Hinten-Hubert-Ruth-1976-NewZealand.pdf

7/28/2019 Hinten-Hubert-Ruth-1976-NewZealand.pdf

1/11

J.ajiuary''2, 1976Dear i idrian Fr iends ,

Hoir that Christmas i s over and the cold i ie athe r of Janua ry has arrived it i s time tthinic about wha:t you are going to do in 1976. iî te a fe',r will probably say you aregoing to lose some ue i^ t vjhich your doctors Kill agree vrith. Other resolut ions willbe made bu t most of a ll I pray you are planning to make this a mighty year of servicefor Jesus Christ . ..e received quite a number of le t ters and card during the holid*ayseason vzhich v/e appreciated very much. Ruth says there are enough that she irill be son.time getting them all ansuered. bhe is diligent to answer though so should get aroundto a ll one of these days. The weather here has not been as summery as I would like.Most days i t is around 70 ût seldom much over. Christmas day vras one of the coldestfo r many years. On the South Island they had snow and here i t was only in the 5^'s.Thay may seem warm to you but remember this is our summer time. Today is about- 65-vJe had intended to go to the beach but i t vias too cold so we just spent a quiet day athome. ..e did have turkey and dressing and hot rolls , rio cranberry sauce because i tha s to be imported and i s t oo expensive .A nevr government went into Office in December and have really put in strong measuresto try and reduce the national debt, 'gasoline is novr ii>1.23 per gallon or 2'^^^ntg^.per litre as we buy i t . ililk went from 4 cents to 8 cents a pint. First class' mailis going from 4 to 8 cents. iiJlectricity is up 405'.. Host everything else is going":up also becuase of new railroad rates. Prices here are just about equal in. iollarswhat you pay in the States but with a much loi:er average income here. As a resultno one is starving but the general s tandard of living is lovrer. You can't te l l i tright now though in th e vray everyone is off on holidays here and there. January isthe month that almost everyone shi f t s somewhere else for two or three weeks.ue had one v;eek o f vac ation before Christmas which I wil l t e l l you a l i t t l e 6.bout.. './e have"another week coming up this next vreek which I will tell you about next month.^,'e spent a vzeek about I50 miles south of here near the liaikato River. This riverhas dams on i t every fevr miles for hydroelectric power and vê were near one of them.I t is a hilly country primarily used fo r cattle. Some are beef and some dairy.Host of i t i s grazed but- nov; i s the haying season so they aere -'aling some andcutting other parts ifior ensilage. The weather is mild enough that not much hay isneeded but some is good from Juiie to iiept. \.'e spent the f i r s t two days going downand staying a t a farmer who used to be in th e congregation here. Ke has 320 aicresand fat tens on grass anywhere from 400 to 6OO beef catt le a t a time. They neve r seeany grain but are butchered right off the g ra ss . The second day vre traveled on dovmto where we spen t the vreek. I t was a farm house on the edge of the lake with a niceview, Ke had cattle rlf;ht up to the yard and sometimes in the.'iscard. There weresheep across the other side of the water and vre could see a flock of wild turkeysalmost every day. They are decendents of tame turkeys and not wild as they arein Missouri. One day we went west to './aitomo Oaves and then on to the west coast.The caves were disappointing fo r the amount of publicity they receive. Their one bigpoint is an underground river idth ^low worms on the ceiling, iio lights are allovredand they look like you vrere looking pp into a vase starry sky on a dark night. I twas worth seeing just fo r that. ;.e tiien went on and saw a big T;aterfal l and a veryimpressive natural bridge. For the bridge their was a sign at the road and you hadto walk back throu^ the pasture for about a quarter mile. I t vras high i:ith treeson top and water underneath so we thought it vras nice. The road we folloiTed onaround was close to the west coast and Extremely crooked, i.e got feack to our houseabout 7iOO H-i. Another day we went to Eotorua which is probably the ajor tourista t t rac t ion in iiev; Zealand. It i s an o ld mor i tovm and vras noted as a tou r i s t place inthe 1890*Sil t i s a thermal area with feteam coming out of the ground throughout thetorn. There is a strong smell of sulphur thoughout the town. There are bubbling mudpools that just look l ike they are boiling a ll th e time. Then there are hot spr ingsthat spew ou t wa ter some a t regular intervals and some sporadically. You can drivedoT-m the s t reet and just see steam coming up sometimes out of the gjnound. '..'e visitedone old Maori church and there ifere places like this in th e parking area. ..'hat thekids laughed a t vras that they bury thei r dead in tombs on top of the ground and inthis church yard their was steam coming upoout of some of the tombs. They wonderedi f their was any significance about where those people had gone.to. In one tjlace therevras an ice cold stream running through and hot pools on the bank. In one part of thestream you aould have frosen and in the other part you would have boiled alive. Theyhave ajiumber of hot baths as they cal l them and we would say mrimming pools. Jomeare the mineral water but we went to one tha t just used the hot mineral water to heattheir regular vrater. There iras two pools one of which was 9^ degrees and one 86 degree;.e enjoyed swimming there and then tDored "a t rout farm which was a touris t place. Theto^m has a large iiaori population and many of the old homes vrith their traditionaldesign vrith a l l t he carvings, i'ach carving has a symbolic meaning to them. They aret radi t ional ly animists but there are some in about a l l the denominations anymore.Church services are doing reasonably well th is month. \.e has an outside carol service the Sunday night before Christmas with about 85 percent afid then had 70 for theChristmas morning service. For theyear we average 80 for the morning worship compared with an average of 68 the year before. I vras pleased with the increase but histh is certainly does not begin to meet the need. Peop le here can be reached but oneby one and not in bunches, i.e ask for your continued prayers for us. (Over)

