MBC
Morrinsville Baptist Church

21st - 28th June 2011

Check out some of the photos taken

Check out Phil's sermon on Hope

It has been said that the church is a sign, instrument and foretaste of the Kingdom of God. Christchurch desparately needs the church of God to be exactly that - a sign of hope, and instrument of grace, and a foretaste of better things to come.

Partnering with Papanui Baptist in their efforts to serve their city was a huge blessing and privilege for the 10 of us who made the journey south. We who travelled felt the love and support of our church family in Morrinsville and were conscious that our team was much bigger than the 10 who flew in on 21st June. We are so grateful to all who prayed for us, supported us and to those who contributed to the $4000 gift we were able to take to Papanui for their earthquake fund.

Below is a day by day account of our time in the city. There is much more that can and should be said about this trip - many stories that will continue to be told in the days ahead. One thing that will stay with us for a long time was the gratitude those we met and served in Christchurch expressed. This city needs the help of our nation for many months and years to come.

Tuesday 21st

After days of Jetstar cancelling flights due to the ash cloud, we arrived at Auckland airport to find our flight unaffected. We landed safely in CHCH mid morning and dropped our gear at Papanui Baptist before setting to work clearing liquefaction at North Avon Baptist Church and community centre straight after lunch. The guys cleared outside and the girls mopped up liquefaction in the toilets and pulled up ruined carpet in the Community Centre's hall. The mess is hard to comprehend - and we have not seen the half of it yet.

Papanui Baptist folk are wonderful and have blessed us with food including a cooked dinner and the use of their facilities.

Our first night as you may have heard was very eventful! Not long after going to bed we were shaken by a 5.3 quake which led to another 9 through the night ranging down to 3.1 - our first night here but we sense we are barely beginning to comprehend what the people here are enduring.

Wednesday 22nd

We split into 3 teams today - one worked on clearing liquefaction in a number of locations, one working with Habitat for Humanity renovating two old houses that will be used to billet incoming teams, and the other group filled gift buckets with tinned food, blankets, light bulbs and then took a van load of buckets to a distribution centre in one of the hardest hit suburbs. That group also pruned overgrown roses for an elderly lady.

We ate dinner prepared by youth leaders and our younger team members spend the evening with the church youth. (the older ones had a quiet evening at a local sportsclub learning how to play pool!)

Sleep was a bit difficult to come by last night so we 'hit the hay' as early as we could, hoping the quakes wouldn't disrupt us too much!

The people of this city need all the help, support, prayer, encouragement and love any of us can give them. AND hope. But where does hope come from? And what exactly is hope?

Thursday 23rd

Last night was much calmer with only the one quake. Most of us slept reasonably well and weren't woken by the 3.7 earthquake at 2.30am.

Today we pulled down a chimney, dug out tons of liquefaction and also helped a family whose doors wouldn't open/close properly. It drizzled this afternoon making the liquefaction gross and incredibly slippery / sticky. BUT we got it cleared away. The couple we did this for were really grateful. He (Andy) is a fireman and part of one of the rescue teams during the Feb quake. it was fascinating talking with him about his experience and that of his colleagues. The impact on these dear people has been enormous.

This evening we helped prepare food for Papanui Baptist's Alpha course - they have 65 doing Alpha and many are from beyond the worshipping church family - a great outreach and one among many this church is involved in. Despite the pain and difficulty, there is clearly a harvest season happening here.

ONLY one other quake today - worrying! Are they storing up for another big one?

Friday 24th

The day started with the guys of the team eating toast at the men's breakfast here at PBC and the girls being treated to a special breakfast at a cafe by some of the ladies of the church. Nice start - except the girls were late getting back from their outing to start work!

Today we helped a small business move premises, cleared liquefaction from a property and the girls pruned more roses and planted out a garden that had been damaged by liquefaction. The property belongs to a family with both father and daughter terminally ill. They have not been living in the house due to the liquefaction. It is hard to imagine how difficult it must be for this family and whilst we did not meet them, we prayed for them as we cleaned up their property, and we feel confident that serving them in this small way will demonstrate something of God's love for them.

Saturday 25th

We dismantled another chimney today, and then went to a property that was so overgrown it was hard to find a way to the front door. Clearly the owner has significant needs. Her concrete chimney had been wrecked by the quakes leaving 30 roof tiles needing replacement. A couple of team members drove all over the city trying to purchase replacement tiles which they eventually managed to do. We were able to remove the chimney and replace all the broken tiles. Meanwhile the rest of the team removed a huge amount of weeds to expose the driveway and paving underneath. They cleared several gardens and pruned yet more overgrown roses and cut out several small trees.

