Category: Countries

To my wonderful friends, good mates, and whanau. Greetings.

I have some news to tell you all…

it is now time to leave New Zealand.

That’s right. I am leaving Lifeway, FTN, and New Zealand. All at once really. And not too far away. I will be back in Australia (from whence I came originally) by the 28th of May. That gives me about 8 days left here.

And I will miss this place too. New Zealand is a very beautiful country and has tremendous customs and culture. The people I have met have engraved themselves onto my heart and I will surely miss them greatly. They have been a wonderful part of my life during the 4 1/2 years that I have been here.

What follows is a multi part series. First is my history in New Zealand and what I have done during my time here. Then details on how and why I know God has called me to South America will follow. This is the different events and processes that took place to get me to the point I am at now – holding a one-way ticket to Brisbane.

Rob.

At the beginning of 2000 I formed my own business – TNaT (Thiesfield Networking and Troubleshooting).

I had just got a job contracting to the Wellsford Medical Centre and needed a company to keep my finances separate. TNaT did this very nicely. It also allowed me to provide computer assistance to local companies around the area. I didn’t advertise and generally made myself available only one day a week, working for Family TV during the other four days. So with most of my one day focused on Wellsford, it was understandable that work from other sources was generally sporadic.

At Wellsford, I provided technical support, business decisions on future technological moves, and training and assistance to the staff. It has been one of the best places that I have ever had the privilege to work. They included me as a part of the medical staff, inviting me to Christmas parties and all varieties of events throughout the years. What an incredible honour that was. I am really sad to leave these people. It is hard to say goodbye to a place that has embraced me so kindly, with people as wonderful as they were.

TNaT is no longer now that I am leaving. I have passed my business dealings on to Andrew, my technical co-worker at Family TV. He is the only one I would trust with such a responsibility and have since spent the last number of weeks training him in the position.

When I leave New Zealand, I leave TNaT behind. It served me well while I was here, and will be a sad thing to leave. Most of all though, it is my friends at Wellsford that make it sadest.

They gave me a very beautiful poem that outlined all the truths and myths of my work there over the years. I was incredibly touched that so many staff took time out of their busy days to come and wish me well. They are a great bunch. I have been really looked after by them. Thank you Wellsford and crew. You are an awesome buch.

And then it was over.

But a new beginning was waiting.

To all my friends,

I trust this finds you in good health. As you all know, I am leaving New Zealand in 2wks to go to South America, with a stop in Australia on the way. It would be great to keep in touch and let you know how things are going with the journey.

To help me, I have set up an email list and added you to it. Thanks for joining me in my journey, Rob.

After the dawn of the new millenium, and nothing the doomsayers claimed actually happened, life returned to normal.

It was during 2000 that our Evangelism team thought up a new course for youth leaders. After much deliberation on names, we all settled on “R18”. Something that points at youth and makes a visual impact.

My next task was to create an R18 website with Walter and I spent months writing up all of the details. Actually Walter came up with most of the details while I typed them into the computer, but if you ask him, he will say that I helped.

Someone came up with a great idea about creating groovy folders for students to put their notes into. It sounded a lot less groovy once I realised that I had the mamoth task of creating the folder covers and printing them all. And it sounded even less groovy when it was decided that since the R18ers could have a fancy folder, all of the courses should have a fancy folder. It took a very long time to finish creating fancy folders. I think they have gone back to plain ones these days. Smart people.

Walter and I took the opportunity of the mid year break to go spearfishing in Fiji. We wanted the big ones. Those fish that are so huge they take you with them once you have speared them. Our first few trips to the reefs revealed sharks and turtles. No fish. A night dive brought me nose to nose with a shark. Gulp! Then, hearing about a great fish place, and since none of us knew how to sail, it made sense to borrow our host’s yacht to get there.

In the dark of morning I don’t know if it was the weak sounding engine or the two metre swells crashing over the bow that prompted us but we returned to the safety of the harbour. We had a good day of snorkeling using our spear-guns as ballast though.

The rest of the year saw me complete my earlier tasks and was somewhat uneventful.

Something happened that was to change the way I did things from then on. It was around this period of time that I was confronted with what many would politely call my “work focus”. Of course when I wasn’t there they would often talk about me being a “work-a-holic”. I didn’t think that about myself. I thought all was quite good – that was until I was confronted about it.

At that point I started to see how isolated I had become by my habits. This was the start of a series of changes. They have redirected my entire outlook on life. I now don’t hear the terms “work focus” or “work-a-holic” anymore. And that has been a very good thing.