"Oh, What Do You Do In The Summertime?"

Holidays, holidays, more holidays. We have been here six weeks now, and I don’t think we’ve worked a whole week yet! This week we had Monday off for Auckland Anniversary Day. Next week it’s Friday off for Waitangi Day, the day the Europeans signed a treaty with the Maori natives. Then I think we're in for a dry spell until about Easter. We're enjoying summer here now, eating a lot of fresh New Zealand-grown fruit like cherries, white nectarines, peaches, plums. Ummm! Dad got a bag full of all the above weighing about 15 pounds, and the cost was equivalent to about $4.50 U.S.

Actually, last week we spent four days in Hamilton, about two hours south of here. We had our annual Pacific Area-wide Welfare Training, about 30 people in all. We had four American missionary couples from Australia who run the Employment offices in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. We had five Tongans, three Fijians, six Samoans, one Tahitian, one Maori, and a few that were mixes. If you think that wasn't a smorgasboard of accents! It was really good training and we learned a lot about the challenges facing Employment offices, Perpetual Education, and each country individually. We met in break-out sessions with the Country Welfare Managers from Tonga, Fiji and Samoa, since they report directly to us and Steve, our Area Welfare Manager. They were very sharp guys. They serve as volunteers, but have contacts in government and with other organizations in their specific country. Peter Lee is from Fiji. He ran for Prime Minister and didn’t get elected, but maybe a good thing, because a military coup took over the government a couple years ago and have not yet set up a permanent democratic government. He wants to run again and thinks he can make it – once they allow elections again. Felix Wendt is the manager from Samoa. He was an ambassador to the Western Samoan Mission to the United Nations at one time during the Sr. Bush administration and told us he and his kids had their picture taken in the Oval Office with the President. Felix Wendt doesn’t sound very Samoan, but Samoa was once a possession of Germany and the Germans left their mark on Samoa. The manager from Tonga is named Sosaia Mateaki - sounds more Polynesian, huh? He told us just to call him the King of Tonga! So we did! Funny guy.

The first night about half of us went to a buffet and I actually appreciated things I might not have in the past, just because it was available and reminiscent somewhat of home! On the other hand, another night we had Susi with us and she wanted us to try an Indian restaurant. It was really yummy! The last night we were there, we were treated to a dinner and ride on a paddleboat down the Waitangi River, the longest river in New Zealand. We went about an hour up and then back. Dad got carried away again with his pictures, because it was a beautiful ride. Some of our group brought their instruments and entertained us.

We had missed so much work being gone that we spent most of the day Saturday in the office and accomplished a lot with no one else there. We knew we had Monday to play, so it wasn’t any big deal. We decided to get up real early and go find the sunrise on a beach. So we left before 5 a.m. and drove north of us a ways and found a great beach for pictures. Again, Dad went overboard. That day alone he took about 150 pictures. Thank heaven for digital cameras – he just shoots anything that looks good, then deletes and touches up when we get home. He’s having fun.

It was very dark when we got there, but this little teeny clump of land was silhouetted against the sky and lots of sailboats were out on the calm water. Very beautiful.

Then daylight started to lighten up the sky.

Finally the sun started coming up over the horizon. Brilliant, piercing color!

Then it finally hid behind the ever-present morning clouds. What a sight this was! The beginning of a perfect clear summer day. The clouds just had to make an appearance!

After it was too bright for pictures, we made our way to a nearby Regional Park. After our seven-hour outing last weekend in the sun, Dad was done to a turn, thoroughly roasted! He peeled all week long, and was still red in the face and neck. In spite of that, he still hasn't decided he needs a hat, but he did wear a long-sleeved shirt. We couldn't resist another fun day outdoors, so we just set out in the sun again. This park has a hiking path for a couple miles along the top of the cliffs above the ocean. Wow! Beautiful! But what a challenge after awhile. You may not be able to tell, but we were up and down, up and down, over hill, over dale, dozens of steep climbs. Oh my gosh!! I was exhausted by the end of that – which was about 4 hours! However, what a variety we saw.

See the steps built into the trail. We must have done fifty sets of those. I can't tell you how many hills there were! I'm still aching! On one side of the trail was a drop off down sheer cliffs to absolutely clear water and either beaches or boulders, and on the other side were rolling hills and meadows full of flowers.

It reminded me so much of something right out of “Sound of Music.” Makes you (me) want to take off running up the meadow singing, “The hills are alive.....”