In the evening we were taken by the church leadership to a special dinner that was catered for by students at the local College. The MC welcomed different table groups who were attending in support of the youth centre based where the dinner was held. He mentioned our team and what we had been doing and we received a very rousing response of cheers and clapping. People here are genuinely moved by the fact others from around the country want to come and help them.

We continue to be stunned by what we see in the way of damage and destruction, and the sense of dislocation and difficulty for people here is at times overwhelming. It is good to sit and listen and let people talk their pain out.

Sunday 26th

This morning we were involved in Papanui Baptist worship services: Phil preached on Psalm 42 & 43 (and kept it under 20 min for the first service and 30 mins for the second. A new world record!) Keen to avoid a re-run of the sermons, half the team volunteered to help with the children's programme during the second service. We all helped out with the church's Newcomers lunch.

The church made us feel enormously welcome and expressed huge thanks for team's efforts and for the $4000 offering from MBC to their earthquake fund.

One highlight of the second service was seeing Denise, a woman we helped yesterday, attend church for the first time. She stayed for the newcomers lunch and church members gathered around her and made her feel really welcome. We feel confident the church family here will take good care of her. Denise's needs are complex; she certainly needs the prayers and support of a loving group of people.

In the afternoon we drove into the city centre and walked around the red zone of the inner city. It was very poignant and left us with quite a sense of pain people here face. The inner city is totally deserted and fenced off - so you can't walk into the red zone, just walk around the circumference. But what we could see from the outer limits of the area was shocking enough. There is something very eiry about tall buildings on a lean and others with great chunks of their walls lying on the pavement. Shop fronts smashed and the evidence of buildings already demolished and removed. There were flower memorials at the fencing adjacent to the CTV site - you could help but feel the grief of others as you looked at the empty space where that particularly tragedy had happened.

We returned to our base at the church hall for fish and chips.

Quite a day!

Monday 27th

We were woken to 3 quakes last night; the biggest was 4.4 and whilst nowhere near as bad as the first night, it makes sleeping interesting!

Today we weeded several gardens and pruned roses and other trees for an elderly woman. She was so grateful. We then cleared gutters filled with liqefaction dust and planed a door for another. The gutters weren't really the problem as it turned out. This dear woman was really scared that in the case of a fire she would not be able to open her front door and escape. The door frame had shifted out of square as the house has sunk in one corner. It was a simple matter of planing the top of the door and we had one more happy 'customer'!

After a quick trip through the tunnel to look at Lyttleton we headed back to a warehouse on the other side of town to pack more buckets with blankets, tins of soup, light bulbs and other items to be distributed in the poorest parts of CHCH. In a whirlwind effort we managed to complete 600+ buckets in an hour and save the organisor days of backbreaking work. It is amazing what 10 people can achieve in a short time when they put their mind to it!

We finished our week of work here here with an outing to the local Thai Restaurant - very nice indeed! If you are ever in Papanui try out the Phuket!  We followed it with dessert and coffee at Coffee Connection.

Tuesday 28th

After a full cooked breakfast (professionally prepared by Rex and Phil!) we packed up, said our sad farewells to our new friends at Papanui Baptist and headed for the airport. A safe flight home  to Auckland (ash cloud left the country airspace just in time) and a comfortable drive back to Morrinsville capped off an amazing week.

The team will make a full report on Sunday 10th July so be sure to come along and hear all about it.

Thanks for praying for us during our mission to CHCH! We so appreciated your support.

Please continue praying for:

• the team (Mandy, Sala, Margaret, Ben, Mark, Alan, Rex, Jordan, Isaac, Phil) as they settle back into daily life
• for Pastor Ed and Linda and all at Papanui Baptist as they live with the on going difficulties in Christchurch
• for all those we served during our time in Christchurch - pray particularly for our friend Denise who needs a lot of ongoing support
• for the churches of Christchurch, that they will know what to say and how to say the things Jesus wants to speak into the city, and that they will find the strength and grace to continue being good news in this needy place

AND finally - pray about giving or going to Christchurch yourself. The need is great and the people are so grateful for any support we can give them.

We would love to be able to bring some couples up for a holiday.  We have offers of several baches as well as two cars for them to use while they are holidaying so all we need now is the funds to fly them up and home again.  If you can help pay for some of this please see Sharyn, Margaret  or Phil.

Love and blessings,

Phil and the team!