The Hi n t e n s


2/11

P,3, ..e dldii't put any of our pictures in the slides because we thougM'people T^ouldbe more interested in what the count ry look like# The kids are a l l ^^-OTring uiththe "boys just over and just under 6 foot. Laurie is s t i l l working at beoominga lady, xiuth and I have not real ly changed,


3/11

Haxch 2, 1976Dear Adrian Friends,

February has gone so I uill try and recall what has happened that vrould be ofinterest to you. kôme of our activities that we take for granted anymore might beinterest ing to you but we don ' t even think about them. This has been another cool 'month for summer time. The hottest day we have had was only about 60 degrees andmost days have been betvjeen 70 and 75 There was even a li,ht frost not very farsoutli of here a fevr dp.ys ago. Ihey are having some kind of war games"there with 200Americans and about an equal number of Austral ians and New Zealanders i nvolved so^they^were c6mmentlng'-?of the cold. I t is supposed to be for the purpose of figuringout hovr th e various armies can better work together in an actual war but the size ofthe H2i army a t least is so small i t is not a very big concern. However your taxdollars must be spent somewhere you Imow. The las t few days have been very nicewithout any rain. The blocklajrer came yesterday to block up under one end of ourhouse. I t has been just on steel posts for that end which allovrs i t to shake whenthe wind blows or even when someone moves around. Tha t s ho ul d be taken care of vjheni t is finished. There will have to be concrete poured in some of i t so i t willprobably take several days yet. I watched a lo t and heliDed some since it was myday of f .The kids are now back in school with Ricky in his las t year and Kirk with onemore yet. They are studying about 2-3 hours every night with homework which theydon't really like but i t is a necessity. They seem to be getting along very wellthis year since i t i sn ' t a l l new. Ruth has been busy with a vari ety o f activities.She works in the church second hand shop part of the time and attends various meetings.The big project lately has been to recover our divan and chairs. I thought they cameou t looking nice. I continue on vrith my regular week by seek activit ies. For thoseirho know my folks and are interested they are l iving in Lal'Ionte r ight now bu t in Waythey vrill give up taking care of the retarded boys and move out to a small farm justeast of LaHonte where they will be l iving and looking after the old lady who ownsthe p lace . They have been looking after her some for several years now. They areactive in the Sedalia church where my dad is an elder and Sunday School teacher.

we are sorry to hear some of you haJ7e been ill th is vFinter but I suppose that i sto be expected. \:e have been very healthy except for an occasional cold. Rightnow Laurie sounds l ike she i s in a barre l . Since it has been cool they have notdone much swimming this year. He had two church picnics this month at the beach.One was ju st fo r the congregation and was more of a Sunday School picnic. I t wasa nice day and we had about 60 there so I thought i t was quite successful. Thenext vreek was a picnic of the . area churches with abou t the same number of peoplebut a different beach and more adults this timn. I t was good to be a t both. Eventhough I am not much of a fan of eatin g outdoors I did enjoy them. This past Saturdaywe took par t in a car scavenger hunt which meant we had a tffefinite route to followto find various things along the way and to meet aarious check points. I t imssupposed to be 62 miles but by the time iie made a few wrong turns we went 73* I'ta nice day so v;e enjoyed the scenic ride. There were a lo t of fru i ts stands along theway with lo ts of apples, peaches , peaxs and even some strawberries, strawberrieshave been ready to pick since Sept. and are s t i l l producing. I even have a couple ofplants in our garden tha t are blooming novr. I have t rouble get t ing used to such along season. Right now in our garden we have cauliflO!;ers, beans, cabbage, let tuce,tomatoes, and beets that have just come up. I'm beginning to leam what to plajita t vrhat time. Laurie gave me a gairdening book a t Christmas which helps...e request jôur continua l prayers for the church here. Some are new Christiansand weal^ in the fa i th others a re o lder Gl ir is ti an s bu t vrith a tendency to be led o f finto strange doctrines. Tliis is largely a nonChristian Society so we need yourprayers a t a l l times. :.ith the Lord's help nothing is impossible so we visualizea growing church in ilew kiealand in the coming years. S ta rt in g i n July of th is yearwe will beîn offering correspondence courses from Ozark Bible College here. JohnFulford. and I wil l be doing the grading. ..e wil l s t a r t by offering s ix courses plusDon De..elt 's tapes on the Holy Spir i t , -..e hope they will be r ecei ved wel l and tha tperhaps there can be young men encouraged to en te r t he m in is tr y through th isbeginning study. Tliere is a desperate need for conservative ^ble study here. \:eare hearing good reports from the other Americans vrho arehere so that i s encouraging,iiay each of you f ind your bost. axa o f s er vic e and be d i l i g en t to f u l f i l l it.

The Hin t e n s .


4/11

M ..''l--- >>'- Marbh 12,^l97e

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Dea r D av id ,I will get my request out of the way first and then some chit chat. I need,five copies of The Gist of the Bible by Charles Shook to be used for the surveycourse of OT and ITT. I would appreciate i t i f you could have-them sent out from,

060 and send th e bill to? Auckland Res tor a t ion Fel lowship16A Newhaven Te r r a c eMairangi BayAuckland 10, New Zealand.

