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Summer passed with little good weather to mention for it. We only had hope for better weather in January. No one anticipated the floods of February! They caught us all by surprise. The whole country was affected to some extent. Though Auckland is 600 km's from the flood affected area, this is where a lot of its milk supply comes from, so they had shortages while we had power outages.
  They have called this the once in a 100 year flood, and as you might imagine, a lot of damage for some. Some townships have now disappeared. Many bridges have to rebuilt and some roads have yet to be cleared.

"UNEMPLOYED" is what I was for the first couple of months of the year. I only registered as being unemployed at the beginning of February. This was when I started looking for a job. I enrolled with a number of personnel companies and visited a couple of companies directly. Unfortunately there is nothing going in the field I want to enter into, customer services, lower management or the like.
  Would you believe it, I am now working for the energy company I left 17 years ago to go overseas? Well... I am. I served my apprenticeship there and to there I return. (What has God got in mind? Is this a JOKE!?)

The kids were off to school again at the beginning of the new school year that starts at the end of January. Machiko is now in the 4th Year and Nathaniel in the 1st Year.
  Both children like their teacher very much. They are both very understanding of that the children come from a Japanese specking home and encourage them in their English specking capacity.
  But because of the flooding, schools were closed for a week. The water supply had been cut so toilets couldn't flush... a problem of the kind for the children to be kept at home and get stir crazy for being keep inside all week.
  (The situation at home wasn稚 much better. we had to wait three days before roads were clear for us to travel to a friends house for a shower!)

Deciding what church to attend on our return was never a difficult decision. We have had contact with the pastors of the Christian Fellowship literally for years. This relationship become even stronger as we had often invited them to speak at the YWAM base we were serving at. Jono and Mary have been a great blessing to us. The church's web site is at

Buying a car is never fun. You never really know what you are getting. Pretty much only as much as you pay for. I was looking at late model Japanese imports to start with but realized that it made more sense to pay a third that price for something 'nice' that will keep us on the road for the next year or two till we feel the need for something bigger... and then again we may just stick with our 1993 Nissan Blue Bird. It has an air-con and all the other extra's so we are satisfied. And it is white too.

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