Last Week in Pictures & This Week

PUB DISCUSSION-A group that held a forum on questions about God in the local pub.  Cool incarnational concept in a drinking culture with good conversations where this approach is not to taboo!

• YOUTH HIKE- Went on a youth hike on saturday.
   Paul Milbank who is the youth leader and forest guide for the day, :) is also the one who has asked me to be the best man in his wedding and we work closely together with cession|community right now.
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
• FALL'S COMING- New Zealand is going into fall and I'm seeing a lot more yellow and red leaves then two years ago when i was here. 
• LIFEKIDZ VOLUNTEERING-
  
  
  
  
  
  Lifekids is a holiday program that runs for physically and mentally challenged kids during the week on the property where we have church on the weekends.  We help out on field trips when they need extra volunteers as an act of service and a few pictures are included here as well.

Last Week, This Week

A few cession|community pictures

Raglan- a great surf beach

evening meal before service

Yeah Kids Table

Last Week
Here are excerpts from two messages i received from the coffee shop friend who has returned home to Sweden saying,
"just wanna tell u that all that u and heidi did for me made me feel so blessed and improved my relationship with God too.
I got my [purity] ring from my grandma and I wear it with pride and I just feel like a new, happier person."

"here(Sweden) its so hard to find people who wants to do something fun without alcohol. miss hanging with people who have some imagination! u know?
id love to have you and heidi to sort of keep me motivated you know? specially about the ring, just because its pretty new to me. but at the same time it has made me just a more "at peace" person, and happier. and god is on my side and he helps me. I thank god everyday for leading me to you guys, because it gave me so much. and I just realy needed to talk about it with people that understood. and it helped a lot!
no im not with him anymore, he wasnt realy that understanding about the ring. and I have to be with someone who respects it and understands, otherwise it wont work.
and ive decided to step back from boys, and focus on me and my relationship with god.
and if i do decide sometime in the future to be with someone it has to be with a guys that has my beliefs. u know?"
Cool huh!?!"

This Week
I have some heavy planning to do with organizing the schedule details for the IWU missions team that comes in less than a month on top of my regular schedule. Really cool conversations are taking place right now. One person asked just recently why "heaven was so important?" and at a discussion forum last night a guy asked, "So does that mean i am going to hell?" and "Do Christians think they are a superior religion?" Some very nitty gritty and good conversations happening. Thanks for your prayers and support.

I attached a picture of Raglan. This Saturday, I took a group of 7 others surfing and it was a good opportunity to build relationships on the 2 hours drive both ways
I attached a few pictures of cession|community and the meal we have before the night service. Yeah for the kids table!

This Week Last Week Good questions in Cell Group

Here is me in my Easter Suit! yeah, i was the only one wearing anything close to an easter suit this last Sunday, although people thoroughly enjoy that i still wore brown sandals (called jandals here) with the outfit.




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Last Week: We had our interactive stations of the cross exhibit running all easter weekend. This was a good opportunity for a few people to visit our church that wouldn't otherwise come. Stations included things such as weaving as an act of committing to help with poverty in the world, observing art, watching a video on suffering, collecting blankets for the city mission, etc. At cell group we had one person discuss how they were trying to reclaim their faith. The solution wasn't as easy as asking them to say a prayer of confession, but you can help me to prayer for a reassurance with this individual in their heart and mind of the truth of God and Christianity.




This Week: Students are on 2 week holiday so this is a good time to connect with teens, and this will also be a big week for easter followup. One of my big responsibilities is supporting the church plant at cession|community and creating a system for contacts and followup to really target and value newcomers will be one of my crowning achievements over the next couple months.

Last Weekend This Weekend

Last Weekend:
cession|community put on our annual Easter Egg Hunt for about 340 visitors which is up from the years before.   This was a great community event and with a lot of positive feedback and a lot of followup on my part to do over the next few weeks!





This Weekend:cession|community puts on our Stations of the Cross exhibit all weekend. This is another way of cession being able to express itself artistically and reach out to the community in its own way.
Cell Group: Since March, i have been starting to lead a cell group which has been a huge blessing. The cell group is small but already culturally diverse: american, fijian, samoan, and 2 from vanuatu. One girl mentioned that she had not been to church since her dad had died since she had felt forced growing up. We had a dinner at my place a few nights ago and invited some people outside of the church and made some really good connections in providing steps for them to get involved in a church setting or cell in the near future.

Thanks for your prayers.
Brent Dongell