ê plan to start offering the correspondence courses in June [of this year and h'av^Jordered the other texts we need from College Press. We plan to begin by offering^,^six courses that can be taken for credit and also making Deceit's tapes on the .Holy Spirit available but not for credit. Kenmore Christian;College and Woply/ich' '^Bible College both in Austral ia are qaite happy to accept 'any; credits that are :earned this way by students who want to enter there# They are both conservativeschools but i t is at least 1600 miles across the ocean to them which makes some

Hube r t Hin t eh

- 1. -what of a barrier. Me do not feel that we can start a college here at this time SI': ' ; b^^ hope to encourage men to consider the ministry through these courses and .alep

- to feive a deeper level of Bible knowledge to others on the local level. JJo. oneelse, in the country in any religious group even offers this much correspondenp^..;;: We hope i t will be popular and we can increase the offerings.We pertainly |- I' appreciate your personal cooperation and also that of the school. JThe Churches o f Chris t are in a terribly Y;eak condition hei-e. For several;: years they have been involved in union negotiations with Anglican, Pi^^sbyterianyu ' v. . and Methodists with the result that the conservative members'tended-to get outând?j .to to Baptist ,or Brethren congregations. Others just bided their time waiting.^^^^^^Î s e ewou ld happen. The result was that evangelism was n'eglectgd "ai^. ^fyer^Wihurcheal'died while others, have become very weak. - Right now-.there'-aêe 42;-. congregations nominally considered Church of Christ. About 8 o? these are i-.either already in union or at least in a cooperative situation. . Another< ~ dozen have less than tv/enty members and no regular minister . Union as such. ;' ' has just about folded up but i t will remain an issue for some ,time yet. .Atv:the present time there are 7 Americans here and about the same of NZ-coneerv^tiy^preachers with three more young conservatives due to begin at the end of thisyear," The tide 6s definitely swining to the conservative side*.' The sad .-thing ; V i s we also have a charismatic problem in almost every d congregation.' ' One has; > already split over i t and bzszs others are internally divided such as the one..CV',;: here at Mairangi Bay. Many of the people ai'e indoctrinated to a faith only|v ^ so it does make life interesting'. Sometimes it isydiscouragingchallenge. One of th e men from here named Boss Heywardspeaking at some session of the North American so maybe you-'will ge t .

t o he a r him t h e r e .Now that spring ;is nearly there for you- l ife should be enjoyable. We wish-you all the very b^st. If you have any good young men wanting a: challenge muse them out here. I f you think of i t give Harvey Bacus pur ,

In His se rv ipe ,^ ^ ^

'if

' * , i '' -


5/11

Deax Adrian Fr^cnas , 'Harch 3p, 1976

C^reetings once again. I would suppose that l^y the time you read this the sp ringfarm work should be in full swing or at least ti^ng to "be. Seasons have lost most oftheir meaning to me "because there is so l i t t le change here. Right now some of thetrees like the peaches and apples are losing their leaves but most of the others willcontinue green the year around,lie have had beautiful weather all this month with veryl i t t le rain until this past weekend and then i t soaked the ground pretty well. iJe werebeginning to have some pretty big cracks but no problems. Now the grass wil l startgrowing a,gain and we will have to begin movring once more, v.'e have very little left inôur garden. ;.e have had some green beans this month and have out lettucei cabbage, andcauliflower. The s trawberries are s t i l l blooming occasionally and have a ripe one nnwand then although the birds generally get them. !;e are keeping just about all thetomatoes we want to eat and I picked the last of the peaches yesterday. Apples arep len t i f u l now.This month I have spent most of my free time working on the basement. I watched anchelped the blocklayer a couple of my off days and then did some finish work anotherday. Now the block work is nearly corapleted except for putting some windovrs in and arow of ornamental blocks on topi The building code is fairly strict so before anything like that can be done the plans have to be submitted to the local autho3rf.ties.The blocks have to have concrete reinforcement up through them every so often andconcrete poiired in those cores to make them solid. This adds a lot to the esqpense andwork. The top row isvwhat they call a bond beam which is a row of concrete blocks madtthat the ends break out and so you end up with a trough where you put in re^fonnemenirods and then pour i t full of concrete. I t should be solid but since there is alwyasthe possibility of an earthquake i t is necessary. Further south they have eaxthquêsregularly but we haven't had any'here yet. Yesterday was my day off but i t iras rainyso I spent the day digging out an area under the house to give us a little morestorage area. Today I can feel a lot of tired muscles. The ground is mostly a claywith some of i t real grainy and the rest of i t a stickly fine grained clay which uodoesn't dig very well. At least the house no longer shalces when the wind blows so weappreciate tha,t. Me have had a lot of strong easterly winds lately so we have hadreason to be thankful, \iith the working and the rough water I haven't sent fishingat all this month. They are catching several red snapper now but not me. iiaybe nextmon th .Last night we went over to watch Ricky play basketball on a club team forthe f i r s t time. The ones on i t are all under 18 so he came out ^1 right. He i s nowabout 6*1" so he doesn't get pushed around so much. He made 16 points ^d playedhalf the gaiae. School basketball doesn't start until after the May holidays so theyare practicing and becomingâger for i t .Last week Ruth attended a women's convention Tiith about 60 ladies there from a llover the country. She enjoyed i t quite a bit with the chance to get acquainted withseveral hew ones. The program vias well presented with quite a number of discussiongroups. Since Ruth was one of the younger ones present she felt just like a girl.Many of the churches have hardly any young women in the meetings and then to the onejwho are younger usually have a family so they can't attend something like that. Ouasare old enough we can get along very well, lie did our own housekeeping and cookingexcept we were invited out a cauple of nights and the kids were in school each day sothey taJce their lunches. One of the iimerican preachers is down in that area but hiswife has had an appendectomy so she was in the hospital instead of camp. Sjj'^h wasable to go down and visit with her one afternoon which they both enjoyed. This couplehad spent a weelcend with us when they came over"' last November so they viereacquainted and vie got along well. They are just about our age but this is his firstministry since he started to college late. They are doing a good work there. It isa small congregation but they had five baptisms last month and a building a solidgroup. All church groups of eveiy denomination are having problems with the so called"charismatic" teaching here. One Ghurchof Christ on the South Island fired theirpreacher last month for teaching this. As a result a number of the people are goingwith him and other axe completely dropping out of chuuch. I t is really a divisivething here. The emphasis is being placed on Ghristiaji esqperiences rather than a^ studyof the Scriptures and when the Scriptures are used they are often so misues i t ismisleaiing. All the Amearicans who have come over' have to face the problem althoughwe can claim to have the biggest problem. iJiie need your prayers for wisdom on dealingwith -this. ^ XI. CM - 4.One of the conservative ilew Zealand preachers will be leaving for the otates tnemiddle of April to travel through the country and then to be at the North Americ^so you might have the chance to heax him. He has been over there once before so i twon't all be new. For the most part we are all scattered so much that we do not seetlie other preachers very often. There is a monthly magazine which helps keep us upto date some. . ix uI haven't said anything about church activities for the monlh but there isn t mucftto say. '..e have had regular services but no big special events. Our attendance hasaveraged 7^ of morning which is slightly doim partly due to quite a bit M illness.People seem to be the same everyiihere with some eager to worship the Lord regardlessof what else is happening or the weather and others who only seem to be looking foran excuse to stay home or do something else. !Ihis is something each Christian irill eaccountable fo r when we come before the ' l o rd .Unt il nex t month we wish you thebest of CJod's blessings.

