E NEWS 22ND SEPTEMBR 2023
The weather has been a mixed affair this week, extremely windy pushing furniture around outside my house and breaking down three of my neighbours’ fences. Occasional rain and some also really beautiful spring weather all in one week. My dogs know when I get home it’s walkies time and they get so excited, lovely weather for dog walking at the moment.
Yesterday afternoon Lois Robertson and I went to visit Dorothy Harvey at Manor Park Nursing home. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Dorothy was in a secure dementia ward, and she was aware that we were there but didn’t not know who we were. She was not able to connect with us and was lost in her own world. The male nurse that greeted us said this is most unusual for Dorothy to have guests as she hasn’t had any visitors in a long while. Lois and I are glad we went, and it was good to visit her on behalf of our church.
Jim and Maxine Cunningham and I have been visiting Margaret Rushbrook in the hospital over the last few days. She is very unwell and all her children are with her. The family kindly request no visitors please. Let’s keep Margaret and her children and family in our prayers.
Next week I will be attending the PCANZ General Assembly at St. Kentigern’s College in Auckland. I will leave here on Tuesday morning and have three meetings in Auckland on Tuesday that have been arranged to coincide with General Assembly. A dear colleague that I trained with at the Theological Hall the Rev. Ron Lauese died on Tuesday night. We were very good friends down at the Hall. His funeral will also be sometime next week I am still awaiting confirmation of funeral details. General Assembly commissioners have to seek leave from Assembly if we are to attend funerals and personal events during Assembly time etc. The general rule is that we organise pastoral oversight in our absence to cover us whilst we are away at Assembly.
This Sunday is Creation 4 and everywhere I have looked for the theme for this week it comes up “mountains”, but I did that last week. How did that happen? Anyhow, I will again be using the lectionary readings from the Hebrew bible “Manna from heaven” and Matthew’s Gospel “The workers in the vineyard”. Some years ago I preached this text to remand prisoners at Mt. Eden prison and when I concluded that the workers all got paid the same regardless of how many hours they worked, because they were all treated equally. All the prisoners applauded that even they will get treated equally no matter regardless of the time they may come to faith. They applauded because they were included as part of God’s grace and favour.
Molly Seah sent an email today about her and Lloyd and she has asked me to share some of it in E News. Here’s a snippet for you “On a personal note, Lloyd has been put on heavy pain relief and cancer medication the last fortnight and both he and I have follow-up appointments with our specialists, me next Monday and he on Tuesday. He gets very tired but still likes to help around the house and garden. He is more relaxed and generally sleeps better. I had a super successful thyroid operation last Tuesday and was home after an overnight hospital stay. All is fairly well with us and we really appreciate the pastoral care shown us by the St Andrew’s whanau. Many thanks to everyone.”
I’m off to Dunedin tomorrow for the day for the last of the Dawn Raid Vaka Stops. I represent the Steering Committee for the Vaka of Stories on behalf of the Ministry of Pacific Peoples. This is part of the Government’s response to the Dawn Raid apology made in October 2021. It’s not too tiresome, I get picked up by taxi to and from my home and to my venue in Dunedin. It is good that I can do these trips on my day off.
Do enjoy the beautiful spring weather and don’t forget to put your clocks forward on Sunday morning for daylight saving. Right I’m off now to have lunch with the Deputy Prime Minster The Honorable Carmel Sepuloni. Ka kite ano. Fei
You can read the full E-news here: https://mailchi.mp/eb12f86edb31/this-weeks-newsletter-from-st-andrews-on-the-terrace-9397016