Along the way we came across some cool stuff. This is a WWII bunker (gun emplacement). There are 118 of them along the west coast of New Zealand. They were built to guard the coast against enemy attacks. They're called "pillboxes." They were manned by three soldiers and guns, and had clear view of the coastline. Fortunately, they never saw any action, because a couple battles in the Pacific by 1942 stopped the threat of attack by Japan. The view from up there was wonderful!

We've come across a couple of cool kinds of fences and gates in our travels. This was a classic. I couldn't resist taking a picture of Dad climbing over a stile. Just have to say, "Piggy won't get over the stile, and I shan't get home tonight!" from "The Old Woman and Her Pig."

The trail followed just to the left of the tree line on the edge of the cliffs.

From the meadows along the trail, this is what we saw!! Beautiful. See the sheer white cliffs?

At the far north end of the trail we went down to where this river meets the beach, and came part way back along the beach - which wasn’t necessarily all beach.

We climbed over slimy boulders and rock ledges and slipped and slid and dodged the water – good thing it was low tide, because those places normally aren’t accessible. Finally we got to a beach – which just happened to be another nudist beach - and decided to go back up to the trail on the top of the cliff. However, there was a “sunbather” sitting right next to the trail up. Kinda awkward. This must be the land of the line-less tan. He wasn’t alone, either. There must have been a dozen others. Good grief!!! And no, Dad didn’t get any pictures!

The manager of our little Village where we live asked us to come and talk to the residents about what we do. The fear in renting to us initially was that we were missionaries and they didn't want to be bothered or preached to. So this was a big step. We went Wednesday afternoon and there were about a dozen residents there in the community room. Very attentive and shook their heads in agreement about things as we explained the humanitarian efforts taking place and told them we were the administrative "facilitators" to help with approvals and other details. I had pictures from some of our past projects, and stories to go along with them. It's fun to have access to the end results of what goes on. They seemed interested and were relieved, I think, to know they were safe from being proselyted! Afterwards, we had tea, of course. Tea is sort of a ritual with these old people, I think. Really just snack time, but it's their social time. Little cookies, cream puffs and sausage rolls. Really quite good, and we spent another little bit just visiting with them. There were two men and about ten women. One of the men got Dad's ear and was telling him war stories about being in Italy during WWII. When we left, they invited us back "anytime you hear our cups clinking down here", and specifically invited us to their next "fish and chips night". I guess we've been accepted.

More another time!

A DAY ON THE BEACH

We spent the better part of each day this past week monitoring the flooding in Nadi, Fiji. Over a three day period Nadi received 38 inches of rain. At high tide the rivers backed up, making matters even worse. Over 9,000 people were left homeless, and had to take shelter in one of 118 Emergency Shelters set up by the government.

The military-run government is considered “interim” and has been since the last coupe in 2006. It has postponed the general elections, again, which has brought about a major rift with both the New Zealand and the Australian governments. Consequently, neither of them was willing to provide much assistance. Even the US government sent a token $50,000 in emergency aid.

It took several days to for our people on the ground to get a good handle on their needs. They met with the Emergency Management Department several days in a row before finally getting some direction. It was finally decided that they needed oatmeal (for porridge), hard crackers (known as biscuits), and fresh milk. So we purchased enough of these products to feed 9,000 people for one week. In addition we purchased 2000 kg of clothing and blankets. All of these items were distributed to the emergency shelters within 24 hours of the request coming to us.

By the end of the week both Diane and I were ready for a break. Since we had already spent a lot of time roaming the “bush” admiring all the trees and flowers, we decided to hike along the coastal areas and beaches.

Our first stop was a park on a bluff overlooking the Waitemata (Auckland) Bay. The two hills in the distance are extinct volcanoes on the North Shore. They are about 5 miles from our apartment.

The park had several formal gardens that were absolutely beautiful. Everywhere we go we are so impressed about how clean and well kept everything is. We seldom see litter, but we frequently see someone picking something up and putting in the trash.

Even though it was a very cloudy day, Diane dressed for the occasion – a pretty hat and her “sunscreen” shirt. On the other extreme, I only wore a T-shirt.

When the sun was behind a cloud, the waters turned a deep blue. But when the sun was out, the waters were either green or gray.
(You can see the green waters in the distance).

Again, you can see the line of green water in the distance. We walked more than 16 k (10 miles) and both Diane and I were surprised at how few people were on the beaches. Some of the beaches seemed almost deserted.

After what I said about litter than then this picture shows some… actually, I believe it is a towel of someone out swimming in the bay.

