It's all about me...yeah right.

This is a take-off of the Tui adverts that are world famous in NZ.
I saw it on emergent kiwi.

Reading Mustard Seed vs. McWorld (see previous post) has really challenged me. Despite 8 years in Ecuador I now feel kinda trapped in middle-class NZ: mortgage, busyness and the like. I miss the community of our house-churches in Guayaquil and am finding it easy to revert to WASP values rather than challenge the status-quo of the materialistic me-generation. It will take a determined effort to integrate back into NZ without losing all of who I have become as a Guayaco.
eg. We have a gas heater that is over 10 years old and the tank and heater need to be tested before we are allowed to refill and use it. Cost: about $100 and we have to take it across town and probably pick it up another day. Or we can buy a new one for about $150, but how do we dispose of the old one in an eco conscious way? In Ecuador you wouldn't even bother testing! I remember with fondness those rusty gas tanks that cost US$1.60 to refill:-) Throwing things away in Ecuador meant leaving them out front overnight and someone would come along and take it home and fix it and re-sell it or use it. To be honest, I don't like either of the two options I have here and we are having such trouble deciding on something so seamingly simple that we probably just use the fire this winter. What would you do?

Books, books & more books

I just love reading. Living in Ecuador for the last 8 years I would quickly swallow up any books that came my way. Coming back to NZ I really enjoy visiting the bookshops & public library and I usually have 4 or 5 books on the go at any one time. This week I discovered that I could join the library at Carey Baptist College - wow, thousands of Christian books only 15 minutes away. I made myself leave after picking up 5 books in just 10 minutes, or I never would have left there:-)

Easter is a long weekend here in NZ (Fri-Mon), so I have delved into the following books this weekend:

Serving as Senders by Neal Pirolo - a classic on how to care for your missos - You can tell it was written over 10 years ago, but it is so practical I wish every sending church in NZ had a copy.

Mustard Seed vs. McWorld by Tom Sine - I'm only 30 pages in, but already I am excited by the idea that God works through the seemingly small and insignificant to bring about lasting change.

The Bible - a great read:-) Last week I was really challenged as I took a fresh look at Matthew 22:1-14 The Parable of the Wedding Feast: especially that paradoxical phrase (v14) Many (all) are called but few are chosen.

Having worked alongside IMB-SBC I just had to get out a book I stumbled across by accident - The New Lottie Moon Story by Catherine B. Allen. All SBs know this lady and boy did she certainly NOT fit the mold!

I am rediscovering the value of liturgical prayer as part of my relationship with God, so am currently using the Complines from A New Zealand Prayer Book .

Ripening Fruit by Margarita Allan Hudspith (Out of Print) tells the story of the first 50 years of the Bolivian Indian Mission that later joined SIM. We celebrate 100 years of work in Latin America this year and the first missos were George & Mary Allan, kiwi ingenuity exported over 100 years ago:-)

What are you reading at the moment?