One Year On

Well, it's been just under a year since we last updated this blog. Our enthusiasm for blogging just kinda petered out.

We stayed on in Bulls till Febuary. The "Life Youth" thing didn't really continue, because we released that all the people going to it were hanging at our house already so deporting them elsewhere made a less natural environment.

Towards the end of the summer, both Phil & I found it a very tiring summer. We found it difficult to keep up our enthusiasm while working fulltime and commuting. But, I guess the heart of our problems, stemmed from the frustration we felt that it seemed we had made very little progress into actually verbally being able to communicate the gospel with the kids we moved to Bulls.

That's not to say we made no progress. We were on good terms with several neighbourhood kids (our target audience!) who regularly came round to visit us after work. We had plenty of opportunity to show hospitality. Yet, both of us were committed to the principle "Preach the gospel and words will always be necessary." (Romans 10:14-5). And it seemed, for one reason or another, that we have very little opportunity, despite several attempts, to tell the story of God's redemption. The chances we did get, seemed to have very little impact.

But we are both so thankful to God for giving us the opportunity to be in Bulls. We learnt to become more dependant on God, to enjoy him in the midst of tiredness and some of the struggles of working full-time while trying to be involved in ministry like that. We got to partner with Andy & Jeff, who have stayed in Bulls and continue to minister to some of the kids. We got to be really encouraged to see the state of the small-town Bulls church and the people there who gather together there to faithfully to worship God. Ultimately, we know it is God's gospel we shared and it is the power of salvation to those who are perishing, and so we look and pray to him to work through the proclaiming of it.

Personally, it opened my eyes to the tough job of many small-town pastors and youth pastors. Although we knew when we started that a summer was a short time, we are even more reminded that often many things will take longer than
that. I think I will be slower to critique and quicker to admire people who serve God faithfully in small communities like Bulls, as I have new realisation of some of the difficulties they face.

Thank you to the people who partnered with us in prayer and the Bull's church who welcomed us and encouraged us, especially Andy and Jeff.

Soli Deo gloria


PS
Phil is going on a missions trip to Thailand. You can read about it here.

Jonnys ill fated first public unicycle appearance

Jonny was a bit nervous about riding his unicyle in public, but we managed to peruade him, and give him lollies that he could throw at people. But unfortunately, it was not to be.


1. Jonny trying to catch up to the landrover, which is trying to catch up with the parade.

2. Success! Jonny is in the parade!

3. Hmmmm, Jonny has quit the parade.

4. Things aren't looking too good.....

5. Haha, the peddle has come off the unicycle. First time its life ever.

6. Jonny, rueing the day.

7. Jonny tries to fix his unicylce in vain as the float passes by.

The Life Youth Parade

this is the bulls parade that we decided to get involved in the night before. it wasnt till about an hour before it started when we decided to put a 'life youth' poster on the trailer, hence the lack of quality of the poster itself (which was a lot better looking before jonny butchered it with his inept painting skills).

1. Our sign on the trailer.
2. Geoff making some last minute changes.
3. Jonny getting on his unicycle as the Landrover leaves.
4. Geoff looking good on the back of the trailer.
5. And she's off!

our infamous mailer

this is our infamous mailer. we posted one to nearly every house in bulls (about 700)....... and noone responded. thats the power of mass marketing i guess. but i still think it looks cool!

Bulls
12 December 2005

Hello everyone,

Here is the long awaited second edition of the Bull-a-tin. We have run
our
first couple 'Friday night things.' There has only ever been 2 or 3
kids
there but that's been good with us, because it has given us a chance to
get to
know them well. They come and visit us quite a bit at home.
Unfortunately,
they still aren't interested in hearing about God and what the Bible
has to
say. We had three kids come to church with us this morning which was
cool.
they all got to go to sunday school so pray that they remember the
stuff they
learnt. After church, we all went to Jonny's Uncle's farm and raced
Jonny's
car around the paddock.

Yesterday there was the Bulls parade. We did a bit of advertising on
board
the only Christian float in the parade. The sign wasn't that flash
looking
but we we started making it half an hour before the parade started so
it's
forgivabull! Jonny was going to ride his unicycle behind it, but his
pedal
came off which was a bit dissapointing.

