a mountain race

Recently, Ryan ran in another race...only this one required climbing a mountain! Anyone else think he's nuts? He is always up for a challenge, and based on this picture, he was pretty excited!

Meanwhile, I found a cafe and had a nice coffee and read a bit. But he made it!

Afterward, he was a bit muddy.

New Zealand race #2 down, marathon next?

12th night

Well, a weather bomb was dropped on us. I'm still not exactly sure what that means, but that is what the weather man called it, and it was nasty outside! Flights were canceled, people locked their doors, hid their children, and Student Life had a kickoff bar-b-que! Naturally.

It was our secret plan to figure out who were our committed student leaders :) Just kidding, but students did brave the terrible weather to come hear about what we hope to see happen on campus this year. We were all soaked and sat around little heaters as we shared the importance of meeting students the first week of campus. They are troopers! We had 14 students come to our training, and each one is committed to serving the Lord and making an impact in Wellington this year. And what a blessing these students are! It made me smile as I looked around the room at everyone all wet and cold, but still trying to think of ways we can love the students on campus this year.


Anyway, as if we didn't learn our lesson in the morning, some girls and I decided to venture out later again that night to see a play.

(let me just note - this is summer. winter coats...and still technically summer. not complaining, just saying... ;) )

Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. It was supposed to be at the Botanic Gardens, but fortunately it was moved to Old Saint Paul's Cathedral (due to the weather).

It is such a beautiful old wooden church. The play is hilarious, and we all had a great time.

So that is how we survived the 'weather bomb'. A cold, wet, nasty day. But that didn't stop these Wellingtonians from making the best of it!

Aren't they cute? :)

baptism

Max, one of our team mates was baptized this week, down at the beach. Congrats friend!

OTJ - Vic

Well, it is official. It is autumn here in Wellington and University is back! Victoria University started on March 5th, and we've been meeting a ton of students ever since. The first week back on campus is always clubs week, where we give out our jandals. This year, students filled out a spiritual interests survey online, so we were using laptops, ipads, and smart phones, which was fun.

We were able to chat with a lot of students. And had over a 1000 fill out a survey, which is exciting!

And we were even able to address some spiritual topics right there on the spot.



Ryan was a great candy man.

We sort of looked like an Apple ad as people walked by.

And giving out jandals!


Yay for the first week back!

OTJ - Massey

It's that time of year! We try and meet as many students as possible and give away as many jandals as we can.


This year everything went digital - with only a few minor hiccups :)

Oh yeah, and we had some ice cream too :)

Not a bad day in the office, eh?

Around the Bays

Ryan has been a little running machine as of late. He ran his first New Zealand half marathon recently (AMI Around the Bays), and did great!

It was such a beautiful morning on the waterfront as we waited for the race to begin. They honestly couldn't have had a better day for a race.
Here he is, ready to go. Ryan was so thoughtful and wore bright yellow so I would be able to pick him out of the crowd - only, a lot of people thought the same thing. Yellow was very popular!

And the starting line:

And the end, way to go!

He's already training for his next race, so watch out NZ...