Well not that I Get paid for it!

But

We bought a BUS!!!

It was annoying when we had visitors staying to not be able to all go out together
  and we now have 8 children so needed 10 seats (Two cars everywhere is sometimes difficult)
     holidays are easier if you can fit in everything......

We considered the campervan or RV type bus but they are so expensive in New Zealand and don't generally sit 10 people let alone sleep that many. Our RV in California did but geting it here would be expensive and it's Left hand Drive and it chews gas in the american way.......2km per litre(8 miles per gallon) with petrol at $1.70 per litre ($6.80 per gallon)  that is too expensive to use regularly.

So we bought a little Old well used School Bus. It is designed to sit 14 adult passengers or 17 primary children. It is economical getting about 9km per litre of Diesel (or better if you can avoid hills!) and it was cheap ($4500) and slow. Actually it's costipated- it can't pass a thing. 2.7 Litres of nontubo charged diesel engine is not much to push about 3.5 tonnes (loaded) up a hill. So it needs a run up....a long runup...without corners- it doesn't like them either. It Doesn't accelerate it .... gains Momentum..... slowly...... very slowly. So up a hill is down to third gear and 60km/h... oh well at least it doesn't cost much to run. Parking is pretty easy it is only 5.5.m long that's smaller than most full size american cars and a lot smaller than an F150 or silverado still I can't see film stars travelling in our bus!!! Around towns it is great. On the highway it is... relaxed! And the view is great, sitting up high with big windows, with the scenery slowly passing ...slowly.

Actually we have found that the 45km trip to church takes 3 minutes longer in the bus than in a car.That makes it only 10% slower on a trip.. I can live with that.

We've added a toilet. Some of the little ones can't wait and well toilet stops took too long and 30 minutes later someone always wanted to go... again.... So having found that feature so convienient in the winnebago.. we added  what some of our children consider to be the best feature and others consider to be the worst... so now we hear.. ooow Keren did you have to do that!!!! Yuk that stinks!!!. And "Dad can't we just leave that thing at home". But you can't please everyone.

So if any of you people want a third world type experience without the danger of being shot at.. come to New Zealand and we'll pick you all up from the Airport in our bus... and give you a budget tour!!!  It is, after all, cheap to run and we have a couple of spare rooms with lots of beds.. what more could you want...Hotels? Don't be so soft!
(if Beth comes over Gabrielle has offered to pick her up in her convertible because the air is so much fresher with the roof down... and she thinks you can use public toilets....)

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We have had a continual succession of guests this summer. It's been fun - although a little tiring. I need to get some time to do some paper work for my business. Last week we had over twenty people for dinner three times. I overhauled my barbeque at New Year and now it is looking well loved again.
We are thinking of buying a bus. A small one. Showing our visitors around is a bit difficult when we need to take two MPVs to fit everyone in. Even a barbeque at the beach becomes a convoy. I'm not sure if being a bus driver is my calling but since our eigth child is due in May the days of travelling light are over. We can still fit in two cars! Maybe we should get our RV sent over to Nre Zealand from California.

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      One of the things we did last year was spent three months touring around the USA in our 33ft Winnebago. Ten Thousand miles with seven children was a fun but tiring field trip! As our five year old said it was a huge car but a small house!

We visited many different churches and saw parts of America that most Americans would never see. We had 4th of July with an Amish family. We ate American Indian food in a dusty village market in Tuba city (near monument valley). We went to a range of churches of many sizes from John MacArthur's Grace church in LA to a small independent Baptist (Full Gospel Fellowship) church in a tiny block building in Catawba North Carolina where we were treated to a genuine Hell Fire and Brimstone sermon complete with rich southern accent and loud hallelujahs and every phrase ending in Amen! We studied the Moravians and their ideal town they set up in old Salem (Winston-Salem North Carolina). We visited the Shaker's Museum near Franklin Kentucky and their community. We saw the Amish and the Mennonite museums and town. We spoke to the people, we visited the churches. We went to Battle Creek in Michigan where the Seventh Day Adventists have their museum. We saw a variety of churches and noted the rise and fall of many movements. We went to mainstream churches in pretty little towns and big churches in cities and we met many friendly people. But the Church we liked the most was in a rented building in Peoria Illinois called Providence Church. We did a Four hundred mile detour to go back there a second time!
     So why did it stand out? It wasn't the sermon- we had plenty of excellent sermons in other churches and some not so good. It wasn't the form or the size. They had their own customs and trappings like any church and in fact they were quite formal despite the secular building. It was the culture, and from all the church cultures we had studied and seen, and visited the museums of, this little group of churches has got something going for it that will endure the test of time. This church and others like it are the hope for the future of churches in America. They are a small beginning of a much larger movement.

