it. Kind of like teaching a cow to fly. You can get it running until it trips over it's feet and falls. LeeAnn is certainly getting better and has been on the main road a few times. In teaching her, I only suffered parking lot whip lash a handful of times and it's evident I have lived to tell about, so I'd say we're doing great!! I'll post another update soon...

Extreme Makeover Office Edition

Check this out... Here was the YFC supplies office when we arrived. Preston took on the task of organizing & cleaning out. With a few trash bags, some screws, and wood for shelving, there was an immaculate transformation take place in the offices!!  (BEFORE)
(AFTER)

Now that's what we call Organized and Clean!!

Rock Solid Club

This week we went on our first school walk through promoting our Rock Solid club program and hanging out with students and had a great time. It’s wonderful to be let loose on school campus’s during recess and talk with kids, shoot a ball around, and play on the swings. The schools are so energetic - with kids wanting to talk to anyone and running in every which direction.We have been doing primarily office work since we have been here, but that has been due to the schools being in winter “holiday” and then the big storms last week that canceled everything. But the ministry will only pick up from here.

We have our big event “Rock Solid Club” on Tuesday nights starting at 6:46pm; this club is for grades 7, 8, and 9. Last night, our Rock Solid Club was featured around the theme “American Jamz – what kind of stereo do you have?” In this club we introduced American music during free time, and did a lesson on stereotypes - talking about not judging from appearance but looking at some ones heart. 

We did some crazy games to top off the evening, and had fun connecting with

 students. The kids we are working with are typical city teenagers. It is very apparent that they need to be surrounded by adults who care about them, people to teach them values, and be introduced to the Gospel and Jesus Christ. Most of the students in our club program are incredibly lost, and our hearts and prayers go out to them.

We can look back at our ministry in the states and feel very blessed to have worked with students whose parents discipline them at home, bring them to church, and teach them values. As much as our work here is the same as what we did in the states, it is also very different.
Please pray for the students and their mates who attend the Rock Solid club program. We are hoping to make a huge impact on them this year; and our work is certainly cut out for us!!

PS- Here's a funny from Rock Solid last night: when we were talking last night, LeeAnn mentioned about squirrels. One of the teens at the club yelled out "You have Squirrels?" Shocked and amazed, LeeAnn replied yes, with a little chuckle. Little did we know, there are no squirrels here or wild life animals. Basically all the animals here are farm (cows, sheep, llamas). So anyway, the kids were absolutely amazed that we have squirrels in the states. So, next time you see a squirrel remember how blessed you are to have those furry things run across the road and drop nuts on your car. Many people don't have them or have only seen pictures of them. About the NZ animals: There are no predator animals here - no mountain lions, foxes, wolves, coyotes, snakes, bears, lions etc... basically there aren't any animals that hunt and kill other animals.

Pictured Below is the Rock Solid Club Team: Scottie (Director), Christine (Germany), LeeAnn & Preston, and Roland a Whagnarei Volunteer.

Someone was asking about the lime milk and wanted to see a picture: Here is it... Lime Milk is hard to describe, it taste similar to lime sherbet that's milk. ???? Looks cool in fruit loop cereal, but I wouldn't recommend eating it. 

(Notice the burnt finger Preston has... compliments of a hot oven fireplace)

Can You Believe It?

Can you believe it?? Saturday marks a month of being in New Zealand! In some ways it seems like it should be longer and in other ways we are glad it has only been a month. It seems like it should be longer because of all that we have done, seen and experienced. We are glad it hasn’t been longer though, because if it were, than we would feel bad for still not having fully adjusted to the culture.
I think it is safe to say that we have been experiencing some culture shock. This past week we really felt it as if our brains had reached the point of all it could hold and remember…names of people, names of streets, areas of town, passwords/codes, locations of the bank and post office, details of how things go at the office, etc... People have been gracious to us as we have had to ask of their names again or have asked for help in finding something. There has been quite a bit to take in over the past two weeks!
This week we hope to purchase a small car. As gas prices are around $7.00 to $8.00 a gallon, we are hoping to save some money by getting something a little more economical then driving around a 12 passenger YFC van. We are praying that we find one that will run good throughout the next year, with no major problems.
There are so many things I could share with guys about the city, the people, ministry, church, etc. it’s a bit overwhelming to think of all we could write. So, we are going to take it a little bit at a time...  In doing so, is there any special requests? Is there anything you want to know?

Have a wonderful Wednesday (or Tuesday for those of you on the other side of the world)!

- Preston & LeeAnn

Safe and Sound

We just wanted to update you guys and let you know that we did not float away in the storms. We had a few gully washing rains but we were left unscathed. We had some fun touring around after the rains stopped to see the flooding and see what had happened. The storm caused a lot of turmoil around Northland and the entire country and left a few people unable to occupy their homes. It was a tough second storm and really caused some flooding problems because all the rain ended up as runoff because the earth was already so saturated. Please keep the families around New Zealand in your prayers as they go through the tough times.

Anyway, we have been busy at work planning some upcoming events. We are running a charity auction to fund the ministry of YouthZone and all of our programs. We have actually partnered with a local radio station and hope to make the auction larger than it has been in the past years. It is crucial that we raise funds so we can subsidize our programs to make them as affordable as possible for all of the youth in the Whangarei area. We have began looking at the year as a whole and have some great plans for YouthZone and for our ministry over the next year. We are excited and will let you know more as the year progresses.

We had a chance on Sunday to take a trip to the coast for some fishing and enjoyed ourselves throughly. It was fun to take a break together and to spend some time in God's creation. Also, don't be confused by the picture, Preston is holding the fish (Red Snapper) but LeeAnn actually caught this one. In fact, she out fished Preston all day!!! (This is the only fish picture we have... we actually caught bigger ones)

Please continue to pray for us and think of us. We miss you guys and we love you!!

-L+P