The Himt en s


6/11

. . April 27, 1976Dear Adrian Friends ,

..e received a graduation announcement yesterday from Phil ip flaghes there a t lidrianto remind us of a l l of youg The announcement T^ras well done and the picture he sentwas nice but it i s a b i t fa r to come so we won't make the graduation, i ince th iswould have been Ricky's class it is more of in terest to us. i:'ow because of the extravacation the kids received v^hen we arrived and the way the school year runs he willnot complete his secondary schooling until".the f irst of December. This week the boyshave been having term exams which are fairly s t i f f so they have been studying quitea bit . I t is a situation where they have exam periods and they only attend when thereis an exam for one of their subjects. I t makes i t difficult to keep up with who is inschool that day and vrho is at home. They are both home today so they are mowing thschurch lavm. At least they are supposed to be but i t seems to take them an avrful longt ime to get s ta r ted doing any th ing .'..e are novi in the fa l l season so the days are getting fair ly short and somewhatcooler. Ido far we have not had too much rain so i t has been pretty nice, iiost of thetrees do not ever lose thei r leaves bu t for those l ike the apples, peaches, etc. theyare becoming bare once again. I t helps to remind us of the seasons or else there isnot much change. I still pick an eccasional strawberry although they do not amountto much now. ue do have a few cauliflowers and some bee ts but that is about all thegarden except for a feir tomatoes. From now until about September we can't really plantvery much because i t stays so damp and cold that the ground is cold and packed. OnSaturday night the young ^leople went up north about 30 miles and swam in the hotpools. They always enjoy that. It is thermal pools that they regulate the inflow tokeep i t from getting too hot. Fart of them are outside and part are roofed over irLththe siE am coming up all the time. The inside pools are hotter and are really onlyfo r soal^ing s ince it i s too hot o t swim in them.Chruch "activities continue at a normal pace, iiaster is a period of declineinstead of a big day. It is a holiday vreekend and most people think that means theyhave to go somewhere so we alvrays have a big exodus. This month ue have had anaverage of 75 of morning and ^2 at night . l;e did have a baptismal service for onegirl the first part of the month so we rejoiced in that. This week vje will have aThursday night service by an evangelistic team that is"holding a meeting at one ofthe other churches, l-e will have a basket supper and then the meeting later. Ihespeaker held a meeting here back a2)out 19^7 so some of the people know him. He is anAustralian and well thought of as an evangelist. The young people of the districtvfill be congregating up here on Saturday nigiit for a special youth service i^hichshould be good.There are several American amateur basketball players over here who play for someof the clubs. These are strictly amateur clubs with no salaries. Anyway several ofthe ivmericans have a grouD called the Shick All Americans who travel around and puton exhibition games and clinics for young players to increase interest in the games.This month we went into the YliCA and watched them play an exhibition game againstwhat v:as called an Armed Forces team but which included some of the national^ teamplayers. It uas a pretty good game although the Americans dominated i t and since^they haive had two or three others cor:e and join them so they will be a pretty fairteaia. They tend to be college players from some of the smaller colleges but arereally good by r."ew Zealand standards. Ricky has been listening to some of the professional games in their playoffs in the States over his radio. It picks up shortwave and the Armed Forces netvrork carries some of the games. They give a lo t of othersports information along with it so he l ikes that .I started this yesterday and vrill finish now. Huth had a big meeting irith theladies of the district here at the church so I vrent over to the city to shop. I'mactually more of a buyer than a shopper but i t can be a problem just to find something suitable, ./hat I was wanting was supplies for the Bible Connrespondence Courses.I had to go to three different places just to get what I needed and of course in threedifferent areas of the dovintoi.'n. I t i sn ' t too bad getting around except like mostcities there is a traffic problem. Anytray I finally got everything for the timebeing. I would like to have a used filing cabinet but they seem difficult to find.Wew ones are entirely too. dear. I t is q.uite an experience to shop in the city. Thereare iiaoris, Islanders, Chinese, Japanese! iiinglish, Australians, IndianSj and even anocca.sional American. An American couple just moved into i-iairangi Bay a few days ago,e works for th e /oaerican Consulate in the city, I haven't met them yet but theirneighbors was t e l l ing Ruth about them,I I'fould suppose that you all should have a lot of the crop in the ground by now.Gardens should be starting to grow well and everyone vill have to work hard to talceCare of i t all. ;.e certainly miss the fresh sweet corn. You can buy i t here but thatwasn't f i t to eat. ^.e had a l i t t le bit from our garden but don' t have enough spacefor that kind of thing. IDverything considered we are getting along very well. ..e aren'table to save any money but that seems to be a problem with most of us and after allwe only need enough to live on so i t doesn't matter much. All we are supposed to dois do what we can and depsnd on the Lord to provide for us and He always does. :.'henwe learn to be physically content and spiritually ambitious we Trill be getting somewhere. Until next month just live by faith. I will be thinking of you as VSi timescomes i n a few more days .

