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In the next few blog posts, we will hear from some members of our church family. Enjoy a brief background and details about each person, along with hearing how the four week imposed lockdown due to COVID-19 has affected them personally. Our hope is to draw encouragement and strength from each other as we point towards Jesus. "For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as your are already doing." -1 Thessalonians 5:9-11  Sheryl with husband Lachlan after a 4 day hike in the Tararuas. Hi, my name is Sheryl. My husband Lachlan and I met in Wellington and spent our first year married in Lower Hutt before finding ourselves here in Taupo, which we love. We didn't know anyone here when we arrived and so were keen to get connected through a church. It wasn't too long before we visited Church@109 and felt so welcomed right from the get go that we settled here. Now we have friends who we met through church connections, friends at Church@109, and a welcoming place to worship and fellowship (on Sunday's that I'm not working!!).
An aspect of the lockdown I have enjoyed is the amount of quality time Lachlan and I have been able to spend together as well as all the long phone/video calls to our friends and families. We've made new connections with our neighbours, explored more of our local streets on foot and learned what the hot topics are to talk about with our three and four-year-old nephews. I've been thankful throughout this lockdown that I had to go to work, I think four weeks at home with only the odd trip out would have felt a lot longer! I'm a Police Constable so the work hasn't stopped. Things were different from the get go, lots of hand washing, rubber gloves and feeling like the 'Fun Police' when I've had to explain to people just how limiting essential travel was during level 4. It's obvious that people don't call Police on their best days, but it was difficult to see how many people commented on how the lockdown had contributed to them needing to call the Police - whatever the matter was. It's certainly made me appreciate on a bigger scale just how important social connections and getting out of the house are for our mental well-being - especially for those who for whatever reason don't have the means (or motivation) to keep it up without work. A verse that has been on my mind the last few weeks comes from Luke 6:45 "A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of." It's been a strong reminder that I need to keep being filled with what is good, specifically God's word. I know going to church is a big part of my spiritual journey and so I hope to see everyone again soon.
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In the next few blog posts, we will hear from some members of our church family. Enjoy a brief background and details about each person, along with hearing how the four week imposed lockdown due to COVID-19 has affected them personally. Our hope is to draw encouragement and strength from each other as we point towards Jesus. "For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as your are already doing." -1 Thessalonians 5:9-11  Paige (on right) with friend at the school ball. Hi I'm Paige, I have lived in Taupo all my life and I have been coming to Church@109 since I can remember.
With the virus hitting New Zealand it was hard as a year 13 in my last year of school to have to resort to doing schoolwork online with less interaction with teachers and classmates. The last year was merely going to send us off ready for the years of life to come. Most students have turned to group chats online to still keep in contact with friends and family. Doing school work online is harder for some as we have to wait patiently for replies from teachers to help us with anything. Yet some teachers have taken an easier approach and set us enough work to just catch up. Some cool things that have been happening is that more people are chatting to each other and trying to keep in contact. I have been doing so by watching movies online with friends and also by playing playstation with others. I would say I am lucky to have been able to keep in contact with everyone through this time. Throughout all this I have always kept the same words in mind, and that is "Everything happens for a reason". To me no matter what happens it was meant to happen in a way. Yes it has been scary, but we just have to know that we have been able to reduce the huge amount of people from becoming sick by staying at home. In the next few blog posts, we will hear from some members of our church family. Enjoy a brief background and details about each person, along with hearing how the four week imposed lockdown due to COVID-19 has affected them personally. Our hope is to draw encouragement and strength from each other as we point towards Jesus. "For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as your are already doing." -1 Thessalonians 5:9-11  Joanna More with husband Tony, and sons Dan and Matthew. My family unit or ‘bubble’ as we have come to think of ourselves lately, consists of three boys ... and me! My husband is Tony and Matthew and Daniel are our sons. Their names amuse me now as when they were born I hadn’t fallen onto the path of faith again, yet they are thrilled they can find their names in the Bible - well we all know who guided that decision right?
