Assessment Weekend

I know Sammy is going to kill me for putting this photo up (centre left in case you were wondering!!) but it was the best one of an unruly bunch!!


Shaun’s assessment weekend was in the middle of June and they all had a great time. They were grilled with interviews all day Saturday and had a couple of written assignments as well as group tasks to try and squeeze in but this photo was taken Sunday morning when all the pressure was off and things were over apart from the morning meeting at Upper Hutt Corps and lunch pretty much!

They had a fantastic time of bonding and, with the results now in (!!), all five made the cut and have been accepted as part of the ‘Prayer Warriors’ session of 2008/9.
Yee haa!! ... is about all I have to say about that!

Seals Galore!

Queen’s Birthday weekend was a pretty good break. Shaun gave his first sermon ever at Blenheim corps – he did an awesome job preaching on God’s Love for us and how the effect of that should both look and play itself out in our lives – good listening skills eh?!! We caught up with Zane and Karen for dinner as well and then watched the rugby altogether back at home with Conway & Kath as well.

Monday we spent driving to Kaikoura which was just great because there’s a little waterfall that takes about 5 minutes to walk to, just off the side of the road along the coastline where you can stop and have a look at all the seals. At the right time though, apparently between April and June, the baby seals come all the way up this little river to the waterfall and just frolic about – it’s a fantastic sight but one you need a local to let you in on!

We drove there (stopping at that fantastic little café at Kekerengu on the way of course!) especially hoping to see the seals and there must have been close to 20 of them there – it was just great! Shaun, mad as a mad-hatter, stripped off to the knee and sat in the FREEZING cold water for a good 10-15mins patting the water getting the seals to come up and ‘say hello’ (how else to you describe their antics!!).

It was an amazing sight to see – if you touched them they could well do you an injury but if you were patient enough and let them come up to you, they were amazing little playmates for a bit! It was a freezing cold day but just so much fun – a bit hard to get any good photos without a tripod simply because of the lack of light but worth the drive all the same!

After fish’n’chips with Ma and Pa Baker it was back on a ferry for me…