The Hin t e n s


7/11

/ Junfe 3, lf?6Dear Adrian Fr i ends ,

As I look back on i t iiay vias a fairly uneventful month but that is probably becauseve have been here long enough now that we accept whatever happens as nom^. Oê seconweekend vie had a family camp at the Church of Christ camp which is atout W milessouth of here. It tegan on Friday night and ran until Sunday noon which is common foicamps here. About 25 stayed each of the ni^ts and a total of were there for partsof it. lie had several study sessions which were pretty good. Our family came home onSaturday night and led the regular services here in the Bay on Sunday morn^g whilethose at camp held their om services, iê consider these Family Gamps wortohileenough that i t is planned as an annual event. That weekend was the beginning of theschool holidays so then the kids had two weeks at home to dospent the second week at a junior camp held by the church at uellsford which is about60 miles on north of here. Ihey had 28 kids there and seemed to have a good c^p.Rick thought it was a new experience of being staff instead of camper and he fo^d itwhat i t is like to be responsible for some who didn't want to cooperate. He saia nemight do-it again-eo i t must-not have-been too-bad. - ~ ~ . . - +Ihere is a regular flu epidemic in our area at the moment. For most i t lasts xwoor three dgiys and then i t takes a week to get back energy. Ruth, Rickey, I^rk, andwere a ll laid low over the weekend and missed both services. That was the f i rs t timeI had ever missed service where I was to preach because of illness and theabsence from a morning service for any reason for 12 years. Needless to s^ it seemedlike an odd beginning to the week. How the boys are back in school and Rutn is recovering althou^ still very tired and spending a lot of time laying on the couch.Laurie has been foirtunate and so far has missed clear out. I don't know just whichcountry claims this particular viirus but I wouldn't think they would be tooit, Ue had extremely hi^ temperaturesand severe headaches vrhich then led to bronchi t i s even thou^ we stayed in and did as l i t t le as possible.Ricky was pleaised to receive a copy of the Adrian Journal graduation issue fromthe Burharts. Since this would have been his year to graduate he was .particularlyinterested and of course we all read i t . Uith the change in locations and school termshe will now complete his work in December of this year. His plans after that are veryvague. He and Kiidk plan to spend about two month bicycling around the country ^dafter that i t remains to be seen. There is an'honors day here that a few parentsattend but no graduation ceremony as you are accustomed to# The boys have been playingquite a bit of basketball but i t is only tvTO or three teams so sometimes they win andsometimes they lose but i t doesn't seem to matter as long as they play. T3ie schoolseason-isjust^nou starting- so they-missed-last week-and will ml sa this_week._Tbeyare both games against very weak teams so i t doesn't really matter. Right now theyhave an American exchange student and another American boy on their team but bothwil l be leaving in the near fu ture .Since i t is getting into winter here now oyr weather is unpredictable at the best.The standard forecast is partly cloudy with rain showers. Temperatures have been inthe low sixties for daytime and usually about 50 at night. V/e had a couple of frostsbut even then the air temperature was only about 40. iiostly it* is very coôrtable.Ivhen ire get a day where i t rains all day then i t is a bit chilly. The humidity staysaround 60-70^. I must be getting somewhat acclimatized since i t doesn't seem to coldt h i s year and l a s t year I was f reezing a l l the t ime.IJe hear quite a bit here about the Presidential primaries althou^ hardly anyonehas any idea what Uiey are all about. Hew Zealand is influenced a great deal by eventsin other countries especially the major powers of Europe and the US so there is a lotof interest, lie are dependent on other places for trade which really ^fects theeconomy here. The Hew Zealand dollar is gradually losing strength against the Americando3.1ar which malces prices of everything that is imported very hi^. The government istrying to get the economy strai^tened out but there is a basic problem of shortageof raw materials so i t won't be easy. For years the farming exports have carried thecountry but no longer can do so because of h iê r costs and a dwindling iUuropeanmarket. Inflation i s running 15-20J^^ so it i sn ' t a very good picture.

VBS should be in full swing as I write this and finished before you receive i t .iliere is no similar program here althouî they have wliat are called Happy Hoursat times. Ihey are usually held every n i^ t after school for a week or two. Insome cases they are mostly games aiid in others they have quite a bit of Lible teaching. Biey have to compete with gymnfistios, Scou-te, etc, which can make i t difficultto get a group.God b l e s s each one o f you.