Since some of the beaches ended quite suddenly, our day-long hike took us through some beautiful pasture land (luckily, the cows were all friendly). By mid afternoon the morning clouds were beginning to thin out, and I was beginning to warm up.

Even though we were not right on the beach all of the time, we were still within sight of the water most of the time. This is a view of the Tamaki River where it feeds into the Pacific Ocean. The boats in the distance are sail boats.

The tide was going out, which let us walk more of the beaches as the day went on. The white specks on the beach are small shells. We saw millions of them, and wanted to keep them all; but only returned with one pocket full.

There were dozens of places to stop and enjoy the scenery. This bench was built up to keep it above the high tide waters.

Where the river and the ocean waters met, the beach narrowed to a long skinny “Spit.” It stretched for almost a mile into the water. At high tide it is completely covered.

Leaving the beach, we continued our hike along the marsh lands, which are only beautiful to some eyes (Diane thinks they are ugly.)

A local gent told us that the home on the far side were occupied by the people who “Run Auckland.” We came across this same gentleman, earlier in our hike, sunning himself in places that usually don’t see the sun. When we met up with him later, he explained that that beach was commonly accepted as a nudist beach. (At least he thought so.)

We came across another little stream that was full of brown duck. A little boy was there watching them. He had their full attention, but when he got up to leave, so did they. (The chance for a free meal was gone.)

Toward the end of our hike, we happened by an extinct volcano. We looked at it, then looked at each other and knew that we had to hike to the top. In this view, you can see the remnants of the terracing done by the ancient Maoris.

The wind was blowing pretty stiffly on top of the volcano. Blowing my hair back, it exposed more of my already red face. I was pretty well cooked – mom was in good shape. (Except both of us were tired, dry, and hungry from our 10-mile hike.)

Let’s Get To Work!

This is our little corner in the Church Office Building. I'm in the left corner, Dad in the right. Our space isn't exactly an office, but rather a walkway between other offices.

We’re finally feeling like we’re in the saddle and doing something productive! It’s good to be busy. The first couple weeks were full of holidays, and we were just trying to figure things out, like how to run the high-tech, bells-and-whistles copy machine, dial out on the phone, remember to drive on the wrong side of the street, make change with strange coins, and find food that was somewhat familiar. I think we’re over the initial culture shock, and things are coming a little bit easier.

The first couple things we’ve gotten involved in have helped us learn a lot in a short time. It’s so weird to just pick up the phone and “ring” Fiji or Australia or wherever, and not even think about the cost or distance involved. Of course, we have to figure out country codes, and particularly, what time (and what day) it is wherever we’re calling. And then the language problem. I called Tahiti the other day and the person who answered the phone spoke to me in French! Even if they do speak English, which most do, sometimes the accent is so thick or the connection so bad, or both, that it makes doing business kinda hard. We have added to our “favourites” on the computer a world clock, a metric converter and a currency converter. It’s called survival! I’ve gotten a crash course in South Pacific geography in the past couple days. Have you ever heard of the nation of Vanuatu, or of Tuvalo? I learned that Tuvalo is made up of 33 teeny, tiny islands. The highest point in the country is 3.5 meters (about 10 feet) above sea level, and the population is less than 5,000. They even have an ambassador to the United Nations. Every time it rains and floods, more of their soil washes into the ocean, and the fear is that one day the country will just cease to be there. So many of these little dots in the middle of the Pacific were occupied by the G.I.s during WWII, and there are still remnants of fortifications, guns, etc there. Some were even bombed by the Japanese. All of them are beautiful. It’s been fun to do a little Google research.

I’ll give you a brief overview of what our assignment is. We are to help develop, oversee and coordinate humanitarian projects, funded by the church, to help relieve suffering and teach self-reliance to underdeveloped countries across the entire South Pacific. The goal is for them to be sustainable by the local people once the project is complete. These might be such things as drilling water wells so villages have access to clean water to help with sanitation and health issues, distribution of wheel chairs and/or crutches to amputees, screening for rheumatic fever, providing medical equipment to hospitals, neo-natal resuscitation training to medical personnel, vision screening, the list goes on and on. Sometimes we even help build schools or provide computers or books. Hygiene kits, newborn kits, school supplies, many of the things they’re lacking we can supply to help to relieve some of the suffering in these places where they basically have an economy of subsistence farming or fishing and no cash income whatsoever.

