Hooray, finally I have gone unconditional on the sale of my house in Auckland, and I have also gone unconditional on the offer of a house here in Wellington. Hopefully I will complete selling and buying in one hit, fingers crossed. So soon you won’t have to put up with my housing woes much longer. I’m hoping and planning that moving day will be Saturday 6th August, I’m just in the process of getting quotes from moving companies. The problem I had when I moved in here at Churton Park is that the driveway is very steep and narrow, and the moving truck had to park on the road and empty the contents onto a smaller truck which would bring a load up the driveway it took all day to complete the move. So, I’m not sure how we are going to move out of here and what it is going to look like.
A very dear friend of mine passed away yesterday, she was the Reverend Margaret Anne Lowe a recently retired Presbyterian minister from Northern Presbytery. She was very much a significant and important member of Northern Presbytery serving on many committees and workgroups. She was a great support to me throughout my ministry and when I was Pacific Secretary for the Council for World Mission my office was based at her church at St. John’s Papatoetoe, so we had a very close collegial relationship. She was a great support to me when I put my name in the hat for this parish, she believed we would be a perfect match. She was sick for only a month, life is so fragile and I can’t imagine life without her in it. I will miss her dearly.
I was writing my memoirs for the chapter of a book being written by my Ph. D supervisor Prof Tagaloatele Peggy Dunlop. It has been an interesting exercise of remembering growing up in Aotearoa NZ as part of the Samoan diaspora. My thoughts were sitting inside my head and I needed to have a cathartic moment to spew the contents onto my computer screen. It’s amazing how much I realise I’m needing to leave out in order to make it succinct. It is quite a cathartic exercise and one that I’m looking forward to finishing. It all feels quite inward looking and introverted but a necessary process to produce the narrative for my chapter.
I am looking forward to finally being settled, being able to hang pictures on my own wall in my own home to have the freedom to enjoy my own place and space without having to worry about landlords. It has taken 3 months which is probably not a lot of time in the scheme of things, but for me it has felt like a very long time and am very glad it’s over and I can move forward.
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. Fei
Link to view the full e-news https://mailchi.mp/e60ae75dcc4e/this-weeks-newsletter-from-st-andrews-on-the-terrace-9083959
