Beginnings
After a quiet Christmas in Auckland…a new year of opportunity began.
12 Jan: Back in Auckland from a road trip to Wellington, NZ’s capitol city, where I caught up with an old friend I’d weathered some storms with, stayed with Fijian friends and enjoyed different scenery. The volcanoes between here and there are impressive with pumice littering the lakeshore of what was a volcano but has since collapsed.
“In 186AD a series of nine volcanic eruptions culminated in the most violent eruption history has ever recorded. The caldera of Lake Taupo was created and remains volcanically active.”
15 Jan: Had a great meeting with a group of highly qualified and well placed women forming working group to mentor female university students from refugee backgrounds. Our group is diverse; Malaysian, Afghani, Fijian, Yugoslavian, Kiwi and American.
Engaged and successful young people don’t tend to get disillusioned and radicalized.
We’ll run two get workshops in February for the female students, and the moms who will come, so as to help them integrate into the NZ university system, understand the stresses and adjustments that’ll need to be made.
Most of the students will live at home rather than in dorms. Family cannot expect the same things from them when they have assignments and exams approaching. Many families would give the boys every opportunity for education, but not the girls, knowing that investing in the boys keeps the wealth in the family. For people who must strategize for survival, this is reasonable.
22 Jan Strategizing with the Piha evangelism and house church team. |