I was raised around faith in England when I was young albeit by my Grandma not my immediate family. My travels brought me to New Zealand in 2003 for my 'big OE'…. well that adventure turned out to be a little more than expected. I’m not sure I could pack up my life into a backpack and return now! My faith journey was a little different however. It began by God introducing 1 person into my life. That person came to New Zealand from another country and had young children also. Our husband’s professions brought us together and I’ve often thought that she was put on this earth to do God’s work. I was reluctant at first to be involved - I had no christian friends or family, in fact a bit of the polar opposite of this. When our boys were off having an adventure together she asked if I would come and check out a new church with her - Church@109. I did and man did I feel uncomfortable singing (something which I now love!) Their family left New Zealand after that but there were others at the church whose communication and perseverance meant that I continued to come each Sunday. From here with the guidance of some dedicated people, the Long Story Short course and some close friends, my faith journey grew to a point where Andrew baptised me in the Lake in 2017. Don’t get me wrong, the journey hasn’t been easy as many of you will understand. If you know me you know I like to be in control and ‘obedience' has been the hardest of my journey I believe. Just recently I was presented with an opportunity in relation to my job which I had been praying about for some time. It wasn’t an easy decision and it came out of the blue but with some words of wisdom from a friend and Scripture, I decided I needed to just trust and obey; “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” James 1:22 was impacting at this time. As it turned out I haven’t been able to start my new job yet due to the pandemic that is creating havoc over the world at the moment. Knowing the ‘control’ element of my personality this could have been very daunting yet I have felt at peace during this strange time. The Lord is still providing for me and the lockdown has brought peace, togetherness and calm to our family life which is usually rife with busyness and self-made stress. In times when many are struggling I often ponder why the Lord has brought such peace to me? I think we were losing sight of what was really important before the pandemic and this is His way of guiding me back to the path He has laid out for me; “I cry out to the God most high who fulfills his purpose for me.” Psalm 57:2 To anyone who is feeling pain and stress during this time, I encourage you to remember the Lord is walking beside you and he has a plan. Faith was hard for me at first but I’m getting there and If I can learn to trust and obey there is certainly hope for others. You are never alone. In the next few blog posts, we will hear from some members of our church family. Enjoy a brief background and details about each person, along with hearing how the four week imposed lockdown due to COVID-19 has affected them personally. Our hope is to draw encouragement and strength from each other as we point towards Jesus. "For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as your are already doing." -1 Thessalonians 5:9-11  Judith and her husband David.  David and Judith with their 3 kids in 1974 on the mission field. Hello, my name is Judith Stewart, wife, mother of three, and Grandma to twelve!
On leaving school I trained and worked as a Legal Secretary. Six years later, in preparation for living and working overseas with my husband and family, I became a Registered Maternity Nurse. My association with this church goes back 60 years when I first came as a young adult visiting David’s family who were founding members of the Taupo Gospel Chapel. On our return from overseas we attended for two years from 1987 to 1989, and more recently, have attended the rebranded Church@109 from December 2015 until now. COVID-19 is a strange phenomenon that has affected us deeply. It creates the necessity for isolation and separation, distance from familiar places and processes, and disconnection from those we know and love. For me, however, it is creating a unique closeness. I have hung out more than usual with my family who are spread far and wide, from throughout NZ, to Chile, to Australia. We have stayed in touch with the use of the wonderful online facilities we have available in 2020. I have had opportunities to see their faces and join in the many and varied things they are doing in lockdown. I have also attended church with them and have had the joy of seeing grandchildren online, hearing them singing and playing in the worship segments. Please don’t misunderstand me. I do not in any way minimise the devastating effects of this worldwide pandemic on society as a whole, and my heart goes out to every person, family, those in business, the list doesn’t end, where loss and suffering is resulting in physical, mental and financial hardship. But God IS the creator and sustainer of the universe. The words of a familiar song remind us...” He’s got the whole world in His hands”. He really, truly does! Isolation and resulting hardship is not a new concept for me. Most of my formative years were spent on a farm at the foot of the Kaimais, just outside Matamata, and with siblings much older and younger than me. Spending time by myself and playing alone, was normal. There was a polio epidemic when I was 6 years old, with schools closed from November to Easter. The hardship of the Depression in the mid 1940s after World War II is still etched in my memory – the scarcity