    You see there is a common lesson that can be learned from the church movements that have survived, like the Amish, and the church movements that are long gone, like the shakers and the Moravians in Old Salem.  The Moravians were great missionaries taking the gospel to the ends of the earth.  The shakers were pioneers and innovators that greatly improved agriculture and built beautiful furniture that inspired the architecture of a century with their simplicity of forms and austere use of wood that so contrasted with the ostentatious churches that dominated the European culture they came out of. Each church looked at the past and started with fresh new ideas and pursued the goal of the perfect church in the perfect society with zeal. The movements that have gone all had stressed the individual and their faith and life but had undermined the family. The movements that have survived have all strengthened the families and made them the focus and the heart of the church culture. The movements that had separate groups for each age group have all failed in a few generations. The movements that have stressed having families worship together are still around today.

   God instructed the Hebrews to have a family centred culture. Their culture remained distinctive and maintained the Jewish Identity through almost two thousand years of exile and persecution in other cultures. We observed that the longevity of a church culture was predicted by the way they strengthened family bonds and encouraged family centred activities rather than individual centred activities.

   So what did we see in the churches today. Most of them had fine Sunday school programs but struggled to maintain the interest of the next generation. Most of their teenagers were lost and few young couples returned to the pews. We came in with our seven children and were like aliens to them. It wasn’t just our accent which set us apart. Our clothing wasn’t all that strange to them either although our girls all wore modest dresses which were as distinct as any Jew’s tassels! What really blew them away was our family travelling together and staying in church together and worshipping God together. Now I don’t want you to take from that that we are perfect or a model of family unity. We try but we seek inspiration and crave guidance and Godly leadership from Biblically qualified elders because we have much to learn. That’s one of the things we saw in many of the churches. They lacked role models and were like sheep without shepherds. They were inspired by us and we found them warm and friendly: luke warm that is, so we continued our journey.

So what was different about the culture at Providence church in Peoria Illinois. It wasn’t hyped up or exciting or “relevant” or modern in any way. The Hymns were old, the structures formal, and the teaching very strongly emphasised the teachings of the reformation- hardly a new vision for the church today you might think. Some of their patterns were as quaint as the Amish and their horses.  But they have a distinctive which inspired us and we saw in them a direction and a leadership which was being passed on to the next generation. They had respectful godly zealous teenagers. They had young couples. They had families of all sizes. Our family of nine were not exceptional.  They worshipped together and followed the biblical patterns as best they knew how. We might not agree with all their decisions about how to do things but the church culture supported the family and they had kept the hearts of their children. They were an inspiration to us. They sat together in family groups. They celebrated communion in family groups. After church they all helped to move chairs and set out tables for a shared lunch. People talked about things God was doing in their lives. Every conversation showed that they were a people on fire for God. They counselled each other. They inspired each other and spurred each other on. After lunch they listened to the young children recite their memory work. The older children offered praise and encouragement. They practised singing in parts. There were activities for the whole family to participate in together. People were not in a hurry to get back to their homes and their individual lives. We learned a lot and we would have liked to stay on and learn more. We didn’t learn theology or facts we learned ideals and inspiration.

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You've all heard of the power of the pen. We'll my pens are more powerful than most.
You see I have pens with a message.
Now its not the message printed on the pen that is so important, although that is my contact details so that helps people find my business.
And it's not the message printed by the pen that is important though of course many life changing words could be penned by one Biro.
No it is the most important message on earth that I use my pens to remind people about that makes my pens so powerful.
So what's the message?
Well it's good news, actually it's the best news this world has ever heard.
It's true- that's not so common these days.
Its been said before and it bears repeating.
Its the key message of the Church and you wont hear it in most churches.

It starts with the bad news- Part of my pen is black- that symbolises sin. Sin is not just about moral failures. Sin is about being imperfect. Sin is that part of us that is not perfect. That part that makes us Human.  That part that separates us from a Holy God who is so perfect He does not suffer any substandard thing in His presence. Sin is like a poison that makes everything we do poisoned. It may not change the colour or the smell or the taste but the poison is there and Heaven has no place for poisoned food. Nobody can be good enough for heaven by their own actions that's the bad news.

The next part of my Pen is red. Blood red. Blood cleans things. It dissolves things really well. If you wash away some spilt blood off some concrete you will be left with a stain in the concrete. Not a red stain but a white stain where the blood has cleaned the concrete. Cleaned it cleaner than water ever could. Cleaner than detergent. The good news is that Christ's Blood was shed on a cross to wash away our sins and make us pure again. Blood is a sacrifice. Christ's sacrifice was the only perfect sacrifice because he lived the only perfect life.
 
The next part of my pen is White. White as the purity given to us when God forgives us and calls us His own. White is pure clean and unblemished. Forgiven and credited with Christ' s righteous life. That's right our account is not just emptied of the impurities but we are given a reward we could never earn. A holiness we can never deserve. Clothed in Christ's righteousness because our own good deeds are like filthy rags.

The next part of my pen is Gold. The writing on the pen is gold. What God uses us to do for Him is the Gold that will endure to the end. You can't take things into heaven. Everything in this earth will be judged by a refiners fire and all the dross (the impurities) will rise to the top and be burned or poured away.

So what will you write with the pen today. Will it be that Gold that endures, or the dross that is burned?
That was my message at Heather's Ball. Could you share that good news with others?

Romans 10  verse 8b-10 "... The word of faith that we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation."

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