Things to praise God for:
* Good friendships with several Bulls kids have been established.
* These kids were willing to come to church and hang-out with us.
* One of the kids asked several good questions at Sunday school on
life-after-death and was given honest, truthful answers.

Things for which we would appreciate prayer:
* Jonny leaves to the Philippines on Wednesday. Pray that everthing
still runs
smoothly without him (If you want to see pictures of him eating mangoes
in
the tropical etc. checkout his blog sometime
http://jhuntnz.blogspot.com).
* Pray that the Holy Spirit would work in the kids to enable them to be
receptive to the gospel message.
* Pray that we can meet some older kids.


We have also posted photos of the parade on our blog, so if you want to
see
them then go to http://www.bullatin.blogspot.com.

see ya,
phil and jonny

one last goring of photos!

last batch of phots....for now.

1. a random church in bulls....blame jonny
2. a random church in bulls....blame jonny
3. a random church in bulls....blame jonny

yayy for cheap photos!

more pics of bulls. just what you wanted!!!!

1. DJ and the part of the shop that andy painted
2. jonny, our car (phils parents), and our house (andys, who we're staying with)
3. the center of town again. we are to the right. palmy is straight ahead, wanganui is behind, and taupo is to the left.
4. phil and our illustrious letter box
5. phil, DJ, and the shop that andy helps run (right next to our house)

some pics....hopefully

Here are some thrilling photos of life in bulls.

1. DJ skating towards our church (hidden building at back on left)
2. this is the street looking down to our house. we are the third building on the right.
3. jonny taking a random photo of bulls
4. our church!
5. jonny and DJ enjoying the extensive tourist attractions in bulls.

First bull-a-tin sent out

Bulls
23 November 05

Hi everyone,

We thought we'd better get our first update of before time moves on too
much.
In case you have no idea what we are on about this email is an update
about
what Philip & I are up to over Bulls this summer. We have moved out
here with
the intention of helping the church here reach the youth in this area.
We
have a lot to learn ourselves, as we've never done anything like this
before.

We've been here four days now. We are living with a guy named Andy
Campbell
who generously let us stay the summer at his house. It's a great house
to be
based in as it's very centrally located. We've been commuting to
Palmerston
North for work. Philip would like everyone to know that he's been
making
super conductors.

At the moment we are still very much adjusting to the Bulls way of life
and
commuting. On Tuesday night we got our official introduction to the
town by
two local kids- DJ and Uncle Ray (one of whom insisted that he be
towed on
his rollerblades. Tonight we met with one of the elders of a local
church who
helped us with some practical advice. Tomorrow morning Andy has
graciously
given an opportunity to talk to his religious education class (Form's 1
& 2)
at the local primary school.

At the moment we are hoping to open up the church on Friday nights for
people
to come hang out with us. From there we are hoping to invite interested
people to a bible study.

Things to praise God for:
* Bringing us to Bulls.
* The opportunity to meet some of the local youth on Tuesday night.
* The really helpful cooperation we are seeing from the Bulls
Community
Church.
* Providing us both with employers who are willing to be flexible with
our
work hours.

Things for which we would appreciate prayer:
* We are both quite tired and still trying to adjust to unpredictable
of
Bulls life. We'd appreciate prayer for wise use of our time and good
rest.
* Related to the previous point we are both finding it hard to
maintain
regular, personal devotional times. We would appreciate prayer on this
point.
* We will (hopefully) be talking to a local high school next Monday
about
what we are doing in Bulls.
* We will probably be doing a mail-drop about our Friday night
opportunity
sometime early next week.


We are both very impressed if you managed to get this far in our email.
We'll
try and work on being a bit more terse in the future.

Be good,
Jonny & Philip

The Obligatory First Post

This is mostly to check this is working. Phil is actually the one who insisted we have a blog.

Anyway, this blog is about Phil and Jonny's adventure in Bulls. If we can get our mitts on a digital camera we'll put up a few pictures so you can see what Bulls is like.

Anyway I'm mostly doing this to check this thing works. Bye.