The P i i n t en s


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September 1, 1976Dear Fr isnds,

Glorious spring has arrived. At l e a s t today I think it has. The weather i s something l i k e that of March or April in Missouri where it can be beautiful one day andra iny and cold the next. Right now f o r two o r three days it has been sunshiny andabout 65. I have planted my potatoes and have some onions to go out before long. Ifes t i l l have a few grapefrui t on the t r e e but not many. The decidious t rees are starting;to l e a f out ag ain so spring i s here. The kids are on t h e i r term school break so theyhave three weeks o f f . The boys both went t o Rotorua l a s t vreek f o r nat ionalsecondary school baske tba ll p layoff s. They played f ive games and won three but s t i l lended up 9'th overal l . They seemed to enjoy ii so t h a t vras good. Ricky i s gone t h i svreek to an under 20 basketbal l championships so he i s get t ing the f u l l dose. He i sgone about I50 miles from-here -over to Taurange on the e a s t coast . He doesn ' t expect-t o get much playing time but he wanted to go anyway. He l e f t Monday morning and wethinic i s due back tomorrow or maybe Friday morning. They go back to shcool Sept. 6and s t a r t g e t t i n g ready f o r some exam inat io ns . Th is t ime they i-iill go u n t i l e a r l yDecember and then be f i n i s h e d f o r t h e year . Laurie has s tayed a t home and i s doingsome babysi t t ing f o r the nei ghbo rs s o she i s making a l i t t l e money anyv/ay. She spendsit freely so she l ikes to have a job. Ruth i s busy today making a sign banner forour Evangelist ic Crusade s t a r t i n g on Sept. 19th and l a s t i n g f o r one vreek. l/e vdllhave a very busy time f o r t h a t week. There i s a c h i l d r e n ' s hour each afternoon plusa ladies coffee morning one day and a men's supper one evening and a t een a ft ernoonon Saturday. I 'm su re we vdl l a l l be wore out by the time it i s a l l over but it shouldbe a very worthwhile t ime. The meetings l a s t year vri th Reggie Thomas were very good fothe congregation. Our evangelist t h i s time i s an American named Bob Miller who preacheat H o k i t i k a on t h e S o u t h I s l a n d .The church year f o r us ends on June 30'th and then it i s customary t o have an an nua lmeeting of the congregation about the middle of August to consider reports by a l l theorganizations and to conduct any elect ions t h a t need t o be. The r e p o r t t h i s year showred we had 15 addit ions to the congregation during the y ea r w ith a l l but tiro by baptismIhe sad thing i s t h a t we had 12 removal s by t r a n s f e r and some by removing names ofinactive members so vre ended up vath a net gain of only three. Perhaps t h i s yearwe can have more a d d i t i o n s an d fev rer removals so t h e r e can be a g r e a t e r i n c r e a s e . V/es ta rt e d o f f vrell with two t r a n s f e r s on the f i r s t Sunday of t h i s month. The l a d y i splaying the organ f o r us on Sunday n i g h t o r r a t h e r I should say she was playing. Shehad a f a l l l a s t vjeek and broke h e r t a i l bone so she has d oc to rs o rd er s n ot t o do anything for the next month. She has


9/11

October 1, 1976Dear Mrian 'Jbr iends,I t sccns l ike a lo t of thing's have happened since I l a s t i^irote to you. At our Boarraoeting the f i r s t week o f the month I was offered a three year extension o f min is t ryhere which I accepted. Ihis followed a congregational vote in which a two thirds ma