There are missionary couples like us, or others on the ground in these places that do the actual delivery of these things, the drilling of wells, the medical training, etc. We handle the paperwork, approvals, coordination – all the administrative end of it. Of course, we have inherited things that were already under way, and have to pick up in the middle of it and try to figure out where we are. We have a literacy program in Australia designed to help teach the Aboriginal children to read English. We’ve been involved pretty heavily in trying to get their material copyrighted so it can get out to the schools and government. This past week or so Fiji has been inundated for days on end, with record-breaking rainfall. In some places the water is six feet deep, putting entire villages under water. Couple that with high tides, and you have a real disaster! We have daily bridge calls set up with the church leaders there to assess what we need to do in the way of emergency supplies – water, food, blankets, emergency response containers that have shovels, chain saws, tarps, etc. When you hear, during a disaster, that the church members and missionaries have all been accounted for, it’s through our office that that information is communicated to Salt Lake. The fear now after the rains end is diseases such as typhoid and dengue fever. The church leaders there are in touch with the Red Cross and the government organizations and they’re all working together. It’s just cool to see how this whole thing works. Of course, Dad is right in his element doing this stuff. All his experience with hurricanes has paid off. The two years we spent in Samoa also paid off, because we already understand a little about the culture and traditions of these island people.

When we haven’t been in fast forward with those two particular things, we’re working on “closing out” about 50 projects that have been completed, but the paperwork was never finished and the project information forwarded on to church headquarters. In the meantime, we have requested from each different country what they consider to be their three most pressing needs for 2009 so that we can begin to get approval and funding for those projects to take place. Most of the countries have health needs. As you can tell from the paragraphs above, we do a lot of medical things. A lot of the reasons behind their health problems are sanitation, proper medical care, and diet. Most places have a severe shortage of medical personnel, lack of funding for equipment and personnel, and lack of training. There are an inordinate number of amputees because of the incidence of diabetes. Their diet and sedentary lifestyle are the root problem. Many people still use their traditional medicine men, rather than going to a doctor. By the time they finally do go to the hospital, there is no saving their leg(s). The infant mortality rate is about 22 per 1,000, which sounds really high to me; thus the need, first of all, for teaching neo-natal resuscitation for newborns in respiratory distress. Rheumatic fever is another major problem. It is an inflammatory disease caused in part by untreated strep or scarlet fever, or sometimes infections due to lack of dental care as well. Rheumatic fever damages the heart valve, and although it may not be apparent in kids, by adulthood they will have developed heart problems. Hygiene is a huge problem. They don’t understand about cleanliness, and don’t have clean water, in many cases, to practice good hygiene. Consequently, cuts and sores become infected and illness and disease are passed around to whole villages. If they do have a source of okay water, animals or even dirty humans can contaminate the supply for the entire village. Mosquitos are an ever-present source of potential trouble, such as dengue fever or typhoid. Education is the key to preventing so much of their health problems. Their diet is very limited in most cases. They don’t understand the food pyramid, for sure! Taro and rice and sweet potatoes and coconuts can put on the weight. Learning better means of growing, and varying their crops would provide them a better diet, but they need to be taught. So little by little, rather than putting a band aid on the problem, we will get down to the root of the problem through education, but it’s a very slow process.

The other day the secretary of the Retirement Village came up to our apartment and asked us if we would be willing to speak to the residents on the 28th of January about what we do. They’re curious about us and have heard just enough to want to know what we’re all about. We’ve been so immersed in these projects the past couple weeks that it will be exciting to have a little to share with them.

We went to the store after work and did some major shopping again. It’s becoming a little easier, because we’re at least starting to recognize some items. We’re so surprised, though, that the salt isn’t as salty as at home. I’m not kidding. Isn’t salt salt? And sugar is huge grains, not nice soft granulated sugar. Whole wheat flour or bread is called whole meal. The kiwis love all things marshmallow. Everything has marshmallow in it, marshmallows in every form. With the price of chicken, I think they’ve found a substitute. Whatever isn’t marshmallow is chicken flavoured. Can you imagine chicken flavoured potato chips?? They have them. A couple more little things we’ve learned. They do have mosquitos here – called “mozzies”. One found Dad’s ankle and drove him crazy all night.

Throaties are cough drops, jandals are sandals (a contraction of Japanese and sandals), the letter “z” is called “zed”. We keep hearing references to what sounded like “Cici-enzed”. Someone must have seen the confused look on our faces, because they finally said, “Church College of New Zealand.” (CCNZ) A cute little difference is that they say they’d like to have a little chat to you. To you. I smile every time I hear it. I haven’t learned yet how to duplicate the sound of their letter O. It’s something like the “oi” in noise or voice. So when they say “No”, it’s not just a long o, it continues on a little more with a different ending, almost like “noe”. It’s fascinating to listen to all the different sounds and accents here.