we experienced made tangible by the food rationing tickets in the little blue tin high up on the mantelpiece above the coal range. This was good preparation for occasions later in my adult life when called to live in some of the most remote, primitive and isolated places in the world. There was no contact with the outside world, at times for up to 12 months or more. Shopping was once a year, if at all, and sometimes it was subsistence living with just what could be found locally: there were no shops or roads, medical facilities or hospitals, technology wasn’t a thing, and the snail mail was a long time coming, sometimes months, sometimes opened along the way, sometimes not received at all. How did I cope? Where do you turn, when all the props are gone, when all the familiar and normal things are taken away? For me it was by learning to look to the one and only constant that I knew and had committed my life to... and that was God. Clinging to promise after promise that He would watch over, protect and sustain me, no matter what my circumstances or situation, as difficulty after difficulty unfolded..... aloneness, foreign languages, sickness, fears for safety, where the next meal would come from, distancing from our children, too many goodbyes, and much more. As it all flooded over me, He showed me, day by day, year upon year, that He is faithful, trustworthy and has promised to be alongside me when everything else is stripped away. Slowly I understood more about trusting God in everything, and realised that the things that I considered important and necessary for survival, weren’t really that important. Finding strength in the simple things, the things that stay the same... the surety of the sunrise we read about in Lamentations 3:22-23. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is His faithfulness”; the wonder of a sunset; a rainbow; the majesty of the mountains; and lately, the exquisite flowers blooming in the garden outside my window; the trees changing colour and losing their leaves because it is autumn; the birds enjoying the unusual quiet of our street; the thrill of the ‘ding’ on my phone telling me a son, a daughter, a friend is thinking of me; the delight of an acquaintance becoming a friend as they send a message of hope and love. These things that stay the same and the blessings God gives us reflect His character and show Him to be good and faithful, a kind God who keeps His promises. This means that even when things go bad and I fear isolation, financial hardship and even death, I can trust that God will keep His promises and the biggest promise to me is that because of Jesus He is with me, even in death. COVID-19 in 2020 brings different challenges for different people. There are many things to help us face these challenges - the numerous facets of technology with improved communication, online shopping, the blessing of the love of family and special friends, but most important of all, the opportunity to be drawn closer to the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13.8). I trust you too can find comfort and strength in this same God. In the next few blog posts, we will hear from some members of our church family. Enjoy a brief background and details about each person, along with hearing how the four week imposed lockdown due to COVID-19 has affected them personally. Our hope is to draw encouragement and strength from each other as we point towards Jesus. "For God chose to save us through our Lord Jesus Christ, not to pour out his anger on us. Christ died for us so that, whether we are dead or alive when he returns, we can live with him forever. So encourage each other and build each other up, just as your are already doing." -1 Thessalonians 5:9-11  Anna Whiteford out for a bike ride with husband Vaughn and daughters Zoe and Lara. My family and I moved from a farm in South Auckland to Taupo at the end of January this year and started at Church@109 at the same time. We have always loved Taupo, and that coupled with the lifestyle and affordability made it the best option when we were ready to buy our first home. My husband Vaughan is a mechanic and I am a stay at home mum with our two girls Zoe, 4, and Lara, 3. We haven't been here long but felt settled quickly largely due to the kindness and support from church members. Throughout the lock-down people have been checking in on us - we really appreciate it!
I don't think the lock-down has affected me as much as it has others. As a stay at home mum I'm used to spending days with the kids. But initially I was fearful of the virus and feeling uneasy about the daily changes happening - future plans were cancelled, we weren't able to see extended family and our finances were affected. Change can feel tough but it's been an opportunity to practice trusting God. There are positive changes that have come from the lock-down too. I've really enjoyed having more quality family time and getting out for walks & bike rides together. The slower pace of life has given us a chance to evaluate what really matters and what we can live without (- online shopping!!). Also, God has been speaking to me about my attitude during this time. While there is a lot I can't control, I can work on my attitude towards it all. Part of this has been limiting the news articles and social media posts I read. Philippians 4:8 (NIV) is a good guide... "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." |
Church@109Our hope with this blog is that we can hear from different voices in our church. May we chose to draw near to God and be inspired by each other. Archives
October 2022
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