j o r i ty had indicated they wished me to remain and to carry on a noncha r isma ti c mini st r y here. Since t ha t vote and our acceptance there bas "been a decidcd change of ;a t t i tude here. There i s now a desire to get on with the job of try in g to evangelizethe community. Before there had been a depressed feel ing t ha t the congregation wasabout to be completely ta ken ove r by a minority and become a pentacostal church. Asexpected some of those who want a pentacostal approach are less than happy but for themoment they are being cooperative. Ruth and I are much encouraged to know we havethe sol id backing of most of the congregation. Our future plans now stand tha t weexpect to retu rn to the States for a visi t during December 1977 and January 1978 VJewil l , then re t imi here to i iairangi Bay fo r another term. Jus t how th i s wil l af fec t theplans of the kids i s yet undete rmined. Ricky talks l ike he wil l attend University heren ex t y ea r and then we vdl l jus t have to see how things go. University i s f ree hereplus the government pays the student an allowance of $l6 per week. Ihe qua lit y o feducation i s cons ide red equa l to tha t of American Iftiiversities so- f inanc ia l ly theywould be way ahead to a tte nd o ve r h er e.Las t week was our IJvangelist ic Crusade. It began on Sunday night the 19th andclosed the following Sunday night th e 26th. ;;e enjoyed having the eveingelist staywith u s . He was Bob Mi l l e r who came from F lo r ida ove r he r e . S ince he is on th e SouthIs land T'D hadn ' t seen him fo r nearly a year and have not yet met h is family. He hadan average attendance of 71 for the 8 nights which i s pretty good for us. On the l a s tnight a baptismal service was held fo r a couple tha t we have been working with for twoyears . She has an /mglican background when she was a teenager and he had neverat tended any church unt i l coming here. They are now taking an act ive par t so we werevery pleased to have them come for baptism. He is the number two man in the 3^ company here in Auckland. Their two children were baptized l a s t year during the Crusadewith Reggie Thomas. Another teenage gir l i s to be baptized thiscoming Sunday n i ^ t sowe re jo ic e in th i s . Right now we have 90 res ident members but not a l l are ac t ive ands ince it i s normal to remove the names o f inac t ive members we have to s tay workingin order to increase our numbers. Last year we had l6 additions but because of trans^fers and removals we ended up with a net gain of 3 In the 42 churches here in thecountry there was an actual net loss of 4l manbers. Some congregations showed lossesas high as 24 members. I f the same practice was followed by American churches ther e su l t s might be in te res t ing .'::e are anticipating the arrival here of my parents on October l4. They will, have . .three weeks in the country including 8 days t ou ri ng t he South Is land. They wil l understan d o ur l e t t e r s much bet ter af te r being here and meeting some of the people andalso observing some of the country. Three weeks i s not long enough to real ly get thefeel of th ings but it will help. I am taking advantage of their coming by having themb ring ove r a few more textbooks for th e Correspondence courses we are offering. I amnot sure just what else they are bringing but the most important th ing to us i s thatthey are coming.This has been an extremely busy week for the two boys. They have had major examinat ions in a l l subjects so they have been busy studying fo r several days. ICirk f inishedhis yesterday and Ricky f inishes his th is afternoon so then th ey can re lax a b it fo ra few days. There wil l be some more exams lat ter . Laurie vdll have hers about the f i r s tweek of December just before school is out. This weekend the youth are going to oneof the churches about 100 miles from here to spend Saturday afternoon and night andthen take pnrt in tho services on Sunday morning. They are to go tramping in the af te rnoon and then'to hot pools in the evening and sleep a t the church over night. Theytake part in two services on Sunday morning and then come home. % Sunday night theyshould be vrell worn down. I f the weather s tays as beaut i ful as it has been mos t ofth e week it will be a very nice t r ip . I t has been mostly clear and warm each day thisweek so far. I planted tomatoesi let tuce, and se t out onion plants on Monday. Mypotatoes are a l l up and s tar t ing to grow well . How it i s get t ing warm enought I amth inking a bo ut g oin g f i sh ing .This morning an American nucTeur wn-rfihlp riamp> An


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November 10, 19?^Dea r Adr ia n F r i e n d s ,

I am l a t e i n writ ing t h i s mrnth f o r varicus reasons. The past few weeks have beenvery busy. My par en ts a r ri ved here on Oct. and stayed u n t i l Nov. Vie spent asmuch time with them as possible but it s t i l l seemed l i k e a short time. In the middleo f their visit was t h e a n n u a l C o n f e r e n c e o f t h e C h u r c h e s o f C h r i s t w h i c h R u t h a n d Iwere s c h e d u l e d t o a t t e n d . It worked o u t t h a t we went t o C o n f e r e n c e and L a u r i e and myparents went on a tour of the South Is land. V/e arr ived back on a Monday n i g h t andthey got,-back the next morning so it worked- o u t a l l r i g h t t h a t way.' Then I took aweeks, vacation and we made several local t r i p s including shopping in the City a dayo r twOo Now th e h olid ay has been over f o r almost a week so I am g e t t i n g back t o anormal routinen The folks seemed to enjoy themselves while here. Many of the thingswe now take for granted were a novelty to themo Sometimes they were impressed, sometimes amused, and sometimes a b i t horrified particular ly a t the standards of hygienein the stores. They had trouble understanding some of the people because of t h e i raccents but got a long very well with mosto They found the bus travel to be interesting. The bus driver no t only hauls passengers but he also delivers newspapers, milk,,bread, and mail. He will stop at a box and pu t off whatever is - to go there. In one ,place at least he just put everything on a rock and l e f t i t . Since the wind blovrsa .\ot and showers are f requent this seemed a b it risky,. Their tour was too short toreally enjoy the weekend a t Rotorua which i s the thermal c en te r o f New Zealand. Thewhole p'ace smells of sulphur and wherever you go you see steam rising up from cracksin the ground. In some places there are bubbling mud pools which just continuallysplutter. There.are geysers some of which are regular and some that are sporadic.Hot pools of various, kinds abound and vary from lukewarm to 212 degrees. One of themi s about 20 feet across and they have not yet been able to measure jus t how deep.Rotorus i s a t o u r i s t c e n t e r with mote ls and-:hotels everywhere. P r a c t i c a l l y everyone of these advertized i ts ovm private hot pool. Besides this there are two setsof hotnpools open to the public. I t is a Maori center a lso since they have livedthere for centuries so you see l o t s of carvings even in the family dwel lings .The folks were fortunate they l e f t l a s t week since now the airl ines engineers areon a work slowdown and have been locked out so many f l ights are not going out at a l l and o ther s ar e running way late. Such things are common enough here but are s t i l l anuisance i f you want to do something.The Conference we attended i s a national gathering of th e church which t akes p laceeach October. All the other /Jiericans were there and four couples of us ifetayed in amotor camp in cabins and ate together. V/e had a great time visiting and gettingbetter acquainted. I t was th e f i r s t time we had a l l been together so we had outown meeting every night in our cabin after the sessions were over at the church. AnAmerican doctor and his wife from Phoenix was there part of the time so they alsomet with us . At times we had 13 in our small dining ?.rea discussing the world ingeneral and the work of the church in Nevi Zealand in par ti cu la rn There are encouraging activities taking place so that helps a lot. Two more American famil ies are dueto come out in 1977* One i s due in February and the.other i a August. They will goto the same area so will help to strengthen i t more^ There i s an icreasing concernfor evangelism and foreign missions and a decreasing in teres t in church union.Locally the congregation is moving along very well- Attendance has been doT-msomewhat for the past few weeks v:hich i s always disturbing but overall we areencouraged. Plans are well underway for a Christmas program in mid December withmore of a Nativity emphasis than has been the past. One of the ladies is puttinga lot o f work i n t o it.Our family is getting along well. Ricky has 8 exams over the next month and thenhe will be through. The exams a l l relate to how much government help he vrill get in"tffe TMiv^sity next year. Kirk~ha^~to go to c l a ^ unt i l the""24-fh~Sut for a l lpractical purposes he has finished work for the year. Laurie has to continue untilearly December. I t is difficult to explain the way the school system works so I won'ttry to,. Ruth and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary by going to a movie overin the City l a s t night. Vie feel th Lord i s blessing us here so we thank Him for i t .