“You guys” or “y’all” is said “you lot.” Mate is a big word here. “’Ey, mate, do ya have a new cah, do ya?” Every time they ask a question, it’s double, like that. “Have ya got a cold now, have ya?” Poor Dad, every once in a while he still looks at me with a blank look, and I try to translate for him. He says it’s like when he was in Georgia and Alabama and couldn’t understand the “English” there. I've heard several times the phrase "Granny flat." It's a mother-in-law apartment. In church they talk about feeling the "spurt" or "spurit." "Mo-tuh moh" was a hard one to figure out. After further explanation, it became apparent they guy was referring to a power lawnmower. "Look ahftuh" is something they do well. The look after their kids, look after their jobs, look after everything. Dad looks after paying the bills. He looks after making sure the door is locked when we leave. If someone asks you to do something, you say you'll look after that. It just means take care of, but just a little different way of saying it. We're still sorting through phrases and accents, but that's half the fun of being here!

Not many pictures this time, although we still get out and explore every weekend. Our pictures from last weekend are more stairways and bridges through the lush ferns and growth of a bush. One difference was that we had water this time.

We've just seen so many beautiful things that it's hard to share. We take so many pictures I think we've become half Japanese! Everywhere I go I say, "Oh, my mother would love this!" She would actually think she'd died and gone to Heaven if she could see all the things we do. I remember her boxes and boxes of slides of flowers, and didn't know what on earth to do with all of them. They meant alot to her, because they brought back memories of her trips and things she enjoyed so much. I guess our pictures are like that. We're taking them for our own pleasure, and probably will bore others to death with them once we return home. But it's fun for us now.

Suffice it to say that we love being out in the beauties of this country and will probably continue to take pictures because they’ll spark memories for us in the future. I think we’ve inundated you recently, however, so thought I'd go easy on you this time.............

................................................So bye for now!

Oh! How Lovely...

We have been pretty busy this past week. The holidays are over and people are returning to work, so we are able to make more contacts, coordinate more, receive more inquiries, obtain more direction – generally just get things done. That is good!



We had a long week-end following New Years day. We took advantage of that time and continued our exploring in and around Auckland. We spend nearly a half day in what is called the Auckland Domain. It is a very large park near down-town Auckland. It has both formal gardens, natural bush, playing fields, museums, theaters, ponds, streams, fields, picnic grounds, etc, etc.

I know we have shown and commented about the flowers before, but we keep seeing more and just have to take pictures of them. You ought to feel somewhat fortunate that I am not including all of the pictures we've taken this week in this update.

We've also shown and commented on all sorts of trees. Again, we keep seeing more that have to be captured for memory purposes -- we have some limitations in that department. This is a Magnolia tree. We all know that Magnolias get large, but we thought this one was noteworthy. I was in the picture only to proivde scale (comparison). (I normally don't like being used in that way.)

Diane thought this was a good shot. It was taken to illustrate the moss growing on the rock bridge. We are finding that there is good reason for so much moss, ferns, and lichen – there is some form of precipitation almost every day… but if not, its cloudy so things don’t dry out as fast as a West Texas weed.

This is a picture of Diane, as we were just entering an “urban bush.” -- Notice the umbrella, we carry one every time we are going to be out -- As with most pictures that are “pretty,” this one still doesn’t capture the whole ambiance.

After we left the Auckland Domain we came across one of the 48 extinct volcanoes in Auckland. This one is called “One Tree Hill.” The terracing was done many centuries ago by the Maoris. The one tree for which the hill was named is now gone; and others have grown up in its place.

Sheep were introduced to New Zealand relatively recently (a few hundred years ago), now they say that there are over 40 sheep for every person.

This is a picture of down town Auckland from the top of One Tree Hill. It was raining when I took the picture (of course) so it is not very clear in the distance.

I was impressed by the volcanic rock wall leading up to the top of One Tree Hill. And I thought it would be a good reminder that lichen grows on everything that doesn’t keep moving.

The meadows are just lovely -- lush and green. This was of particular interest to us because of how dense the population is nearer Auckland (houses on top of houses on top of houses). You don’t have to travel very far from Auckland, however, before you are able to see hundreds of miles of this type of terrain and beauty.

We haven’t even scratched the surface of the local attractions or trails to tramp. And I’m not sure if we ever will … there is just too much to do and to experience within a few short miles, so why drive a half day to see some more of the same things?