I n H i s s e r v i c e ,H u b e r t


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November 30 1976Dea r Adri an Friends ,

Since I was l a t e v/ri t ing l a s t month I don ' t have a lo t to say th i s time but I Kantto get back on a regular schedule. I find tha t if I don ' t s t ick to a close scheduleI don' t seem to get anything done. Uith the Conference meetings and t ravel over andmy folks here and gone th i s month has seemed ra ther rout ine . The b ig p repa ra ti on a tthe church now i s for a Christmas program by the Sunday School. I t seems tha t therehas not been a regular Christmas program here for many years and maybe never. Euthi s now Sunday School Superintendent so she suggest it and it was well received. Nowthere are a couple of practices coming up and then th e program so we id l l see howwell the parents receive i t . So many of the parents do not attend church a t a ll thati t is difficult to know what to expect from them, i/e are now in the beginning ofsummer so many go out of town every weekend fo r some kind of travel o r recreation.I'm sure some will attend and it will be good to have the program just for theb en ef it o f the regular ones. I t i s diff icul t to get in a proper Christmas mood hereviith the warm weather but I suppose one gets used to it eventually.Tvjo weeks ago I took part in a pulpit exchange with a congregation north of here.I t was a great day for me anyt-zay as I got acq,uainted with several people there.Several of them I have met b efo re b ut even yet I 'm afraid I don'^t know many of thenames. The s i tua t ion there i s tha t one minis ter takes care of two congregationsregularly. I went to one church for the morning worship service a t 11:00 a .m. andhad! lu nc h w ith one of the fami l ie s the re . Then I went to a smal l town ou t on thecoast and conducted an afternoon service. I t i s a community church and the Churchof Christ goes once each month so it was that Sunday. After the service I was invitedto one of the homes fo r te a so I went and vis i ted with them fo r awhile. Then I ran tback to th e bigger town and had the srvening meal with, a young couple there" before going to take the evening worship service. By the-: time I talked to some of the peopleafterwards it was 9O0 and about 10:^5 when I arrived home. The weather was nice andthe reception vias very friendly everywhere so I really enjoyed the day. V/e have feeenover here long enough now that about wherever we go in the country th ere a re peoplewe have met so that greatly increases t he Chri st ian fellowship.For the most part we have had nice weather for the past two or three weeks. I t didrain hard a l l day long yesterday which made it inconvenient fo r my day off but todayi t is partly cloudy and v;axm so a ll is nice again. Temperatures now regularly get upto about 75 in the daytime eind about 60 a t night so it is nice. iJe have been having :some nice s trawberries out of our garden the past few days. There is never a lo t andwe have to compete with the birds for them but they taste very good. Last SaturdayI dug the f i rs t of our crop of potatoes so we-,are now starting to live off the landonce again. The tomatoes are blooming and beans growing so the garden looks worth-

v ih il e once again.The kids a re eager ly looking forward to the end of school now. Ricky finishes hisexams this week and goes back on Monday for some kind of report. The exams he has thisyear are what determines how much government aid he wil l receive while in the universi ty so they are pretty difficult . Kirk has been out fo r a week now but has to goback on Friday for a part of th e day to hand in a l l of his books. Laurie has to gomost of next week. I t i s a complicated system for an outsider to understand butseems to work so I suppose it i s a l l r ight . IJe went to the honors day and Kirkreceived a prize for being th e top one in his room. They will be out now unti lFebruary and then Ricky viill go to University and Kirk and Laurie will go back to thesecondary school .The Hew Zealand dollar was devalued another 7% yesterday so it is now worth about90 cen ts American. The main e f f e c t t h i s ^ l i l l have on us i s t h a t it wi l l r a i s e thecost of imports and thus raise the cost of l iving fo r everyone. So much s tu f f i simported that i t makes a big difference. In order to keep down the balance ofpayments def ic i t there will probably be some restrict ions put on imports and a generalauster i ty drive by the government. Tlie whole thing i s certain to raise the inf lat ionrate, lie have had restrictions on pTlcp riRPg on now for the^past^evera-l-mnnths bu tthese are due to go off in January so th e p redic tions a re for big increases in thecost of all most everything. This type of thing is a problem a ll over the world so Idon't have to t e l l you much about i t . As for our f amily we have about broken evens ince ar r iv ing here so t h a t i s no t too bad. Ue don ' t seem to be able to save any-th ink bu t have a l l we need so we a re thanlcful fo r th a t .b'e remember the Church and people a t Adrian in our prayers. Just vrork togetherin f ^ th and we know the Lord will give His blessing, l/e want to wish each one avery Happy Chr is tmas t ime as we a l l celebrate the bi r th of our Lord.

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